The red brick walls of the synagogue in Gora Kalwaria, once a center of Jewish culture in Poland, reverberate anew with music lost in the Holocaust, thanks to one man’s search for his Polish roots.
In the 1930s, a group of Jewish mandolin players from this small town just south of the capital Warsaw gained popularity across the country before many of them perished at the hands of Poland’s Nazi German occupiers.
But in 2007, while retracing his family’s Jewish roots, San Francisco businessman Avner Yonai found a telling photograph in Gora Kalwaria.
Photo: AFP
照片:法新社
In it, he recognized his grandfather and two uncles among a dozen or so mandolin-clutching musicians of what was known as the “Ger Mandolin Orchestra.”
Soon, Yonai began thinking about bringing this pre-World War II musical tradition back to life.
His dream became reality when several renowned mandolin players and guitarists from the US, Canada, Israel, Germany and the Czech Republic responded to his request for musicians interested in the project.
Photo: AFP
照片:法新社
Chris Acguavella, Jeff Warschauer, Abe Schwartz, as well as the Grammy-nominated Avi Avital were among the illustrious volunteers.
“I had the idea to have a modern orchestra play the original authentic repertoire of the orchestra [in which] my grandfather played when he lived in Ger,” which is Yiddish for Gora Kalwaria, Yonai told AFP.
“At the time it was the late 1920s, early 1930s and a band like this one with mandolins, was very popular in the region,” said Henryk Prajs, at 95 one of just two of Gora Kalwaria’s surviving Jewish residents.
He recalls Avner Yonai’s grandfather and the rest of the band playing popular Jewish, Polish, Russian and Italian tunes.
Prior to World War II, Jews accounted for about half of Gora Kalwaria’s population of 6,000. Jewish culture flourished in the town, but in 1941 the country’s Nazi German occupiers moved the town’s Jewish residents to the Warsaw ghetto, and then sent them to their death at the Treblinka extermination camp.
Eight years on, 11 mandolin players from around the globe pluck away in Gora Kalwaria’s synagogue, recreating the pre-war atmosphere.
Plans are afoot for concerts across Europe, but for Avner Yonai and the rest, nowhere compares to Ger.
(AFP)
哥拉卡瓦里亞這座曾是波蘭猶太文化集散地的猶太教堂,其以紅磚砌成的牆面,重新回響起納粹德軍對猶太人大屠殺時期消逝的樂聲。音樂的再現,要歸功於一名到波蘭尋根的男子。
一九三O年代在首都華沙南方不遠的小鎮,有一群彈奏曼陀鈴的猶太人,在大多數人尚未死在佔領波蘭的納粹德軍手裡之前,他們曾在國內廣受歡迎。
當這位舊金山的商人亞弗納‧詠內正探尋其猶太家族根源時,他在二OO七年發現一張攝於哥拉卡瓦里亞富含生動歷史的老照片。
在該照片中大約十來位當時稱之為「戈爾曼陀鈴樂團」的樂手中,他認出了他的祖父與兩位叔伯。
不久後,詠內開始思考關於如何振興第二次世界大戰前的這個音樂傳統,讓它起死回生。
就在許多來自美國、加拿大、以色列、德國,以及捷克共和國的知名曼陀鈴與吉他演奏家回應他的請求,表示有意參與該計畫時,他的夢想已然成真。
這些傑出的義務演奏家包括克里斯‧阿瓜維拉、傑夫‧華叔爾、阿貝‧舒瓦茲,還有獲葛萊美提名的艾維‧艾維塔。
詠內告訴法新社說:「我當時有個想法,就是要組一個現代樂團,原汁原味呈現我祖父住在戈爾時所彈奏的曲目。」戈爾是哥拉卡瓦里亞的意第緒語。
現年九十五歲的亨瑞克‧普萊斯說:「像這樣的一個曼陀鈴樂團,曾在一九二O年代末與一九三O年代初之間 ,非常活耀於該區。」普萊斯是哥拉卡瓦里亞僅存的兩位猶太居民之一。
他憶起亞弗納‧詠內的祖父,以及樂團中演奏猶太、波蘭、俄羅斯,以及義大利流行樂曲的所有團員。
在第二次世界大戰之前,哥拉卡瓦里亞的六千人口中,大約有半數是猶太人。猶太文化在該鎮發展興盛,直到一九四一年波蘭遭納粹德軍佔領,該鎮的猶太居民被納粹遷至華沙的猶太人街,然後再將他們送往崔布林卡集中營的死路。
至今已成軍八年的曼陀鈴樂團,其十一位來自世界各地的曼陀鈴樂手,在哥拉卡瓦里亞的猶太教堂撥弦彈奏,重現戰前的氛圍。
該團到歐洲各地巡演的計畫正進行中,但是對於亞弗納‧詠內以及所有團員來說,沒有任何一個地方比戈爾來得更有意義。
(法新社/翻譯:林亞蒂)
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