Voices from the Whirlwind (2013)

The Story Behind the Concert, Part 1

By Joanna Ebbutt

Temple Sinai Ensemble Choir and the Toronto Jewish Folk Choir. Photo by Sol Blaser

My first two concerts singing with Upper Canada Choristers are indelibly printed in my memory, as they were so different from anything I had experienced previously as a chorister. It was November 2013, and UCC had joined forces with two other choirs, the Temple Sinai Ensemble Choir and the Toronto Jewish Folk Choir, to perform a remembrance concert during Holocaust Education Week. 

The evolution of this event began some years earlier, when Laurie Evan Fraser, UCC’s artistic director, co-hosted the annual conference of the Unitarian Universalist Musicians Network when it took place in Toronto. At Composer’s Night (a regular feature of the conference), American composer Annetta Lockhard presented her work. Entitled Voices from the Whirlwind, the music was based upon lyrics written by children from the Warsaw Ghetto.  Laurie was profoundly moved by it and badly wanted to work on it with UCC. As the song cycle wasn’t an appropriate fit for the regular spring and Christmas concerts, she mulled over how to make it happen. 

It occurred to her that it might work as a Remembrance Day event – and even better, as a collaboration with another choir. As UCC’s publicist Linda Litwack was a key member of Alexander Veprinsky’s Toronto Jewish Folk Choir, Laurie asked if they might be interested in singing with us. Linda thought it was a possibility, and suggested that Laurie also approach Charles Osborne, the newly arrived Senior Cantor at Temple Sinai, to see if his choir might also like to be involved. From this, the Remembrance Day idea grew into two concerts, involving the three choirs and more than 100 choristers. They were held during Holocaust Education Week in November, which was also the 76th anniversary of the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto. 

Being part of Holocaust Education Week, the concerts had to be free. To make this more feasible, the three conductors agreed to donate their time, and Grace Church on-the-Hill (UCC’s long-time base) not only provided their space free of charge for the first concert but also covered the cost of printing of the programs. 

Laurie, Alexander and Charles developed the repertoire together, and the final program included each choir singing on its own, as well as jointly. The two performances took place at Grace Church and at Temple Sinai synagogue. All the music addressed war’s destruction and featured songs in Yiddish, English and Russian. 

The Story Behind the Song

Cantor Charles Osborne

A highlight of the evening was Charles Osborne’s haunting composition to accompany I Didn’t Speak Out – the remorseful words of Martin Neimöller, a German anti-Nazi theologian and pastor. 

Neimöller (1892 – 1984) joined the Imperial Germany Navy in 1910 and rose to the rank of commander of a U-Boat during World War 1. His patriotism was such that he refused to turn over his U-Boat to England at the end of hostilities – a stipulation of the armistice of November 11, 1918 – and consequently was discharged from the navy. 

He went on to train as a pastor and eventually became a well-known Lutheran pastor. As a nationalist, he firmly believed that Germany needed a strong leader, and he initially supported Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist Party. However, by 1934 Neimöller was becoming disenchanted with Hitler and the Third Reich, and increasingly critical of its doctrines, so began preaching widely against the Nazis. This led to him being arrested repeatedly from 1934 onwards. 

At the start of World War 2, he was imprisoned in the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, and later moved to Dachau, where he narrowly escaped execution. Towards the end of the war, he and other political prisoners were moved by the SS from Dachau to a camp in Austria, where he was eventually rescued by the Fifth Army troops, after seven years of incarceration.

Post-war, Neimöller never denied his initial support of the Nazi regime and stated that his seven years of imprisonment became the turning point in his life. Indeed, he was one of the first to talk about all Germans’ complicity in the imprisonment, persecution and murder of millions of people by the Nazis, and he lectured widely and internationally about the responsibility of every single one of us for injustice. Hence this message, which he delivered countless times:

First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.

And so, the man who had been an ardent nationalist, Hitler supporter, and anti-Semite transformed into a vocal pacifist and anti-war activist. He was vice-chair of War Resisters’ International for six years and met Ho Chi Minh during the Vietnam War. Campaigning endlessly for nuclear disarmament, his efforts earned him the Lenin Peace Prize in 1966. While Neimöller was a controversial figure for much of his life, his overall message is as relevant today. 

Part 2 of this article will feature a conversation with Cantor Charles Osborne, in which he shares his thoughts on discrimination and anti-racism, and on the fight for equality and justice.