The Inextinguishable Symphony: A True Story of Music and Love in Nazi Germany

by Martin Goldsmith

Book Overview

NOW AN ACCLAIMED DOCUMENTARY, Winter JourneySet amid the growing tyranny of Germany's Third Reich, here is the riveting and emotional tale of G uuml;nther Goldschmidt and Rosemarie Gumpert, two... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0471078646
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Trade Paper Press
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.04 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.9" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

A Moving, Wonderful, Complex Book

& #65279;I've read other accounts of the holocaust. This one moved me the most deeply, perhaps because the author displays the courage to depict everyone - both the Nazis and the suffering individuals - with frankness and candor. His grandfather was a "rat" and a philanderer who left his faithful wife behind to die when he fled Germany with another woman. The many complexities and flaws of the head of the Kulturbund are also explored. Mr. Goldsmith's depiction of Jews as complex humans with foibles and flaws - not perfect humans suffering at the hands of the evil Nazis - endows this book with an extra measure of honesty that makes its tale much more moving. I also find it a troubling book. Confronted with Nazism, Germany's Jews could fall back on a rich tradition of art and music to unite them and foster their spirits. In America today, if we faced such a threat, what would uplift any of us, both Jews and non-Jews like myself? Nintendo? The Gap? We have gained a lot in America, but what have we lost?

A story of love and family

This is a story of love, family and music told against the backdrop of the Nazi era. This is a moving story about the author's family and how they endured the hardships as Jews in Germany through their love of music.I have read many books on the holocaust and I find this book to be one of the most moving and touching. It's impossible to read this book without shedding a tear. It is a great story, and I truly recommend this book.

If You Never Read Another Book, Please Read This One

Martin Goldsmith has done the world a favor. Not only is this book compelling reading, the story it tells is one that everyone on the planet needs to know so that such abominations never again occur. Goldsmith has brought to life a courage of spirit, not to mention the power of music and culture to endure, which should resonate throughout humanity. If he never does another thing but write this book, he will have done a great service. The story of his family's experiences in the Kulturbund as well as in the concentration camps is both uplifting and heart rending. Goldsmith reminds us that freedom is a precious commodity, and so are compassion and kindness, not to mention music, which enhances the soul.

Making Accessible the Unthinkable

National Public Radio listeners have known Martin Goldsmith for years as the friendly, reassuring voice of "Performance Today." Encyclopedically knowledgeable about classical (and rock) music, Goldsmith has a relaxed and comfortable on-air style that helps to make classical music more accessible to broad audiences. That same style is found in "The Inextinguishable Symphony," helping to make another complex subject - the Holocaust - more accessible to audiences both familiar and unfamiliar with it.But this isn't just "another book about the Holocaust." Nor is it about tragically anonymous victims. It is instead about Goldsmith's parents - Gunther, a flutist, and Rosemarie, a violist - who meet and charmingly fall in love in Nazi Germany in the `30s, as well as about Grandfather Alex and Uncle Helmut and other family members and friends, each of whom Goldsmith makes real and sympathetic through his rich, exquisitely detailed, and heartbreakingly honest narrative. These are people that the reader comes to care about deeply, and we celebrate - and in some cases grieve - their fates. Goldsmith is a helluva storyteller.But the book is also not just a love story (Gunther literally does risk his life for his young sweetheart) or merely an author's purely personal journey in search of his own roots. Through the vehicle of his remarkable parents' own individual stories, Goldsmith explores the only-dimly known, but fascinating, story of the Judische Kulturbund - the Jewish Culture Association - to which Jewish musicians, actors, and others were artistically exiled in Nazi Germany. Goldsmith reveals much about this controversial and complicated organization which, although the only source of culture for German Jews, knowingly served the Nazis' propaganda purposes. The reader marvels at how much the "Kubu" was able to accomplish under such hateful conditions, but is also forced to ask, "What would I have done in these circumstances? Would I have risked my life just to make music?"This is a troubling, but ultimately triumphant, book about real people trying to live their lives, their love, and their music in unthinkable times. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in music, in the Holocaust, in cultural history, or simply in a good love story well told. Bravo, Gunther and Rosemarie and Martin Goldsmith!

Awesome story of love highly recommend

This was a wonderful experience of survival. I was propelled into the lives of my "relatives" at a time in our recent past ... all historically true! The book was gripping, I could not put it down. Memories of Victor Frankle's quote of Fredrick Nitche "He who has a 'why' to live for, can conquer any 'how'", as he survived from within the concentration camp, are repeated as these lovers flourish from "outside" of the that horror.A story of a son's relationship to his parents, and their passion and discovery of each other. Thank you to the Goldsmith family!!!A place of honor in my library!-Craig Levine lotusnotesclp@kfwbmail.com