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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

Literature:

Huberman, Bronislav (sic!), in: Österreichisches biographisches Lexikon 1815-1950, volume 2, instalment 10, Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1959, page 445 f.

Riemann Musik-Lexikon, Personenteil A-K, Mainz 1959, page 833

Władysław Hordyński: Huberman (Hubermann) Bronisław, in: Polski słownik biograficzny, volume 10, page 77 f., Wrocław and others 1962-64

Huberman, Bronislaw, in: Biographisches Handbuch der deutschsprachigen Emigration nach 1933 / International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945, München and others 1983, page 544 f., digital version: https://www.degruyter.com/viewbooktoc/product/53124

Berta Geissmar: Musik im Schatten der Politik (1945). Foreword and comments by Fred K. Prieberg, 4th edition, Zurich 1985

Barbara von der Lühe: Vom Orchester der Einwanderer zu einer nationalen Musikinstitution Israels. Die ersten Jahre des Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, in: Das Orchester. Magazine for Orchestra Culture and Radio Choirs, 41st edition, Mainz, October 1993, pages 1046-1053

Barbara von der Lühe: “Ich bin Pole, Jude, freier Künstler und Paneuropäer.” The violinist Bronislaw Huberman, in: Das Orchester. Zeitschrift für Orchesterkultur und Rundfunk-Chorwesen, 45th edition, Issue 10, Mainz 1997, pages 8-13

Barbara von der Lühe: Die Musik war unsere Rettung. Die deutschsprachigen Gründungsmitglieder des Palestine Orchestra. With a foreword by Ignatz Bubis = Series of scientific essays of the Leo-Baeck-Instituts, Vol. 58, Tübingen 1998

Piotr Szalsza: Bronisław Huberman. Czyli Pasje i namiętności zapomnianego geniusza. Monografia muzyczna skrzypka-wirtuoza, Częstochowa: Muzeum Częstochowskie, 2001

Friedemann Eichhorn: Huberman, Bronisław, in: Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik, Personenteil, Vol. 9, Kassel 2002, column 452 f.

Marian Fuks: Doskonałość i uduchowienie. Bronisław Huberman (1882-1947), in: Księga sławnych muzyków pochodzenia żydowskiego, Poznań 2003, page 152-154

Barbara von der Lühe: „Lieber Freund …“ Zur Kontroverse zwischen Bronislaw Huberman und Wilhelm Furtwängler um das nationalsozialistische Deutschland, in: Exil 1933-1945 = Exil. Forschung, Erkenntnisse, Ergebnisse, 24th Edition, No. 1, Frankfurt am Main 2004, page 70-75; Die Kunst im Dritten Reich. Hubermans Verzicht. – Correspondence with Wilhelm Furtwängler (= Copy of the article from the Prager Tagblatt dated 13 September 1933), page 76-78

Hans-Wolfgang Platzer: Bronislaw Huberman und das Vaterland Europa. Ein Violinvirtuose als Vordenker der europäischen Einigungsbewegung in den 1920er und 1930er Jahren = Cinteus. An Interdisciplinary Series of the Centre for Intercultural and European Studies. Fulda University of Applied Sciences, Vol. 17, Stuttgart 2019

Piotr Szalsza: Bronisław Huberman. Leben und Leidenschaften eines vergessenen Genies, aus dem Polnischen von Joanna Ziemska und Team, Vienna 2020

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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