Survivors in the displaced persons camps hungered for culture and were eager to restore a sense of normalcy to their lives. Entertainment played an increasingly important role as survivors joined together to form theatrical and musical troupes, some of which toured extensively through the occupied zones of Germany. Born in Lodz, Poland, to a family of professional musicians and trained on violin and saxophone, Henry Baigelman performed with the Lodz Ghetto Orchestra under the direction of his eldest brother Dovid, a noted composer and conductor.

After the war, Baigelman, together with seven fellow surviving musicians from Lodz, formed the touring jazz band The Happy Boys. The band was renowned for its lively arrangements and agreeable mixture of prewar hits, light classics, Jewish selections, and original songs about the lives and concerns of Jewish displaced persons. Baigelman and his wife Gita immigrated to the United States in 1949.

Recording Source:

Related Links:

Concentration Camp Songs

• The Soldiers of the Moor
  
• Dachau Song
  
• Stand Fast (Forward, You Witnesses)
  

Music of Protest

• Our Town Is Burning
  
• A Child of Our Time
  

Written in Hiding

• Over Yonder in the Sunshine
  

Partisan Songs

• At the Edge of a Forest
  
• Never Say That You Have Reached the Final Road
  

Ghetto Songs

• By the Ghetto Gate
  
• The Lonely Child
  
• Yisrolik
  
• There Lies Treblinka
  

Roma (Gypsies)

• Auschwitz
  

Songs of Jewish Displaced Persons

• David Boder collection
  
• Ben Stonehill
  
• We Long for a Home
  

Music in Theresienstadt

• Verdict
  

Individuals

• Aleksander Kulisiewicz
  
• Joseph Wulf
  
• Jankiel Herszkowicz