January 1933, when Hitler came into power, the piano score of our opera The Silent Woman was as good as finished and the first act practically orchestrated. A few weeks later a strict order was issued to German theaters not to produce any works by non-aryans or even such in which a Jew had merely participated. This comprehensive ban reached even to the dead and to the indignation of music lovers everywhere the statue of Mendelssohn in front of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig was removed.
