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One of the Girls in the Band. The Memoirs of a Violinist from Birkenau. Hardcover – January 1, 2013

by Helena Dunicz Niwińska (Author)

4.6 18 ratings

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Helena Dunicz Niwińska was born in Vienna in 1915. She lived with her parents and brothers in her hometown of Lwów until 1943. At the age of 10, she began learning to play the violin at the conservatory of the Polish Musical Society. She studied pedagogy from 1934 to 1939, continuing her musical education the whole time. After their arrest in January 1943 and incarceration in Łącki Prison, she and her mother were deported to Auschwitz in October 1943. In Birkenau, she was a member of the women's orchestra—as a violinist—until January 1945. After being evacuated to the Ravensbrück and Neustadt-Glewe camps, she was liberated in May 1945. She and her fellow prisoner Jadwiga Zatorska returned at the end of May to a postwar Poland that no longer included her beloved hometown of Lwów. She moved in with Jadwiga's family in Cracow, and soon after began a career at the Polish Musical Publishers, where she worked until she retired in 1975 as deputy director of publications for musical education. Her book 'One of the Girls in the The Memoirs of a Violinist from Birkenau' is the story of her family's tragic fate and more particularly of the time when, as prisoner number 64118, she played in the women's camp orchestra. She survived Auschwitz-Birkenau by playing the violin.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum (January 1, 2013)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 8377040573
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-8377040577
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.8 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.06 x 6.1 x 0.79 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,929,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Edward B. Westermann

Excellent Packaging

Reviewed in the United States on March 28, 2021

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Excellent packaging and book in great condition.

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Jeanne C

Grateful for her story.

Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2023

Grateful for her story. Helena Dunicz Niwinska wrote this book in her nineties, in the twilight of her days. "It is my desire -as one of the last eyewitnesses to those unbelievable crimes- to make the succeeding generation aware of how dangerous certain catchy and apparently innocuous ideologies can be. In the measure that they spread, and as a result of the fallibility of the human conscience, they can give rise to egotistical, destructive, and hateful systems like nazism, racism, or communism."

Helena and her mother were not Jewish, yet they were sent to Auschwitz because of the people they rented rooms to. Helena tells the story in a honest way from a point in time 70+ years after surviving the hell that was Auschwitz and Birkenau. It's told in a less emotional tone, but it's horrifying and heartbreaking nonetheless.

Prior to Auschwitz, "in the cities and towns, we were fed propaganda about the benefits of communism and socialist justice through loud-speakers hung everywhere." They were being spied on, fear and misery worsened and the churches were closed except for two which were under surveillance.

She was asked by the grandchildren of her cousins which of the occupiers, Soviet or German, was more brutal towards the Poles? "It must be said that they're brutality toward the Poles was equal, but we experienced it differently. The Germans were overt enemies who did not conceal the fact that their goal was to annihilate us. The Soviets, on the other hand, tried to persuade us that they were our friends, liberators, and even our brothers. I regarded that falsehood, which after all constitutes the essence of the communist ideology, as something exceptionally, repulsive, deceitful, and particularly sinister."

"As in the Polish cities they had occupied earlier, so too in Lwow the Germans created a ghetto for them (the Jewish people in the town)-this was a prelude to extermination."

Helena writes about being herded into a cattle car with her mother, going to the unknown. Ending up at Auschwitz / Birkenau, she writes about the harrassment, humiliation and succeeding stages of dehumanization.

"When first day in Birkenau I cannot recall the exact order in which one stage followed another, and whether things were drawn out or happened quickly. Forever in my memory was the humiliation, the feeling of being stripped of human dignity, the paralyzing fear, the revulsion toward the witnesses and perpetrators of our agony, and the amazement that this fate had been prepared for us by people from the cultural elite of the European nations. I believe that the entire structure and organization of the camp was perfidiously designed to paralyze the prisoners with fear and debase them." This combined with the mental and physical exhaustion, the inhumane living conditions in the barracks and the hunger, all started at the very beginning.

"One thing is certain: without my violin I would not have survived."

"Helena who doesn't say much, has finally told her story of being a violinist from Birkenau."

I highly recommend "One of the Girls in the Band" it recounts the experiences and memories of Helena Dunicz Niwinska of her years at Auschwitz and Birkenau. We need to remember and never forget the evil that happened in concentration camps especially to the Jewish people and also to those non-Jews who were also imprisoned, mistreated, tortured and killed there. It is with gratitude to all those who survived and have told their stories. We need to keep our eyes open to propaganda and dangerous ideologies today.