Rafael Schächter

After the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939, the Nazi administration began a program of mass incarceration, deportation, and genocide of the 100,000+ Jewish people there, including the establishment of the Theresienstadt ghetto and concentration camp in the Czech town of Terezín.

With his choir, which numbered well in excess of 200 members, he was able to create, often from a single score, productions of famous operas and works of classical music.

[3] Schächter also staged performances of Smetana's opera The Kiss, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute, and Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona.

[4] Schächter also led approximately sixteen performances of Verdi's Requiem and reportedly taught the 150 member choir their parts by rote.

A few months after this final performance, on 16 October 1944, under transport 943,[6] Schächter was loaded into a rail road cattle car with approximately 1,000 other prisoners.