The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz

Cynicism was as boundless among the Nazis as their brutality, a point underlined at Auschwitz-Birkenau by the formation of an orchestra from women prisoners to accompany the daily march of their fellow prisoners to and from forced labour duties. Anne Sebba’s 2025 book, The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz, tells the story of a band formed under the direction of Alma Rosé, Gustav Mahler’s niece, and its part in saving the lives of many of its members. She brings that story to life this lunchtime with the help of eye-witness testimony and melancholic melodies from a lost world.