Esther Béjarano (b. 15 December 1924 in Saarlouis), Violette Jacquet, and Anita Lasker Wallfisch are among the last survivors of the Girl orchestra of Auschwitz.
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Béjarano was born as Esther Loewy as a daughter of the Head Cantor of a Jewish municipality. The father encouraged his daughter to get interested in music and Esther learned to play the piano. At age 15 she had to separate from her parents, in order to prepare for emigration to Palestine. This emigration was thrwarted by the Nazis. She carried out two years of hard labour in Neuendorf Labour Camp close to Fürstenwalde/Spree. On April 20, 1943 all members of the labour camp were deported to Auschwitz. There she had to drag stones until she joined the Girl orchestra of Auschwitz. In the orchestra, she played the accordion. The orchestra had the task of playing for the daily march of the gangs by the camp gate. She survived Auschwitz after escaping in March, 1945. She emigrated to Palestine and returned later to Germany. At the beginning of the 1980s, with her daughter Edna and son Joram, she created the musical group Coincidence. They sing songs from the ghetto and Jewish as well as anti-fascist songs. Béjarano lives today in Hamburg. She is a co-founder and chairman of the International Auschwitz Committee and honorary chaiman of the Union of Persecutees of the Nazi Regime. She was awarded the Carl von Ossietzky medal and holds the Cross of Merit, First class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
"I had great luck that in the block, in which I stayed overnight. One evening, Mrs. Tschaikowska, a Polish music teacher, was looking for women who could play an instrument. The SS had instructed her to set up a girl orchestra. I introduced myself, said that I could play piano. We do not have a piano here, said Mrs. Tschaikowska. If you can play accordion, I will audition you. I had never played an accordion before. I had to try, so I would not have to haul boulders any more. I said to her that I could play also accordion. She instructed me to play Du hast Glück bei den Frauen, Bel Ami, a popular German song. I knew this song, asked her for a few minutes of patience, so I could warm up. It was like a miracle. I played the song, even with accompaniment, and was accepted to the orchestra with two friends.
"The function of the girl orchestra in Auschwitz-Birkenau was to stand at the gate and play when the gangs marched out in the morning and in the evening, and when they returned to the camp. We all had a bad conscience, because we "helped", so to speak, that the prisoners had to march in step, had to march to our music.
But there was worse. The SS instructed us to stand at the gate and play when new transports arrived, in which innumerable Jewish people from all parts of Europe sat, trains that were led to the tracks that went right to the gas chambers and where everyone was gassed. The people waved at us, they thought certainly, where music is played, it certainly can't be that bad. Those were the tactics of the Nazis. They wanted all the people to go to their deaths without a fight. But we knew where they were being led. We played with tears in our eyes. There was nothing we could do to resist because the SS henchmen were standing behind us with their rifles."