At the age of 8, Don Jaffé fled the Nazis on foot with his parents and siblings from Riga (Latvia) to Siberia and survived there.
However, the entire extended family with 70 relatives was murdered.
In Siberia he starved and was the only Jew in school to be beaten bloody every day.
At the end of 1944 he returned to Riga. In 1947, fourteen-year-old Jaffé received his first cello lessons at the music school for particularly gifted children. After just four years, he was the first student to successfully complete his music training at the Riga Conservatory.
After the war, he took a detour to Israel in 1971.
As a highly talented and sought-after cellist, Jaffé taught and played in the Bremen Philharmonic for decades.
He processed his cruel experiences into over 23 emotional, sometimes dark compositions - and to this day, his music serves as a memorial to the victims of the Shoah.

A goosebumps interview with a contemporary witness to the Holocaust.


00:01:26 = Childhood in Latvia & escape to Siberia
00:16:42 = School time in Siberia
00:22:24 = Wartime & return to Riga
00:33:31 = Music college instead of the army
00:37:38 = Israel
00:47:43 = Germany
00:53:29 = Starting as a composer
01:02:26 = Review & my findings

The video with contemporary witness Hans-Erdman Schönbeck can be found here:
   • Er überlebte die Schlacht von Staling...  

#holocaustsurvivor #holocaust #ww2


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About people in portraits:

What connects Hollywood stars, successful entrepreneurs, top athletes, best-selling authors and millionaires with lifesavers or people who have overcome existential or life-threatening crises?

What really counts is not the successes, but the people behind the successes.
Your personal story, your thoughts, your feelings – your strategy and your actions.

The entrepreneur and author Markus Leyacker-Schatzl is the initiator and moderator of People in Portraits.
He has been a learner and seeker all his life - he reads a lot and loves attending good seminars. He was particularly impressed by his stay of several weeks in PLUM VILLAGE (a Buddhist monastery in southern France). Inspired by short personal conversations with Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, the vision slowly matured to start an online TV channel and conduct interviews with interesting personalities whose personal stories inspire.

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