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Bronisław Huberman: From child prodigy to resistance fighter against National Socialism

Today, Bronisław Huberman (1882-1947), who in his day was the most famous Polish violinist in the world and who lived and gave concerts in Germany during the First World War and the 1920s, is largely known to the wider public as the founder of the Palestine Orchestra, which later gave rise to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Thanks to the orchestra that he founded in Tel-Aviv in 1936, Huberman managed to help between six hundred and one thousand Jewish musicians and their families from all around Europe emigrate to the British mandated territory of Palestine and, in doing so, saved them from the Holocaust. As a violinist, he was more or less forgotten after his death. In 2012, a documentary by the director Josh Aronson was released entitled “Orchestra of Exiles”, which retold the history of the orchestra and Huberman’s own story, and found international acclaim.

 

Bronisław Huberman, ca. 1928. Unknown photographer, Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection, Washington, DC
Bronisław Huberman, ca. 1928. Unknown photographer, Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection, Washington, DC
©
Public Domain

In May 1933, the Berliner Philharmonic Orchestra travelled to concerts in Geneva, Zurich and Basel and undertook a smaller tour through German towns to Vienna where the German Brahms Society and the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde were putting on the Eighth Johannes Brahms Festival to mark the occasion of the composer’s birthday. Furtwängler directed the double concerto for violins and cello with Huberman and Pablo Casals as soloists. Whilst Schnabel performed as soloist in the second piano concerto, Huberman, Hindemith and Schnabel created the chamber music section. Because Furtwängler had to prepare his programmes for the forthcoming Berlin concert season in winter 1933/34, he intended to approach the Hitler government and ask for a special permit to allow some of the international music greats to perform. To do this, he called upon Huberman to commit and to actively participate. In a letter, Huberman reported: “During the Brahms Festival in Vienna, Furtwängler spent hours trying to convince me to give my consent to appear in case he could get the declaration of new directives that he had in mind from the government. I rejected this unreasonable demand as being beneath my dignity […].”[30] At this point, Huberman also provided a public statement.

Whilst Furtwängler had already spoken out in an open letter to Goebbels about outstanding artists remaining in German culture, such as “Walter, Klemperer, Reinhard[t] etc.,[31] a letter that Huberman knew very well, Furtwängler then presented his view once again “of a moderate entity close to the Reich Chancellery […] and his proposals were approved.”[32] On the strength of this, Furtwängler addressed personal invitations in June to Casals, Cortot, the Polish pianist Józef Hofmann, Huberman, Kreisler, Menuhin, Schnabel, the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and the violin virtuoso Jacques Thibaud, however, they all declined. As Geissmar recalled, the soloists “in their response unanimously held the view that, despite Furtwängler’s personal efforts, the German music scene had been politicised – and all of them, Aryans and non-Aryans alike, refused to avail themselves of privileges that were only being granted to them because of their international reputation. They declared categorically that they would not perform in Germany until the same rights applied to all.”[33]

 

[30] Letter from Huberman to “Bn.” dated 18 October 1933, Huberman Estate (see Note 1), cited from von der Lühe 2004 (see Literature), page 71

[32] Geissmar 1985 (see Literature), page 85. – This “entity” was obviously the Prussian minister of cultural affairs Bernhard Rust, member of the NSDAP, the Prussian State Parliament and the Reichstag, who headed up the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and Public Education from 1934 to 1945. Rust had convened a commission to regulate the future of the German music industry, a commission which comprised Furtwängler, Max von Schilling, Wilhelm Backhaus and Georg Kulenkampff and which, in the future, was to review “the programmes of all the public concert associations”. An exposé published on this subject stated, “that German artists, who are called upon to support and maintain a German music industry, have to be used first and foremost. It must, however, be pointed out that in music, as in any art form, the performance must always remain the crucial factor, with other considerations having to take a step back in favour of the principle of performance, if necessary.” (Prager Tagblatt dated 13 September 1938, Fig. 8). Furtwängler evidently considered the last sentence to be a guarantee that would also allow him to engage prominent foreign (or non-Aryan) artists in accordance with the principle of performance.

[33] Ibid

Bronisław Huberman, ca. 1928. Unknown photographer, Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection, Washington, DC
©
Public Domain
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  • Fig. 1: The child prodigy, 1889

    Bronisław Huberman as a seven-year-old, 1889

  • Fig. 2: As a youth, ca. 1895

    Bronisław Huberman at a young age, ca. 1895 Unknown photographer, albumin print, 14.7 x 10.1 cm, Nationalmuseum Warsaw/Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Inv. No. DI 103634 MNW

  • Fig. 3: As a fourteen-year-old, 1896

    Bronisław Huberman as a fourteen-year-old, 1896 Photograph by R. Wilhelm, New York, Philip Hale Photograph Collection, Boston Public Library

  • Fig. 4: Bronislaw Huberman, 1900

    Bronisław Huberman as an eighteen-year-old, 1900

  • Fig. 5: Emil Orlik: Huberman, ca. 1915

    Emil Orlik: Portrait of Bronisław Huberman with violin, ca. 1915 Etching, 24.5 x 29.3 cm

  • Fig. 6: Lesser Ury: Huberman, ca. 1916

    Lesser Ury: Portrait of Bronisław Huberman, ca. 1916 pastel on board, 97.2 x 70.7 cm, Jewish Museum Berlin, Inv. No. GHZ 78/1/0

  • Fig. 7: “Vaterland Europa”, 1932

    Bronislaw Huberman: Vaterland Europa, Berlin 1932

  • Fig. 8: Open letter to Furtwängler, 1933

    Open letter from Bronisław Huberman to Wilhelm Furtwängler, Prager Tagblatt from 13 September 1933, Austrian National Library

  • Fig. 9: Einstein meets Huberman, 1936

    The physicist Albert Einstein meets Bronisław Huberman 1936 in his house in Princeton, New Jersey

  • Fig. 10: Toscanini rehearses with the Palestine Orchestra, 1936

    The Palestine Orchestra during a rehearsal under the leadership of Arturo Toscanini, presumably in December 1936
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