🍀 … The courage to step out of one’s comfort zone.
🍀… The courage to break down barriers.
🍀 … The courage to dare together.
And this courage carries the power to create change.
Under this motto, Jugend Dirigiert is committed to fighting antisemitism and promoting inclusion.
We empower young people to feel their ability to promote change through the fundamentals of conducting, transforming shared experiences into successes, and turning existing prejudices into openness and understanding.
The nonverbal communication of conducting fosters emotional connection, even between groups with differing beliefs.
Together with the HSO, we engage young people from East and West in preparing concerts. Since 2015, Jewish and Arab children have been peacefully working side by side to create basic musical concepts in Schools and Holiday-Camps.
Since 2022, Through “Jugend dirigiert” Ukrainian and Russian children have participated in joint flash mobs, and even Syrian and Israeli exchange students have danced together in breakdance choreographies.
Breaking Boundaries Through Music
Our mission is to show that music transcends borders.
It begins with self-discipline and overcoming personal limits. But, when individuals are uplifted by the collective, personal sensitivities and prejudices fade into the background because:
- Music becomes truly beautiful when it is perceived and shared by
- Music gives everyone the feeling of being part of the sound and
Through emotional experiences, bonds are formed.
COMMITTED TO REMEMBERANCE
In collaboration with the Ute Vinzing Foundation, Noémi Köster of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Adelheid Goldschmidt from the Jewish community of Freiburg, we strive to bridge divides between young people of Christian and Jewish faiths — at least musically, (and socially and personally wherever possible.
Above all, music has the power to give courage!
The life and work of Franz Xaver Goldschmidt (1900–1968), a half-Jewish music educator and composer from Freiburg, serve as both a role model and a source of inspiration for our efforts.
Despite being baptized as a Christian, Goldschmidt’s Jewish heritage and his deep love for a Jewish woman left him with no chance to work normally by teaching or playing in Orchestra under the Nazi regime.
Although he sought to serve in the Wehrmacht, he was interned in 1941, subjected to harassment, and assigned as a music teacher to the women’s concentration camp, Struthof. By 1943, he was responsible for organizing musical entertainment and education for SS families and their children at the Natzweiler subcamp.
Later that year, he was sent to Berlin, where he worked in the assembly camp on Große Hamburger Straße (near today’s Jewish Gymnasium) to provide entertainment. From this time come some of his most intriguing Jewish improvisations on German folk songs, which simultaneously satisfied the Nazis and offered psychological strength to Jewish prisoners.
Defiance Through Music
Goldschmidt also used his position to subvert the Nazis. In the evenings, he played for the Wehrmacht and used these performances as opportunities to secure food for the prisoners. His defiant rallying cry was: “Let’s outwit the Nazis.” (Franz Goldschmidt, 1944) Through his music, Goldschmidt met both physical and emotional needs, drying countless tears and inspiring hope among the oppressed.
Continuing His Mission
The nonprofit organization Angerscheune e.V., which holds parts of Goldschmidt’s estate, collaborates with the HSO to preserve, edit, and reintroduce his compositions. Many of his works reveal valuable and still-modern improvisational didactic approaches.
Inspired by Goldschmidt’s courage, humour, and creativity, we compose and organize flash mobs using his playful musical materials. These are aimed particularly at schools in disadvantaged areas, where inclusion and conflict resolution are critical and existing challenges.
Goldschmidt’s melodies are simple, accessible, and invite dancing and improvisation. His legacy reminds us that music can foster unity, inspire resilience, and bring hope even in the darkest of times.
We would like to thank our sponsors for the project:
