A Tiny Teardrop

Music Centre Slovakia presents the new book by Agata Schindler, the result of a unique research she has been conducting for over twenty years in archives all over the world. The book takes a look at the life stories of six musicians and a ballet dancer, all from former Czechoslovakia; their fight for bare life and their love for art. Of those who came back from concentration camps, some managed to begin to live again and transform their harrowing experiences into a force that helped them to forget; others, however, withdrew from life because their vital energy had been spent in the effort to survive. Agata has masterfully palpated the pulse of each and every selected artist. How sensitive she is, how perceptive, and with what human depth she tells their tales, is up to the reader to judge. Her book is a memorial dedicated to the artists who, for nothing else but their Jewishness, were subject to unspeakable humiliation, unimaginable pain, and death. The book is a huge contribution in keeping these artists alive in the memories of future generations. This bilingual (Slovak-English) edition contains reproductions of documents, photographs, music scores, etc. that make the life stories even more poignant.