European Studies Lunch Talk: Different Trains but Not "Er"

Among the many musical compositions commemorating the Holocaust, Different Trains (1988), by the contemporary American composer Steve Reich could be singled out as one of the most outstanding for its emotional and psychological impact on listeners. Born in 1936 in America and being spared from the actual horrors of the Holocaust, Reich takes listeners through journeys from the ghettos to the concentration camps to the death camps.

Ludmilla Leibman will talk about one of these “different trains,” namely, the “Er” train which took prisoners from the Terezin camp to their final destinations exactly 70 years ago, on October 16, 1944. Among its passengers were composers Hans Krasa, Viktor Ullmann, and Pavel Haas. They were gassed upon their arrival at Auschwitz on October 18, 1944. Of the 1,500 people on that “Er” train only 110 survived the war.

Dr. Leibman is the Executive Director of the Educational Bridge Project and Visiting Researcher at the Center for the Study of Europe. Her doctoral dissertation, “Teaching the Holocaust Through Music” (BU, 1999), became the basis for the first course in the history of American higher education on the Music of the Holocaust. She taught this course at Boston University from 2001 to 2009.

Lunch provided. Open to BU community and others with research interest in the topic. RSVP to Elizabeth Amrien by October 13.