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Bronisław Huberman: From child prodigy to resistance fighter against National Socialism

Today, Bronisław Huberman (1882-1947), who in his day was the most famous Polish violinist in the world and who lived and gave concerts in Germany during the First World War and the 1920s, is largely known to the wider public as the founder of the Palestine Orchestra, which later gave rise to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Thanks to the orchestra that he founded in Tel-Aviv in 1936, Huberman managed to help between six hundred and one thousand Jewish musicians and their families from all around Europe emigrate to the British mandated territory of Palestine and, in doing so, saved them from the Holocaust. As a violinist, he was more or less forgotten after his death. In 2012, a documentary by the director Josh Aronson was released entitled “Orchestra of Exiles”, which retold the history of the orchestra and Huberman’s own story, and found international acclaim.

 

Bronisław Huberman, ca. 1928. Unknown photographer, Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection, Washington, DC
Bronisław Huberman, ca. 1928. Unknown photographer, Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection, Washington, DC
©
Public Domain

Huberman did, however, intend to appear with the Palestine Orchestra in the following concert season, in autumn 1937. But when his plane crash landed on the island of Sumatra during a tour of Australia and Asia at the beginning of October 1937, Huberman suffered such severe injuries to both arms that he was unable to appear. He did not return to making music with the orchestra that he had founded until December 1938 when he appeared under the leadership of the Hungarian conductor Eugen Szenkar (1891-1977). Szenkar was also a victim of the political situation in Europe. In 1924, the principal conductor of the Cologne Opera had been removed from office by the National Socialists and had fled to Vienna. Invited to Moscow in 1934, where he had led the State Philharmonic Orchestra since that time, he was expelled from Russia in 1937 during the Stalinist purges. In 1938/39, he led the fourth subscription concerts of the Palestine Orchestra and four concerts in Cairo and Alexandria during the second Egypt tour.

Huberman also carried out guest appearances in numerous European cities. In February and March 1940, he travelled to be “his” orchestra for the last time and together they gave concerts in Palestine and Egypt. The course of the war meant that he was unable to return to Switzerland from a concert tour to South Africa, travelling instead to the US in August 1940. There he continued to give concerts until summer 1945. After the end of the Second World War, he fulfilled his concert obligations and completed tours in Europe, the US and Cuba but became so seriously ill after his last public concert in Zurich in April 1946 that he was no longer able to perform. He died on 16 June 1947 in his house in Corsier in the Swiss canton of Waadt. Thanks to his founding of the orchestra, an estimated six hundred people were able to be saved from persecution and death between 1936 and 1939.[52]

After its frantic start, the Palestine Orchestra enjoyed great popularity in Palestine and undertook a tour to Egypt every year. However, when the Second World War broke out, it ran into financial difficulties because foreign conductors stayed away and the local orchestra leaders were unable to convince musicians or audiences to support it. Inevitably, the financial donations from Europe failed to materialise. The tense economic situation meant that most of the orchestra members also had to play in cafés and hotels. Nevertheless, in 1942 and 1943 more than two hundred concerts were still being held per season. The orchestra also released itself from Huberman’s influence. His absence and subsequent ill health meant that he was unable to look after it any more anyway. The funding system of the international trust gradually collapsed because European and American patrons withdrew their patronage. In 1946, the orchestra committee elected by the musicians decided on a new organisational form financed by municipal and state institutions in Palestine. After the state of Israel was created in May 1948, the orchestra was definitively renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra[53] at the beginning of the 1948/49 concert season and is today considered one of the leading ensembles in the world.

 

Axel Feuß, September 2020

 

[52] Von der Lühe 2017 (see Online). The documentary “Orchestra of Exiles“ (2012, see Media) puts that number at around 1,000 Jews who were rescued (min 1:21:05).

[53] Von der Lühe 1993 (see Literature), page 1051 f.

Bronisław Huberman, ca. 1928. Unknown photographer, Library of Congress, George Grantham Bain Collection, Washington, DC
©
Public Domain
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  • Fig. 1: The child prodigy, 1889

    Bronisław Huberman as a seven-year-old, 1889

  • Fig. 2: As a youth, ca. 1895

    Bronisław Huberman at a young age, ca. 1895 Unknown photographer, albumin print, 14.7 x 10.1 cm, Nationalmuseum Warsaw/Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie, Inv. No. DI 103634 MNW

  • Fig. 3: As a fourteen-year-old, 1896

    Bronisław Huberman as a fourteen-year-old, 1896 Photograph by R. Wilhelm, New York, Philip Hale Photograph Collection, Boston Public Library

  • Fig. 4: Bronislaw Huberman, 1900

    Bronisław Huberman as an eighteen-year-old, 1900

  • Fig. 5: Emil Orlik: Huberman, ca. 1915

    Emil Orlik: Portrait of Bronisław Huberman with violin, ca. 1915 Etching, 24.5 x 29.3 cm

  • Fig. 6: Lesser Ury: Huberman, ca. 1916

    Lesser Ury: Portrait of Bronisław Huberman, ca. 1916 pastel on board, 97.2 x 70.7 cm, Jewish Museum Berlin, Inv. No. GHZ 78/1/0

  • Fig. 7: “Vaterland Europa”, 1932

    Bronislaw Huberman: Vaterland Europa, Berlin 1932

  • Fig. 8: Open letter to Furtwängler, 1933

    Open letter from Bronisław Huberman to Wilhelm Furtwängler, Prager Tagblatt from 13 September 1933, Austrian National Library

  • Fig. 9: Einstein meets Huberman, 1936

    The physicist Albert Einstein meets Bronisław Huberman 1936 in his house in Princeton, New Jersey

  • Fig. 10: Toscanini rehearses with the Palestine Orchestra, 1936

    The Palestine Orchestra during a rehearsal under the leadership of Arturo Toscanini, presumably in December 1936
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