Helen Fry in conversation with Anne Sebba on “The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz”

Moving and powerful, this is a vivid portrait of the women who came together to form an orchestra in order to survive the horrors of Auschwitz.

New York Times bestselling author of Les Parisiennes and That Woman: A Life of Wallis Simpson now examines how a disparate band of young girls struggled to overcome differences and little musical knowledge to please the often-sadistic Nazi overseers.

From Alma Rosé, the orchestra’s main conductor, niece of Gustav Mahler and a formidable pre-war celebrity violinist, to Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, its teenage cellist and last surviving member, Sebba draws on meticulous archival research and exclusive first-hand accounts to tell the full and astonishing story of the orchestra, its members, and the response of other prisoners for the first time.

In the series:
Apr. 27: with Helen Rappaport on The Rebel Romanov
Jun. 8: with Anne Sebba on The Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz
**Jul. 27: with Ruth Franklin on The Many Lives of Anne Frank**Changed from June 1