Each Nazi camp appears to have featured its own orchestra complete with the world's best professional musicians. The motive for entertainment for each camp differed. At Westerbork, merriment was meant to suppress the misery experienced by inmates brought on by the inevitable, regular weekly deportation trains. Therefore curtain time for these concerts or stage plays would fall on the Tuesday evening after the dreaded transport to the East had departed. To boost moral, so to speak!

       The last performance was held on 3 August 1944 and in September of that same year the theater troop, including all members of the orchestra, were sent to Theresienstadt. Once in Theresienstadt many were transferred through to Bergen-Belsen, a notorious concentration camp where also Anne Frank and her sister Margot perished. Very few artists survived this ordeal. Only a handful returned to the Netherlands alive.