Memories

Violoncello Solo
Dedicated to the Holocaust victims

1990. Jerusalem. Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum. In the central hall, the darkness of night reigns and only a single candle is reflected in a multitude of mirrors by millions of small lights, symbolising the lives that were lost. Quietly stunning chamber music resounds and two male and female voices call out the names of those murdered in the Holocaust.

In order to name them all, one would have to keep reading out the names around the clock for several years.

But I learned that later, and then I stood in the middle of the dark hall, deeply shaken. It was an image that stuck in my mind, and when the Israeli cellist Carmen Schiff asked me to compose a piece on the Holocaust, it reappeared in my mind and was the impetus for composing the piece, the main theme of which was the pounding of hearts that had been slaughtered.

Slawa Ulanowski