NEWTON, MASS. (WHDH) - A Newton couple have donated a priceless artifact collection to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum featuring items that belonged to Werner Gans, who escaped from Nazi Germany through his musical talent and his parents’ determination.
Lori and Steve Gans donated the items on behalf of Steve’s late father, Werner Gans, who later became one of the Ritchie Boys, a group named for the secret Army camp in the U.S. that served as an intelligence training center during World War II. Several thousand of these soldiers were Jewish refugees who emigrated to the U.S. to escape Nazi persecution.
The collection includes Werner’s cello, which he took with him to Italy after the Nazis came to power in Germany and eventually to Cuba and the United States. The collection also includes some of Werner’s musical compositions.
“The cello remains a powerful symbol of Werner’s escape from Germany, and his discovery as a young refugee in Cuba, and the key to his and his parents’ ultimate arrival and safe harbor in the USA,” Lori Gans said.
As the survivor generation passes, the Museum is in a race against time to rescue the evidence of the Holocaust. The Museum’s collection of record of the Holocaust documents the fate of Holocaust victims, survivors, rescuers, liberators, and others through artifacts, documents, photos, films, books, personal stories and more.
Werner Ganss (later Gans) was born in Mannheim, Germany, on May 22, 1923. His parents, Moritz and Bella, owned a chemicals business, Ganss Fabrik. Werner was a musical prodigy from an early age. As Hitler was rising to power and Werner began experiencing antisemitism at school, his parents decided in 1936 to send him to Milan so that the 13-year-old could continue his cello studies. Initially, Werner’s family believed that Nazi persecution would eventually pass, but in May 1937, Moritz and Bella were convicted and jailed for breaking the Nazis’ anti-Jewish laws. Their offense: they had set up a Christian-named firm to act as a middleman for their business. As a result, they were forced to sell their business at a fraction of its worth.
In October 1938, the Ganss family escaped from Germany and sailed to Cuba on the SS Orinoco. Upon arrival in Havana, they were initially interned on the island of Tiscornia before being assisted by the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (now known as HIAS).
Werner was able to join the Havana Symphony Orchestra and met a pianist who recommended him as a scholarship student to Joseph Malkin, the head of the Malkin Conservatory of Music in Boston. In 1939, 16-year-old Werner was able to travel to the U.S. on a student visa to study music.
His parents joined him more than a year later in the fall of 1940. In March 1943, despite his forthcoming graduation from the conservatory and his scheduled solo debut with the Boston Pops in late spring, Werner was drafted into the U.S. Army. After basic training, he was sent to Fort Ritchie, near Cascade, Md., for training in military intelligence and remained stateside. He was stationed in the top-secret P.O. Box 1142 (at Fort Hunt, Va.), where as a Ritchie Boy, he interrogated prisoners of war and high-ranking German officers.
The Museum recognized the unique role the Ritchie Boys played serving the United States and advancing Allied victory over Germany with the 2022 Elie Wiesel Award, the institution’s highest honor.
After the end of the war, Werner became part of an Army ensemble of classical musicians who were based in Boston.
“My appreciation of and love for music have never diminished,” said Werner Gans in his memoir “Ten Years – A Lifetime.” “I feel very fortunate that my parents introduced and exposed me to music – the universal language – without which my life could never be complete.”
“Had it not been for his musical talent, my dad might never have made it to this country,” said Steve Gans. “To this day, I marvel at the way in which our father moved forward with his life without anger, never losing faith in humanity. We are immensely proud of his resilience and strength of character despite all that he overcame in his life. And we feel, especially at this fraught time for Jews around the world, that this is an important legacy to honor and celebrate.”
Werner Gans passed away in 2012 at 89 years old. In 2024, Lori and Steve officially donated his artifacts to the Museum.
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