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hiding in the spotlight

by Greg Dawson

A pianist’s survival under a borrowed identity

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AlbakiReads Editorial

A pianist’s survival under a borrowed identity

Zhanna’s early musical promise and advanced conservatory training are set against the Nazi invasion of Ukraine in 1941. After escaping an execution with her family, she moves through the countryside under a new identity, carrying a Chopin score and the command to stay alive. Her piano playing then places her in an unsettling position: she performs for Nazi forces while remaining fearful of being recognized. The account connects music, persecution, and survival, with 12 black-and-white photographs included.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in biographies centered on music and survival
  • Those seeking accounts of Jewish experience during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine
  • Readers interested in the role of classical music in wartime circumstances

Themes

Music and performanceJewish persecution during the Nazi invasionSurvival and assumed identity

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

By the age of six, Zhanna had developed a repertoire fellow students twice her age would envy. Scholarships to the most prestigious conservatories in the Soviet Union soon followed?conservatories that had produced legends like Rachmaninoff, Kogan, and Horowitz.

In 1941 disaster strikes. The Nazi Army is smashing through the Ukraine en route to Moscow. Zhanna and her family are to be executed alongside thousands of others in the ravines of Drobitsky Yar. A few short miles from certain death, her father bribes a nearby guard, and she escapes into the forest with only the clothes on her back, a copy of Chopin's Fantasy Impromptu in her pocket, and her father's parting words echoing in her head: "I don't care what you do, just live."

Adopting a new identity and ever fearful of recognition, Zhanna roamed the ravaged countryside. One lonely evening, the head of a local Nazi battalion hears her play. he is so taken with her exquisite interpretation of Chopin that little Zhanna soon becomes the performing darling of the Nazi forces. 12 black-and-white photographs

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