I have read a few books about the Holocaust but Sing, Memory is something quite different.

Focussing on the life of Aleksander Kulisiewicz, a non-Jewish Pole, this tells the story of his life before, during and after World War 2. He was imprisoned in the notorious concentration camp Sachsenhausen and paints a disturbing and vivid picture of the horrors he and other prisoners had to endure from being forced to take part in 'sport', to back-breaking work and endless hours of roll call.

In Sachsenhausen, music and singing were forbidden unless used as a form of punishment however, this didn't stop a secret choir being formed and led by conductor Rosebery d’Arguto, a Polish Jew. Aleksander became friends with Rosebery and as a result of Aleksander's amazing ability to memorise songs, Rosebery asked him to memorise his songs and ensure they are shared with the world after the war.

This became Aleksander's mission - to meticulously memorise songs from all the camp inmates and ensure that he survived so they would not be forgotten. After 6 long years of captivity, Aleksander was free however, his promise to those that did not survive was to become his life's work but also an obsession which, along with the horrendous experiences he endured, affected him and those around him deeply.

Sing, Memory is a detailed story written from meticulous research undertaken by the author with the help of a lot of other people and is a remarkable story of one man's mission to ensure a part of history is told and not forgotten.

Thank you to W.W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for enabling me to read and share my thoughts of Sing, Memory.

This is a solid but somewhat plodding account of Jewish music-making in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp during WWII. Eyre focuses first on Rosebery d’Arguto, a professional musician who organized and led choruses and instrumentalists in performing newly-composed songs. D'Arguto died in the camp, but one of his fellow prisoners was Aleksander Kulisiewicz, a non-Jew who appears to have had an exceptional memory for lyrics, and, one assumes, melody and harmony. Kulisiewicz remembered hundreds of songs composed in the cap, which he dictated after being freed. Eyre focuses on the lyrics far more than the rest of the music, but then this is a book for general readers, not musicians or music scholars. She also follows Kulisiewicz's life after the liberation of the camps, in which he never recovered from the trauma he suffered. The emphasis on lyrics is a little unbalancing, especially as there are no musical examples or links to musical examples to actually hear the pieces, and the writing is a often uneven, but I'm sure plenty of people will find the story inspiring.

Sing, Memory is unsettling, poignant, heart breaking and gut wrenching true story of non-Jewish Polish Aleksander Kulisiewicz and his harrowing accounts of surviving the horrors of death camps, particularly Sachsenhausen. Though I have read countless books about the Holocaust and killing camp survival, this one is one of the most striking, raw and emotive. Author Makana Eyre has meticulously researched and gathered copious amounts of notes, songs, lyrics, poetry, sketches, prisoner diaries, letters, memoirs, manuscripts and even paintings of the musical life in camps and compiled them into this brutal yet achingly beautiful book.

Aleksander (Aleks) describes daily survival in Sachsenhausen in minute detail from the most dire of humiliation, mental and physical agony and anguish imaginable and unimaginable. What innocent prisoners endured is nauseating and crushing and the author captures it starkly and vividly. Music kept amateur singer/writer Aleks alive during his nearly six nightmarish years. While performing horrific duties, being tortured, starved and standing for endless roll calls, his mind went to composing music and lyrics and he zoned out. His goal was to memorize and recount music from other talents all over camps who were desperate to have their stories told, mostly in music. He kept his promise which later resulted in thousands and thousands of pages of transcribed information.

The secret Jewish choir of Sachsenhausen was formed and led by Rosebery d'Arguto but ripped apart and the members were dealt with brutally. Rosebery was not heard from again. Aleks promised Rosebery he would collect and memorize memories of prisoners. In various cell blocks he sang about misery, sadness and sorrow but also used satire and sang hopeful songs about freedom and love. Years later, he sang with such animation and passion he rendered audiences speechless. He became so obsessed with gathering memories even after liberation that he was in a constant anxious state of reliving camp experiences, suffering terribly.

The author writes about Aleksander's life after liberation until his death. Sing, Memory is very difficult to read but crucial information to know and remember. If only Mr. Kulisiewicz knew how much his work touches people, including myself. I am grateful stories such as these are researched and told.

My sincere thank you to W. W. Norton & Company and NetGalley for the honour of reading this extraordinary and highly important book. It should be required reading for everyone. Absolutely unforgettable.

Though I’ve read innumerable books about the Holocaust, I never came across the name Aleksander Kulisiewicz. After reading Sing, Memory, his name and his memory deserve much wider recognition.

Alecs was a non Jewish Polish citizen and a musician also blessed with a phenomenal memory. He was in his early twenties when he was sent by the Nazis to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, One of the torments he suffered at the hands of the Nazis was being forced to sing, along with his camp mates, various German songs, and beatings were inflicted if the songs weren’t sung correctly. To counter his suffering, he, in his head, would sing songs of his native land.

His life changed when he met Rosebery d’Arguto, a Pole and well known musicologist, who had moved to Germany and was the conductor of a choir., until he lost his post because he was Jewish. Rosenbery knew that music alleviated the torments of the camp, and secretly created a Jewish men’s choir, an act forbidden by the Nazis. Rosebery created original choral music for the choir, and asked Alecs to remember the music and publicize it after the war. Rosebery and members of the choir lost their lives when a choir rehearsal was discovered by the camp guards.

As a result, Alecs decided he needed to preserve all the camp songs, and he secretly memorized all the songs created by the camp inmates. After the war, he made it his mission to get the music out into the world, and the author brilliantly describes his efforts. Until reading this book, I had no idea that Alecs recorded an album of the camp music in 1979 while in the US. After his death, his voluminous files and audio tapes languished until they were obtained by the the US Holocaust museum.

Sing, Memory is one of the most unique historical books about the Holocaust that I’ve ever read. For me, it shed much needed light on an unrecognized and forgotten hero of that awful period. Well written and incredibly detailed, it is a work that will have a distinguished place on my bookshelf.

My thanks to the publisher and to Netgalley for providing an ARC of this remarkable book.