Johanna Spector (1915-2008. Ghetto- und KZ.-Lieder aus Lettland und Litauen. Aufgezeichnet, gesammelt, erklärt und mit Begleitet versehen. [Ghetto and Concentration Camp Songs from Latvia and Lithuania: Recorded, Collected, Explained, and Provided with Accompaniment.  Vienna: American Joint Distribution Committee, 1947.

8vo. 15 songs with music. Original blue illustrated wrappers.  FIRST EDITION, FIRST PRINTING. 

Very rare and important work of musicology documenting 15 songs from the Jewish ghettos and those condemned to the concentration camps. Dating between 1939 and 1945 in Yiddish and German, the songs are presented with lyrics, musical notation, and an explanation of their origin and interpretation by the author.  

Joanna Spector was herself a Holocaust survivor who dedicated herself to the study of Jewish music. This early work captures important songs of resistance and solidarity in the face of annihilation. The collection, one of the earliest such to be published, is dedicated to those who died in the camps. The American Joint Distribution Committee was founded in 1914 to support the Jewish diaspora and helped aid Jews fleeing Europe during the War. In the immediate aftermath, it provided relief to Holocaust survivors and the remaining Jewish communities in Europe. 

Spector later immigrated to the United States and earned her doctorate at Hebrew Union College. She served as the founding director of the Jewish Theological Seminary College of Music's ethnomusicology department, devoting her career to discovering and preserving rare Jewish musical traditions from around the globe. 

RARE. Only 2 copies have sold at auction. OCLC locates only 16 copies. Especially rare to find in the American market. 

[World War II, WWII,  FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Adolf Hitler, Allied, Axis, George S. Patton, Air Force] [Booklets, Pamphlets, Ephemera] [Judaica, Holocaust, Jewish History, Jewish Music, Ethnomusicology]