Current & Upcoming

January 27, 2025, Edinburgh: Hate is a Failure of Imagination

     

Monday, January 27, 2025 at 5.30 pm
The New Town Church of Scotland
13 George Street | Edinburgh EH2 2PA | UK

Hate is a Failure of Imagination
On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps
Under the patronage of Jolana Blau, Holocaust survivor and Vice President of Elysium – between two continents

Hatred and ignorance harden and blind. The Nazis systematically stirred up hatred against Jews and all those who thought differently and tried to dehumanize their victims. The artists imprisoned in the Theresienstadt ghetto and concentration camp defied this hatred and contempt for humanity in their own way: With imagination and creativity, they braced themselves against the Nazis’ dictum that Jews were sub-human and as such incapable of any culture.

The texts by Alice Herz-Sommer, Georg Kafka, Paul Aron Sandfort, Leo Strauss, Viktor Ullmann and Ilse Weber bear witness to the deep humanity that these artists retained even in the limbo of Theresienstadt. They can give us courage today to break the spiral of hatred, violence and destruction. Piano music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, Antonin Dvorak, Robert Schumann and Viktor Ullmann will complement the reading.

Gregorij von Leïtis, narrator
Matthew Shiel, piano

Concept & introduction: Michael Lahr von Leïtis

Presented by the German Consulate General in Edinburgh in cooperation with Elysium between two continents and The Lahr von Leïtis Academy & Archive

Admission: Free

   

Scroll to Top