Thursday is Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s observed as a day of commemoration for the estimated 6 million Jews who were murdered during World War II by Nazi Germany and its allies.
2025 marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the war and the liberation of the death camps.
Although their population is dwindling, there are still some here in Arizona with a direct connection to that dark chapter of history.
That fading connection is being highlighted in a musical tribute this weekend in Phoenix.
In a performance headlined by Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, the Phoenix Symphony will also take on the music of the little-known Gideon Klein. Klein was a Czechoslovakian pianist, composer and educator.
In 1940, the talented prodigy was offered a scholarship to London’s Royal Academy of Music. But when war broke out and Nazis occupied his country, anti-Jewish legislation prevented his emigration. Instead, Klein ended up at the Theresienstadt Ghetto, a waystation for concentration camps where he survived as a performer and organizer of cultural life.
The piece the symphony will perform was composed just days before Klein was transported to Auschwitz, where he died in January 1945 at the age of just 25.
Hearing it is evocative for 93-year-old Hannah Miley.
“I think of loss,” Miley said. She was just a young child on the eve of World War II. “I was rescued out of Germany at the age of 7 and so a lot of my past is silent. So there's (the) resonance of loss, but also the resonance of redemption in the memory.”
Miley was one of 10,000 Jewish children who were part of the Kindertransport, a rescue mission to help them flee Germany for Britain. Her parents and much of her family did not get out.
“You know, I blocked out the past. But in the last 20 or so years, I have engaged with it. So, music is like the bridge between loss and finding who I am," she said.
Peter Kjome is the Phoenix Symphony’s President and CEO. He says that’s exactly why they decided to partner up with the Phoenix Holocaust Association for the performances.
“Music can speak to all of us in ways that words sometimes can’t. This is a way to honor their memory and to help all of us to feel those emotions, which can be so difficult,” Kjome said.
In addition to Klein, the symphony will also feature this work from Paul Hindemith, a German composer who fell out of favor with the Nazi regime and fled to Switzerland and the U.S. ahead of the war.
“Bringing their music back and rediscovering this music is a way to help honor their memory and the lives of the millions whose lives were lost,” Kjome said.
The idea came from Sheryl Bronkesh, the past president of the PHA.
“Music is the way I learned about the Holocaust from my father, who was a partisan during the war. This is how I learned about his experiences from the war," Bronkesh said.
Bronkesh hopes the performances can do the same for others.
“Most of our survivors who are still around are in their 90s, late 90s. And we’re not gonna have the opportunity to have the community hear directly from survivors for much longer.”
For Hanna Miley, music is better than words to communicate a poignant message.
“So many words are spoken. So how do we reach the hearts of people? And for me, the music can penetrate through these layers," Miley said.
And she believes it has other special powers to heal.
“My hope is that this music will be a place of meeting between those who are carrying guilt and those who are the victims so that they may be released from those burdens," she said.
Sunday’s official commemoration includes a procession of local Holocaust survivors, a candle lighting ceremony and an invocation from a local rabbi. Survivor Hanna Miley will speak.
The preceding concert at Symphony Hall will also feature Beethoven’s 9th symphony with a choral performance of Ode to Joy, celebrating hope and humanity.
The commemoration event Sunday evening is free, but space is limited.
You can RSVP at the Phoenix Holocaust Association’s website at phxha.com/events/2025-community-wide-yom-hashoah-commemoration/.
