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Photos, from top: Kurt Weill, ca. 1925. Yale Music Library. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum #66075; Book burning, Berlin, 1933. Bundesarchiv, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. #31078; Bertolt Brecht and son, 1931. Bertolt Brecht Erben. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum #01444; Paul Hindemith, ca. 1940. Hulton Getty Picture Collection. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum #90723	In conjunction with the special exhibition Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings (April 30 – October 13, 2003)  Download the flyer Funded by Target Stores Ticketing: Admission is free, but reservations are required. Call 202.488.0407 Preceding and following the programs, the special exhibition Fighting the Fires of Hate: America and the Nazi Book Burnings will be open in the Museum’s Sidney Kimmel and Rena Rowan Exhibition Gallery. Doors open at 6 p.m. For an e-mail reminder, please join the Museum’s electronic newsletter at www.ushmm.org/museum/ publicprograms. performance details  Wednesday, May 21, 2003 • 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 28, 2003 • 7 p.m. Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Theater 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW Washington, DC In May 1933, German students, demonstrating their commitment to the ideals of the National Socialists (Nazis), staged massive public book burnings to “purify” German culture. Their goal was to purge undesirable elements—as expressed in political and popular literature—that did not fit with Nazi ideology. The book burnings—combined with policies that removed Jews and political opponents from certain professions—terrorized Germany’s intellectual community and compelled countless artists, writers, and composers to flee the country. Many found sanctuary in the United States, where they created new works in response to the events that had forced them from their homeland.
	Wednesday, May 21, 2003 • 7 p.m. This concert features works that represent a wide range of musical responses by exiled composers Stefan Wolpe, Eric Zeisl, Paul Hindemith, and Arnold Schoenberg. Internationally renowned pianist David Holzman will perform Battle Piece, which was Wolpe’s highly charged, deeply personal response to exile and war. Holzman will also premiere a recently discovered work that Zeisl wrote soon after his escape from Austria. National Symphony Orchestra cellist Steven Honigberg and pianist Kathryn Brake perform Hindemith’s variations for cello and piano on the Anglo-American folk song A Frog He Went A-Courting, one of Hindemith’s first compositions after taking refuge in the United States. Then, Honigberg and Brake join with the Potomac String Quartet and reciter Joel Lazar to perform Arnold Schoenberg’s impassioned stand against tyranny, Ode to Napoleon. PRE–CONCERT TALK AT 6:30 P.M. Grammy-nominee David Holzman discusses the politics, music, and response of composer Stefan Wolpe in Germany, where his work was deemed degenerate and was ultimately banned.
	Wednesday, May 28, 2003 • 7 p.m. This concert features musical settings of works by authors whose books were burned and banned in Nazi Germany. Program highlights include pieces based on texts by banned poets Kurt Tucholsky and Bertolt Brecht that were composed by exiles Hanns Eisler, Kurt Weill, Paul Dessau, and Friedrich Hollaender. Performed by Chicago’s New Budapest Orpheum Society, the program also explores a larger range of work by these artists, including Weimar-era political cabaret, “exile” art songs, and anti-Nazi propaganda pieces written for broadcast during World War II.
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