Composer and conductor Leo Geyer sheds light on the horrors of the Holocaust through recovered manuscripts. For 80 years, the haunting melodies of Auschwitz lay buried in silence, hidden among the archives of one of history’s darkest chapters. Now, for the first time, this lost music – composed by prisoners – will be heard again, thanks to the extraordinary efforts of British composer Leo Geyer.
![[Music from the inmates at the Nazi camp will be played for the first time]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/20/14/19_TLMOA.jpg)
A new documentary, The Lost Music of Auschwitz follows the journey of composer and conductor Geyer on a ten-year mission to piece together fragments of musical manuscripts found in the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum. The film, commissioned by Sky Arts, commemorates the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camp from the Nazis. Over one million people were killed at Auschwitz as the horrors of the Holocaust unfolded.
![[Conductor and composer Leo Geyer came across the lost during a trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau museum]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/20/16/15_TLMOA.jpg)
Inmates were forced to compose and perform for SS officers as victims marched to their deaths, with survival often depending on the strength of their musical talent. Featuring interviews with some of the last remaining survivors of the genocide and the Auschwitz orchestra, Geyer reveals how musicians rebelled with secret melodies and forbidden notes hidden within the music.
![[The 33-year-old composer has spent ten years putting the work together]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/20/16/Leo-new-1111.jpg)
Geyer, 33, first came across the lost archive when he was commissioned to write a composition in memory of Sir Martin Gilbert, a Holocaust historian. “I went on a research trip to Auschwitz,” he told The Independent. “I wasn’t expecting to discover anything other than a greater understanding of the Holocaust, particularly as I’m not Jewish, Polish, Romani, or indeed descended from any other group or person who perished in Auschwitz. But I did know something about the orchestras of Auschwitz, as most classical musicians do.”.
