Enlightenment and Boogie-Woogie

Rudi Gelbard during his speech at the anti-academic ball rally of “Set a Mark Now” on January 30, 2015

The majority of Jewish children born in 1930 living in Europe were murdered by the Nazis. Few survived the persecution and the Shoah. And even fewer Jewish children born in 1930 survived with their parents. These children included Rudi Gelbard from Vienna and Monique Serf from Paris. Monique Serf survived hidden in the heart of France, Rudi Gelbard escaped the Theresienstadt concentration camp. After the liberation, Monique Serf became a singer and world famous as Barbara. She found meaning in life and a kind of joy in life in the chanson, in her beloved audience, in the restless everyday life of her countless tours and concerts. “La joie de vivre”, the joy of life, as one of her most famous chansons says, always comes just as surprisingly after the “mal de vivre”, after the bad surprises, the grief, the suffering, the pain of life.

Barbara survived as a submarine thanks to the solidarity of the residents of Préaux, Tarbes, Grenoble and Saint-Marcellin. Many people had risked their lives to hide the ten-year-old. When the Germans came, when there was a raid, there was always a safe broom closet or a niche where you remained undetected. There were also officials who issued false documents and there was food and supplies. Many of Barbara's chansons seek reconciliation, reaching out to overcome the despair and sadness that are also sung about. And Barbara found an audience who took her hand and found themselves in her songs. Far beyond the borders of France.

To describe his own life motto, Rudi Gelbard often quoted from Simon Wiesenthal's autobiography “Law, not revenge”.

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