Page 76 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. Litzmannstadt Getto. Ślady.

chance of survival. The music gave her a sense of
freedom, but did not give her food stamps. From
now on, the artists could play only after hours of
hard work. However, performances continued to
be held by mid-January, 1944.
Another blow was an order for compulsory
registration and donation of instruments to the
perpetrators. “It is not difficult to imagine what it
means for a professional musician, a virtuoso or even
a dilettante, to donate their favorite violin; a ghetto
has at least several well-known virtuosos. We list
here the Miss Rotsztatówna or Prague violinists like
Kraft and Weinbaum... Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin,
Schumann will be silent in the ghetto forever “ –
the chronicler of the ghetto wrote in January 1944.
It is not known to what place went the violin of
Bronisława Rotsztatówna. Perhaps to the Municipal
Theater in Litzmannstadt, where the authorizing
Grób Bronisławy Rotsztatówny na cmentarzu officer was the cousin of the writer Herman Hesse,
żydowskim w Łodzi (strona lewa, kwatera A) or to the Hitlerjugend Orchestra, which was founded
Bronisława Rotsztatównas grave in the Jewish in the German Lodz in the former palace of Karol
cemetery in Lodz (left, unit A)
Poznanski, or maybe the mayor of Litzmannstadt
took it himself or they went to the German orchestra
Rotsztatówna, po mężu Srebrnogórowa, dotrwała chamber in Lodz?
w getcie prawie do końca jego istnienia. Została Rotsztatówna, called after her husband Sre-
wysłana jednym z ostatnich transportów w sierpniu brnogórowa, survived the ghetto almost to the
1944 roku do Auschwitz-Birkenau, potem trafiła do end of its existence. She was sent on one of the last
Bergen-Belsen. Tuż po wyzwoleniu obozu wróciła transports in August 1944 to Auschwitz-Birkenau,
do Łodzi i grała w orkiestrze łódzkiej filharmonii then went to Bergen-Belsen. Shortly after the lib-
już w kwietniu 1945 roku! 15 września 1945 roku eration of the camp she returned to Lodz and played
została zaangażowana „na członka orkiestry filhar- in the Lodz Philharmonic Orchestra already in April
monicznej w charakterze skrzypka-koncertmistrza”. 1945! On September 15, 1945, she was engaged as
Mimo zaawansowanej choroby występowała niemal “a member of the philharmonic orchestra, the vio-
do ostatnich dni. Odeszła 26 lutego 1949 roku. Zo- linist concertmaster.” Despite the advanced disease,
stała pochowana na cmentarzu żydowskim przy she acted there almost to the last days. She passed
ul. Brackiej. away on February 26, 1949.
„W Zmarłej traci instytucja wzorowego i zasłu- She was buried in the Jewish cemetery at Bracka.
żonego, pełnego samozaparcia pracownika, zespół “In the late the institution loses the prime and the
zaś najlepszego kolegę i swego pierwszego muzyka” determined model worker, the team loses the best
– czytamy w nekrologu zamieszczonym w „Głosie friend and the distinctive musician” – we read in the
Robotniczym”. obituary reproduced in the ”Voice of Workers”. On the
W przededniu 110. urodzin pierwszej skrzy- eve of the 110th birthday of the first violinist of the
paczki Filharmonii Łódzkiej Bronisławy Rotszta- Lodz Philharmony, Bronislawa Rotsztatówna and a
tówny w Parku Ocalałych posadzone zostało Drzewo Tree of Remembrance was planted at the Survivors’
Pamięci. Park.

75