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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Holocaust survivor makes symphony debut with Yo-Yo Ma

Holocaust survivor George Horner performs with cellist Yo-Yo Ma onstage at Symphony Hall in Boston on Tuesday. (Associated Press)
Rodrique Ngowi Associated Press

BOSTON – A 90-year-old Holocaust survivor made his orchestral debut with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma on Tuesday to benefit a foundation dedicated to preserving the work of artists and musicians killed by the Nazis.

Ma and George Horner received floral bouquets and a standing ovation from their audience of about 1,000 people in Boston’s Symphony Hall. They appeared to enjoy their evening, chatting briefly between numbers and walking off the stage hand-in-hand after taking a bow together.

Before the performance, Ma and Horner met and embraced ahead of a brief rehearsal. Ma thanked Horner for helping the Terezin Music Foundation, named for the town of Terezin, site of an unusual Jewish ghetto in what was then German-occupied Czechoslovakia. Even amid death and hard labor, Nazi soldiers there allowed prisoners to stage performances.

They played music composed 70 years ago when Horner was incarcerated.

“It’s an extraordinary link to the past,” said concert organizer Mark Ludwig, who leads the foundation.

Horner played piano and accordion in the Terezin cabarets, including tunes written by fellow inmate Karel Svenk. On Tuesday, Horner played two of Svenk’s works solo – a march and a lullaby – and then teamed up with Ma for a third piece called “How Come the Black Man Sits in the Back of the Bus?”

Svenk did not survive the genocide. But his musical legacy has, due in part to a chance meeting of Ludwig, a scholar of Terezin composers, and Horner, who never forgot the songs that were written and played in captivity.

Still, Ludwig found it hard to ask Horner to perform pieces laden with such difficult memories.

“To ask somebody who … played this in the camps, that’s asking a lot,” Ludwig said.

Yet Horner, a retired doctor who lives near Philadelphia, readily agreed to what he described as a “noble” mission. It didn’t hurt that he would be sharing the stage with Ma.

Ma said before the performance that he hoped it will inspire people to a better future.

“To me George Horner is a huge hero, and is a huge inspiration,” Ma said. “He is a witness to a window, and to a slice of history, that we never want to see again, and yet we keep seeing versions of that all over the world. I hope we are inspired by that and we keep that memory forever.”