Born in Krakow in 1919. Died in Vienna in 1994. Between those two dates there lies the life, the fate of a survivor.
A Polish Jew or a Jewish Pole? After the German fascist troops marched into Poland on 1 September 1939, that rather speculative distinction was no longer of any importance: Roman Haubenstock-Ramati’s family had to flee.
Before the Soviet Union eventually joined up with the Allied Forces, the composer was arrested and banished a number of times. After his abrupt release, he tried in vain to join the Free Polish Army: he contracted typhoid fever. One of the few to recover, Haubenstock-Ramati reached Palestine via Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Iran.
