Auschwitz survivor and jazz guitarist Coco Schumann dies aged 93
Death of swing musician who survived two camps was announced by his record label Trikont this week
Jazz guitarist Heinz Jakob “Coco” Schumann, who survived Nazi concentration camps to return to his musical career in Berlin after the Second World War, has died aged 93.
His record label Trikont said Schumann died on Sunday in Berlin, according to reports.
Schumann made a name for himself as a young musician in Berlin’s underground jazz and swing scene in the 1930s.
He was arrested in 1943 after authorities learned his mother was Jewish, and he was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in German-occupied Czechoslovakia.
There, he played in a band known as the “Ghetto Swingers” before being transferred to Auschwitz in 1944, where he played music to entertain guards.
After the war he emigrated to Australia, before returning to Berlin in the mid-1950s and re-establishing his career.
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