Josef "Joža" Karas (May 3, 1926 – November 28, 2008) was a Polish-born Czech-American musician and teacher who located and made public music composed by inmates who worked at the Nazi concentration camp Theresienstadt during

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. He was the author of ''Music in Terezín 1941-1945'' (1985).

Biography

Born May 3, 1926, in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, to Christian parents, Karas emigrated to the United States in 1948 via

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and

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. A violinist and music historian by vocation, he taught at the Hartt School of Music for more than 50 years. He also performed with the Hartford Symphony Orchestra until his retirement in 2006. He spent years searching for the World War II era musical compositions made by Jews in the

Nazi concentration camps From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany operated more than a thousand concentration camps (), including subcamp (SS), subcamps on its own territory and in parts of German-occupied Europe. The first camps were established in March 1933 immediately af ...

."Joža Karas - Revived Musical Works From Nazi Camps"
/ref> In 1970, he read that some musical compositions and fragments had been found at the Terezin concentration camp and been donated to

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

's Jewish State Museum, including a version of Hans Krasa's children's opera, '' Brundibar'', which was performed at Terezin many times between September 1943 and October 1944. Along with his string quartet friend classical music radio host Ivor Hugh, he created a television special about this music that ABC broadcast in 1970. He conducted the

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n premiere of '' Brundibar'' in

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

in 1975 and the

English language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

premiere in 1977 after he and his first wife, the former Milada Javora (died 1974), translated the opera into English. In 1993, Channel Classics recorded his version as part of its ''Composers From Theresienstadt'' series. Joža Karas died in Bloomfield, Connecticut, on November 28, 2008, aged 82.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Karas, Joza 1926 births 2008 deaths 20th-century American educators American male violinists American people of Czech descent Polish emigrants to the United States Musicians from Warsaw People from Bloomfield, Connecticut University of Hartford Hartt School faculty 20th-century American violinists 20th-century American male musicians