BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//ox.ac.uk//NONSGML oxford.event//EN
X-WR-TIMEZONE:Europe/London
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:Europe/London
X-LIC-LOCATION:Europe/London
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
DTSTART:19700329T010000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=3
TZNAME:BST
TZOFFSETFROM:+0000
TZOFFSETTO:+0100
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
DTSTART:19701025T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYDAY=-1SU;BYMONTH=10
TZNAME:GMT
TZOFFSETFROM:+0100
TZOFFSETTO:+0000
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
SUMMARY:A Story of Survival:  Anne Sebba and Dr Kate Kennedy on 'The Women
 's Orchestra of Auschwitz'
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/London:20260609T140000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/London:20260609T153000
DTSTAMP:20260608T003509Z
UID:6fa291d9-5b22-f111-88b2-7c1e52046306
CREATED:20260317T234856Z
DESCRIPTION:What does it mean—and how is it possible—to write the live
 s of the women who survived Auschwitz by playing music for the camp author
 ities?\n\nIn conversation with Dr Kate Kennedy\, Anne Sebba reflects on th
 e remarkable and troubling story at the centre of her book The Women’s O
 rchestra of Auschwitz: A Story of Survival (2025).\n\nFormed in 1943 on th
 e 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 orche
 stra occupied an impossible position within the camp: music functioned bot
 h 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 f
 ormidable conductor\, Alma Rosé\, and the teenage cellist\, Anita Lasker-
 Wallfisch.\n\nBringing Sebba’s work into dialogue with Kennedy’s Cello
 : A Journey Through Silence to Sound (2024)\, which also reflects on the l
 ife of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch\, their conversation will explore questions 
 including:\n\nWhy was the orchestra formed\, who were its members\, and wh
 at sustained them in the face of unimaginable circumstances? What gave the
 se women the will to survive?\nHow were orchestra members received by othe
 r prisoners\, some of whom saw them as collaborators?\nHow did survivors
 ’ guilt shape their lives after the war?\nTogether\, Sebba and Kennedy c
 onsider how music could both sustain and complicate survival\, and how lif
 e-writing can recover the voices of Jewish women whose relationship to mus
 ic was forever transformed by the camps.\n\nExamining life-writing\, biogr
 aphy\, and the ethics of recovering lives from extreme circumstances\, thi
 s 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 relat
 ionship between music\, testimony\, and memory. No prior specialist knowle
 dge or preparation is required.
LAST-MODIFIED:20260317T235240Z
LOCATION:Wolfson College - Buttery Room\, Buttery Room Wolfson College Lin
 ton Road Oxford Oxfordshire OX2 6UD United Kingdom
SPEAKER:Dr Kate Kennedy (Oxford Centre for Life-Writing\, University of Ox
 ford)\, Anne Sebba (Institute of Historical Research)
END:VEVENT
END:VCALENDAR