A Story of Survival: Anne Sebba and Dr Kate Kennedy on 'The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz'

Tuesday, 9 June 2026, 2pm to 3.30pm

What does it mean—and how is it possible—to write the lives of the women who survived Auschwitz by playing music for the camp authorities?

In conversation with Dr Kate Kennedy, Anne Sebba reflects on the remarkable and troubling story at the centre of her book The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival (2025).

Formed in 1943 on the orders of the SS, the women’s orchestra at Auschwitz-Birkenau brought together nearly fifty prisoners from across Europe. Forced to perform for Nazi officers and to accompany the daily marches of prisoners, the orchestra occupied an impossible position within the camp: music functioned both as propaganda and, for some of the women involved, as a fragile means of survival. Drawing on archival research and first-hand testimony, Sebba reconstructs the lives of these musicians—including the orchestra’s formidable conductor, Alma Rosé, and the teenage cellist, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch.

Bringing Sebba’s work into dialogue with Kennedy’s Cello: A Journey Through Silence to Sound (2024), which also reflects on the life of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, their conversation will explore questions including:

Why was the orchestra formed, who were its members, and what sustained them in the face of unimaginable circumstances? What gave these women the will to survive?
How were orchestra members received by other prisoners, some of whom saw them as collaborators?
How did survivors’ guilt shape their lives after the war?
Together, Sebba and Kennedy consider how music could both sustain and complicate survival, and how life-writing can recover the voices of Jewish women whose relationship to music was forever transformed by the camps.

Examining life-writing, biography, and the ethics of recovering lives from extreme circumstances, this event will appeal to those interested in Holocaust history, music, and the question of how survival is remembered and narrated. It will also be of interest to students and scholars of Jewish history, women’s history, and twentieth-century Europe, as well as those curious about the relationship between music, testimony, and memory. No prior specialist knowledge or preparation is required.

Speaker(s): Dr Kate Kennedy (Oxford Centre for Life-Writing, University of Oxford), Anne Sebba (Institute of Historical Research)

Series: The Vera Fine-Grodzinski Programme for Jewish Women’s Voices

Venue: Wolfson College - Buttery Room - Buttery Room Wolfson College Linton Road Oxford Oxfordshire OX2 6UD United Kingdom

Department: Wolfson College (College)

Organiser: Oxford Centre for Life-Writing (Dr Eleri Anona Watson)

Host: Oxford Centre for Life-Writing

Register here: https://oclw.web.ox.ac.uk/event/a-story-of-survival-anne-sebba-and-dr-kate-kennedy-on-the-womens-orchestra-of-auschwitz

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