Comments on: A good day for prodigies http://www.historiann.com/2008/02/10/a-good-day-for-prodigies/ History and sexual politics, 1492 to the present Sun, 19 May 2013 19:15:19 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4 By: rootlesscosmo http://www.historiann.com/2008/02/10/a-good-day-for-prodigies/comment-page-1/#comment-359 rootlesscosmo Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:59:15 +0000 http://www.historiann.com/2008/02/10/a-good-day-for-prodigies/#comment-359 When the Nazis occupied Prague, an official, recalling that there were statuary heads of famous composers on the roof of the opera house, sent two soldiers to remove the head of "the Jew Mendelssohn." (He was, of course, a lifelong, very devout Lutheran.) Once on the roof, they couldn't recognize any of the heads, so to be on the safe side, they went after the one with the biggest nose; only the timely intervention of a superior stopped them destroying the head of Wagner. This story is basis for the title of Jiri Weil's <i>Mendelssohn is on the Roof</i> http://www.powells.com/s?kw=mendelssohn+is+on+the+roof&x=0&y=0 which is mostly a very dark account of life and death in the "transient camp" at Terezin. When the Nazis occupied Prague, an official, recalling that there were statuary heads of famous composers on the roof of the opera house, sent two soldiers to remove the head of “the Jew Mendelssohn.” (He was, of course, a lifelong, very devout Lutheran.) Once on the roof, they couldn’t recognize any of the heads, so to be on the safe side, they went after the one with the biggest nose; only the timely intervention of a superior stopped them destroying the head of Wagner.

This story is basis for the title of Jiri Weil’s Mendelssohn is on the Roof

http://www.powells.com/s?kw=mendelssohn+is+on+the+roof&x=0&y=0

which is mostly a very dark account of life and death in the “transient camp” at Terezin.

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