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By the autumn of 1944, rumours were reaching the Western allies that the Nazi regime was deporting and murdering Jews in vast numbers. In an attempt to quash these rumours (and to hide the truth), the Nazis made a propaganda film in Terezin concentration camp. They called the film "The F眉hrer builds a city for the Jews" and forced one of the prisoners there - the German Jewish actor and film-maker Kurt Gerron - to direct it. While the reality for Terezin inmates was squalor, overcrowding, disease and eventual deportation to death camps, the highly staged film showed healthy looking people in clean and orderly surroundings doing exercise classes, playing football, eating nourishing food, playing in orchestras and staging opera.

The opera in question was Brundib谩r, a 40-minute piece for children. It had been written just before the war by another Terezin prisoner, the composer Hans Krasa, and was first performed in secret in a Prague orphanage. A score was smuggled into the camp, but the authorities soon saw that it could feed the propaganda story. With their encouragement, 55 performances took place in Terezin involving a cast of imprisoned children plus an orchestra of professional musician inmates. The music of Brundib谩r was simple and direct; skillfully composed for young voices with lots of echoes of Czech folk music. The story concerned a brother and sister who need money to buy milk for their sick mother and decide to busk in the street. But an evil organ grinder, Brundib谩r, tries to drown out their music. A host of children and animals come to the aid of the siblings and the evil man with the moustache is finally defeated. If there is a subtext, it鈥檚 not buried very deeply.

Brundib谩r gave the children involved an alternate reality. One survivor recalled that "one could suddenly sing: there was a dog, and a cat and a school, all things that didn鈥檛 exist in our lives apart from in this children鈥檚 opera鈥�. But the opera was constantly being recast because of illness and the frequent disappearances of those who had been transported. The unbearable reality was that, within weeks of the performances, nearly all of the children had been transported to Auschwitz and murdered, along with Krasa, the composer, and Gerron, the unwilling director of this film full of lies.

This is one of 100 significant musical moments explored by 麻豆社 Radio 3鈥檚 Essential Classics as part of Our Classical Century, a 麻豆社 season celebrating a momentous 100 years in music from 1918 to 2018. Visit bbc.co.uk/ourclassicalcentury to watch and listen to all programmes in the season.

This archive recording features the Nash Ensemble and conductor Lionel Friend.

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