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Europe
11:58 am
Fri January 25, 2013

Honoring 'Our Will To Live': The Lost Music Of The Holocaust

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Credit Courtesy of Francesco Lotoro
The Nazis imprisoned Czech composer Rudolf Karel (shown here in a sketch from 1945) for helping the resistance in Prague. He wrote his compositions down on toilet paper.
Credit Sylvia Poggioli / NPR
Italian musicologist Francesco Lotoro is on a decades-long mission to find and resurrect music composed by prisoners at camps before and during World War II. Here, he plays music in his home in Barletta, southern Italy.
Credit Plinio Lepri / AP
Lotoro displays a copy of music by Rudolf Karel, a Czech composer (in 1945 sketch at left) imprisoned by Nazis for helping the resistance in Prague, in a music shop in Rome, Feb. 22, 2007. Denied access to regular paper, Karel wrote his compositions down on toilet paper. He died of dysentery at the Terezin camp.
Credit Courtesy of Francesco Lotoro
Austrian musician Viktor Ullman composed more than 20 operas while imprisoned by the Nazis. In an essay, he wrote: "By no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon and our endeavor with respect to arts was commensurate with our will to live." He died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz in 1944.
Credit Courtesy of Francesco Lotoro
Frida Misul, a singer from Livorno, Italy, was deported to Fossoli and eventually was at Auschwitz. She survived World War II and died in 1992.
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Originally published on Fri January 25, 2013 10:21 pm

For the past two decades, in a small town in southern Italy, a pianist and music teacher has been hunting for and resurrecting the music of the dead.

Francesco Lotoro has found thousands of songs, symphonies and operas written in concentration, labor and POW camps in Germany and elsewhere before and during World War II.

By rescuing compositions written in imprisonment, Lotoro wants to fill the hole left in Europe's musical history and show how even the horrors of the Holocaust could not suppress artistic inspiration.

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Education
11:48 am
Fri January 25, 2013

Amid Gun Debate, What Will Actually Protect Kids?

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Putting guns in schools may make people think more of Terminator than teaching. But Emily Richmond of the National Education Writers Association says that it's time to step back from the hysteria. She talks to host Michel Martin about practical ways to make schools safer.

Barbershop
11:48 am
Fri January 25, 2013

Did President Obama Misuse MLK's Bible?

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The fact that President Obama's second inauguration took place on the same day as the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday felt right to many people, but some critics say the comparison is all wrong. Host Michel Martin and the Barbershop guys weigh in on that and other news.

Remembrances
11:48 am
Fri January 25, 2013

Former 'Ebony' Editor Was Proud German

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Tell Me More remembers Ebony Magazine's former managing editor, Hans Massaquoi. He arrived in America as an outsider, after growing up black in Nazi Germany. Host Michel Martin speaks with his former colleague, Lynn Norment about his career and legacy.

Politics
11:40 am
Fri January 25, 2013

Forget 2016. The Pivotal Year In Politics May Be 2020

Credit David McNew / Getty Images
Latino voters, shown here on Election Day in Los Angeles, will grow in electoral power by the year 2020.
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Originally published on Fri January 25, 2013 1:26 pm

Now that President Obama is ensconced in his second term, speculation about the future of American politics is wildfire-ish.

In a post-inaugural story, the Associated Press reports that the name of Democratic Vice President Biden "has surfaced as a potential presidential candidate in 2016." Politico says Biden is intoxicated by the prospect.

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