For Holocaust Memorial Day, Mosaic Voices has released a very special film.
It’s a musical setting of the last letter written by our conductor’s Great Grandmother, Kamilla, before she was murdered at Auschwitz. It was 1942 and Kamilla was in Vienna, writing to her daughter who’d escaped Austria and been rescued by Quakers in Glossop.
The film accompanying the music features the luminous deaf Jewish actress, Tina Kelberman who signs the words from the letter.
By 1942, letter-writing had been forbidden, so we wanted to work with Tina to express the defiance of Kamilla, who, against the odds, made herself heard, despite being silenced by the Nazis. This film is dedicated to all the victims of the Shoah.
A picture into the past that just breaks your heart and illustrates the heartbreak and trauma the Jewish people endured during the Second World War. This portrayal of a mother’s yearning for her children she is unsure she will ever see again is displayed so authentically by Tina Kelberman. Any mother will know what she is suffering and the angst and despair she must be feeling. The new album – Letter to Kamilla performed by Mosaic Voices – is a heart-warming response to Kamilla and I know she hears it and that it makes a beautiful answer to her letter sent to her children all those years ago.