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The Calgary
Herald
Supplement
Your City The Community weekly
Thursday April 12, 2001
GRAEME MORTON
YOUR CITY
A song can brighten your day, tell your story and share your pain.
A song can also keep you alive in the most catastrophic, the most
barbarous of conditions.
That spirit, embodied in the story of her grandmother, is being
captured by city mezzo-soprano Faye Sidorsky, who performs under her Hebrew name, Tsepora.
"I was born a Jew and I'm very proud of my heritage,"
says the classica1ly-trained vocalist. "I was singing to a congregation at a synagogue recently and I experienced
such an incredible feeling of inner peace. People came up to me at the end of the service and said how much my music
meant to them. I guess you could say this is my calling."
Tsepora will launch a nationwide concert tour Thursday, May 3 at
Calgary's Beth Tzedec Synagogue. It will coincide with the release of her CD titled A Timeless Journey Through
Jewish Song.
Much of the inspiration for Tsepora's musical passion comes from
her grandmother, Eva Davis, who turned 80 last month. The bond between the tall, dark-haired young woman and her petite,
eloquent grandma spans the years and speaks to the heart.
Davis survived the horrors of the notorious Auschwitz/Birkenau
concentration camp during the Holocaust, the only member of her family who did not die at the hands of the Nazis.
"I was 22 or 23 when I was in Auschwitz. One day, about 2,000
of the young women in the camp were herded into this area. They made us take all our clothes off to disinfect them and
there was a great deal of crying and hysteria," Davis recalls in her strong, steady voice.
"I started singing, just trying to do something to calm the
situation and lift our spirits. The camp commandant heard me and called out for whoever was singing to step forward.
I was petrified, because I didn't know if I'd be killed there on the spot. But I guess he recognized something valuable
in my voice and he began to have me perform," says Davis.
For her musical talents, Davis was given somewhat larger rations of
food than other prisoners received, food she shared with those in her area. There's no telling how many people Davis
helped stay alive with that extra sustenance.
In a surreal situation, this young Jewish woman found herself
singing Silent Night to a gathering of her German captors on a wintry Christmas Eve in 1944.
"Looking back, it's kind of amazing to remember the way I was
able to sing when my stomach was empty and I had no idea what had happened to my family. I sang for my life. Sometimes it
was the only thing that kept hope alive that I'd get out of there," Davis says.
"I can almost see myself with her there when she’s told me
her stories about the concentration camps," says Tsepora, who toured Auschwitz two years ago.
"Most
grannies tell little ones fairy tales. I'm afraid I told Faye
other kinds of tales," adds Davis.
Davis, whose
maiden name was Taub, was later assigned to a "distribution
centre", where she was put to work sorting through the
belongings seized from Jews being continually crammed into the
hell that was Auschwitz. Valuable items were to be forwarded to
German families who had suffered losses during bombing raids.
Davis did her best to smuggle useful items like gloves back to
others in the camp, sometimes enduring beatings at the hands of
female guards.
The supreme
irony of Davis' story is that she was discouraged from singing
as a child.
"She came
from what was a very traditional, very orthodox Jewish
upbringing in Transylvania (present day Romania), where girls
weren't encouraged or expected to sing anywhere outside the
home," says Tsepora. "She had this wonderful voice
which sort of lay dormant for years. In the end, it saved her
life."
"When I
sang in the camps, I was in my own little world. I was able to
block out the pain and the horror for a little while," says
Davis. "I told myself if I ever got out of this and had a
family, I'd do everything I could to encourage my children to
sing. And now Faye has this wonderful gift. I guess it just
skipped a generation."
Tsepora hopes
her concert tour and CD will continue the rich legacy of Jewish
music.
"I'm trying
to cover a broad range of material, from sacred Hebrew music
that goes back hundreds of years to folk songs that tell stories
of mothers rocking their babies to sleep.
"What’s
really rewarding is when an older person will come up to me
after a concert and say, 'I remember that song from my childhood
but I haven't heard it for 60 years. Thank you,' "says
Tsepora, whose name in Hebrew translates to "singing
bird".
Advance tickets
for Tsepora's concert ($10) are avai1able at the city's Jewish
Centre and Jewish Academy. They'll also be on sale at the door
or by calling 271-1854, with a portion of the proceeds going to
Jewish charities.
"You could
say I was Faye's first music teacher. I suppose I coached her on
a couple of songs," says Davis with a self-effacing smile.
"She never
lost her faith despite enduring the ultimate hell. She is truly
my inspiration," replies Tsepora.
When her granddaughter steps into the spotlight
at the Beth Tzedec Synagogue next month, Eva Davis will be in
the front row of seats. She has some problems with her
hearing these days but the musical bond the two share will
surely soar above any physical limitations.
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