Singing For My Survival: How My Music Saved My Life in the Holocaust   |  March 31, 2020 at 7:00 pm

During the Holocaust, Cantor Moshe Kraus was able to survive the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp thanks to his music. In conversation with radio host John Gormley, hear Cantor Kraus share his extraordinary tale of survival and resilience in the face of unprecedented brutality.

96-year-old Cantor Moshe Kraus was born in Uzhhorod, in what was then Czechoslovakia but is now western Ukraine. The oldest of nine children in a close-knit Hasidic family, he was recognized at a young age as a wunderkind, a child singing sensation. At 18, he became the chief cantor of Sighet, Romania. The late Holocaust survivor and human rights activist Elie Wiesel sang in Cantor Kraus’ choir and was his pupil.

In 1944, at age 22, Kraus found himself in Bergen-Belsen, a Nazi concentration camp in northern Germany. Inevitably, he began to sing, with a repertoire of uplifting songs that made him popular in the barracks, where slaughter and starvation were everyday occurrences.

One day, the camp commandant, Nazi war criminal Josef Kramer — the notorious Beast of Belsen — overheard Kraus singing. When he requested music in German, Cantor Kraus was able to sing the repertoire of Josef Schmidt (a famous Austro-Hungarian tenor popular in Germany) so beautifully that Kramer made sure he was never among the 1,000 Jewish prisoners that were chosen to die every day.

When he was liberated on April 15, 1945, Cantor Kraus was infested with lice and weighed less than 80 pounds.

Cantor Kraus has served as chief cantor in the IDF, Antwerp, Johannesburg, and Mexico City before moving to Ottawa, where he and Rivka, his wife of 68 years, have lived for more than 40 years.

In 2017 he penned his memoir, "The Life of Moshele Der Zinger: How My Music Saved My Life.”

REGULAR ADMISSION: $30 plus gst & service charges
(Day of Show: $40 plus gst & service charges)

SENIORS 65+/STUDENTS: $20 plus gst & service charges
(Day of Show: $30 plus gst & services charges)

PREFERRED SEATING: $45 plus gst & service charges
Includes: Seating first six rows.

SIGNED COPY of Cantor Kraus's book, "Moshele Der Zinger: How My Music Saved My Life."
Admission plus $40

VIP: $100 plus gst & service charges
Includes: Premium seating. Private meet-and-greet after the talk. Personal photo with Cantor Kraus. Signed and personalized copy of "Moshele Der Zinger."

Doors open at 6:00PM.