From Buchenwald to Carnegie Hall (Hardcover)

by Marian Filar (Author), Charles Patterson (Author) "I was born in Warsaw, Poland, on December 17, 1917, the youngest of seven children..." (more)
Key Phrases: official piano, state conservatory, thousand zlotys, Professor Drzewiecki, New York, United States (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist
Filar, a concert pianist and retired professor of music at Temple University, was born in 1917 in Warsaw, Poland, the youngest of seven children. He played with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra when he was 12. In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, he fled to Lvov and returned to his family in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1941. Filar's parents, a brother, and a sister were killed in the Holocaust. After Filar and another brother stole bread in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, they were captured and sent to various concentration camps. In 1950, Filar immigrated to the U.S and made his Carnegie Hall debut in 1952. His book is the second in this publisher's Willie Morris Books in Memoir and Biography series. Among the many astonishing accounts of Holocaust survival, this is one of the most remarkable. George Cohen
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Product Description

Before the Nazis sent members of the Filar family to Treblinka, these were the last words Marian Filar's mother said to him: "I bless you. You'll survive this horror. You'll become a great pianist, and I'll be very proud of you."

Born in 1917 into a musical Jewish family in Warsaw, Filar began playing the piano when he was four. He performed his first public concert at the age of six. At twelve he played with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and went on to study with the great Polish pianist and teacher Zbigniew Drzewiecki at the State Conservatory of Music.

After the German invasion, Filar fled to Lemberg (Lvov), where he continued his music studies until 1941, when he returned to his family in the Warsaw Ghetto. The Nazis killed his parents, a sister, and a brother, but he and his brother Joel survived as workers on the German railroad. After taking part in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Marian and Joel were captured and sent to Majdanek, Buchenwald, and other concentration camps. After liberation Filar was able to resume his career by studying with the renowned German pianist Walter Gieseking. In 1950 he immigrated to the United States and soon after was performing concerts with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. He made his Carnegie Hall debut on New Year's Day, 1952. He became head of the piano department at the Settlement Music School in Philadelphia and later a professor of music at Temple University, while continuing to perform in Europe, South America, Israel, and the United States.

Filar does not end his story with liberation but with the fulfillment of his mother's blessing. Without rancor or bitterness, his memoir comes full circle, ending where it began--in Warsaw. In 1992 Filar traveled to Poland to visit the school next to what had once been the Umschlagplatz, the place from which Jews had been sent to Treblinka and where he said farewell to the mother who blessed him.

Marian Filar, an internationally acclaimed concert pianist and retired professor at Temple University, has performed throughout the world and with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra, and many others. He lives in Pennsylvania.

Charles Patterson is the author of Anti-Semitism: The Road to the Holocaust and Beyond, Marian Anderson, and The Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals and the Holocaust.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 231 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (February 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578064198
• ISBN-13: 978-1578064199
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,731,462 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Angel On His Shoulder, June 10, 2002

By A Customer

This is a well-written book, the main interest of which lies in its unemotional and almost off-handed anecdotal details. While the author, naturally, focuses on the events of his and his family's life, a succession of incredible details leave an invaluable impression of life in pre-war Warsaw, in death camps, post-war Germany, and 1950s America. The subject, Marian Filar, is a classical concert pianist and I found especially moving his description of devotedly studying under the great German pianist Walter Gieseking in the American Zone of Germany immediately after the World War Two. Anyone interested in a straight-forward, unself-conscious memoir of displacement will appreciate this book.

4.0 out of 5 stars Good coverage of the holocaust for eighth grade and up, May 5, 2003

By A Customer

Good account of holocaust experience without being too graphic for younger readers. We used this in an eighth grade classroom for a language arts project. The kids were a little bogged down in the section after Marian emigrates to the U.S. They could better relate to the account of his experiences as a youth. A solid account for adults, as well.