Folksinger Jerry Silverman to perform songs of the Holocaust April 15

MIDDLEBURY, Vt.-In commemoration of Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, musicologist and folksinger Jerry Silverman will perform songs of the Holocaust at 8 p.m. on Thursday, April 15, in the Middlebury College Center for the Arts Concert Hall on Route 30.

Silverman’s hour-long program combines songs from and about the concentration camps with readings from his book, “The Undying Flame: Ballads and Songs of the Holocaust.” The songs reflect despair, hope, rage, resistance and even humor in the face of the unspeakable. Silverman is the author of more than 200 books, including folksong collections, anthologies and method books for guitar, banjo and fiddle.

The audience embarks on an eight-decade journey that begins with the first lager-lied or camp song?composed in the Borgermoor concentration camp in Germany in 1933?and then moves through the inexorable and tragic events leading to the Holocaust, wartime, the post-war period and the years up to the present. The songs include the works of concentration camp prisoners and inhabitants of the ghettos of Eastern Europe, as well anti-Fascist anthems inspired by the Spanish Civil War, Red Army songs, and songs of Resistance fighters.

The program is sponsored by several Middlebury College organizations: Hillel, the office of the chaplain, the German department with the support of the Max Kade Foundation, the religion department, Cook Commons, and Wonnacott Commons.

For more information, contact the student organizer of the event David Bernay at dbernay@middlebury.edu or 802-443-3763.

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