The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany

by William L. Shirer

For there was light music. An orchestra of “young and pretty girls all dressed in white blouses and navy-blue skirts,” as one survivor remembered, had been formed from among the inmates. While the selection was being made for the gas chambers this unique musical ensemble played gay tunes from The Merry Widow and Tales of Hoffmann. Nothing solemn and somber from Beethoven. The death marches at Auschwitz were sprightly and merry tunes, straight out of Viennese and Parisian operetta. To such music, recalling as it did happier and more frivolous times, the men, women and children were led into the “bath houses,” where they were told to undress preparatory to taking a “shower.”