Statement by pianist Igor Levit introducing his house concert on 29 April 2020:
„My concert today has a very special meaning. Above all it is a gesture of profound respect and gratitude. During these days and weeks the world is joining in remembrance with the survivors to commemorate the liberation of the concentration and extermination camps 75 years ago: Majdanek, Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen, Buchenwald, Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Dachau, Flossenbürg, Stutthof, Mauthausen ... These are just some of the names permanently imprinted in the minds of the survivors, along with the images of their murdered families and their own horrific memories that cause them pain to this day. The survivors haven’t buried themselves in silence or sought refuge in bitterness. They have told their stories as eye witnesses, they have told us about what they have experienced, and how anti-Semitic hatred and the ideology of Nazism made enemies out of neighbours who turned away in indifference, as the Jewish families, the Sinti and Roma, and the political opponents were transported away to the camps.
I am grateful to the survivors for what they have told me and the world – for their tolerance, their interest in us, their zest for life and democracy, which they pass on to us time and again. And together with them I share their anger at present-day anti-Semitism. The anger at the populist ignorance of some politicians, the anger at the toxic conspiracy theories and the brutal hate attacks perpetrated by new Nazis in the real world and on the Internet. In this 75th year after their liberation, the survivors have hardly been able to take part in any of the commemoration ceremonies in the places of horror due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Nor have they been able to meet each other. Instead they have had to remain at home alone on these days of remembrance. This is why Christoph Heubner from the International Auschwitz Committee, my agent Maren Borchers, and I, have developed the idea of dedicating this house concert to the survivors of the concentration and extermination camps. The concert is also inspired by two key statements made by survivors who speak to us all, today and into the future.
The first statement comes from Janek Mandelbaum, who was born in Gdansk in 1927 and now lives in Naples, Florida. Janek was 18 years old when he was liberated. In Gross-Rosen concentration camp he was numbered 16103. Janek Mandelbaum says: "If there is one thing I would say to the younger generation today it is this: Don’t imagine that you are too intelligent or too modern or too sophisticated to do the unthinkable. That possibility is within all of us and we must constantly guard against it through education and action."
And based on his experiences in Auschwitz, Roman Kent, the President of the International Auschwitz Committee who was born in 1929 in Lodz as the son of a Jewish family, said that if he had the power, he would issue an Eleventh Commandment to the world: “Do not be a bystander. Remember: When injustices take place, when people are discriminated against and persecuted, never remain indifferent. Indifference kills."
