Herman Berlinski
| Herman Berlinski | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
18 August 1910 Leipzig, Germany |
| Died | 27 September 2001 (aged 91) Washington, D.C., U.S.A. |
| Cause of death | Heart attack and stroke |
| Occupation | Composer, organist, musicologist and choir conductor |
| Spouse(s) | Sina Berlinski (née Goldfein) |
| Children | David Berlinski |
| Parent(s) | Boris and Deborah Wygodzki Berlinski |
Herman Berlinski (18 August 1910 – 27 September 2001) was a German-born American composer, organist, pianist, musicologist and choir conductor.
Herman Berlinski's parents, Boris and Deborah Wygodzki Berlinski, were Jews who lived originally in Łódź (then located in the Russian Empire following the 1815 Congress of Vienna, and now a city of Poland). With civil and political unrest well underway in Russia by 1905, growing discontent in Poland against the Russian rule led to many uprisings, the largest of which, commonly called the June Days Uprising or the 1905 Łódź insurrection, took place in that same year.
At that point, the Berlinskis fled to Leipzig, where they remained after the end of World War I, for although Poland was reconstituted in 1918, turmoil between Poland and the Soviet States of Russia and the Ukraine continued until early 1921 as Russia attempted to reclaim the territory that had belonged to it in the days of the empire. Furthermore, by contrast with the relative poverty he had experienced working as a factory labourer in Łódź, Boris Berlinski had been able to gain a stable income in Leipzig from haberdashery.
In any case, as Poland had regained its independent statehood, the Berlinskis retained their Polish nationality rather than facing the increasingly difficult task foreigners had in gaining German citizenship at that time, and with success made even less likely because they were Jews. In fact there was a strong probability, based on the experience of others, that the German authorities would classify them as "stateless", thereby stripping them of any citizenship and eliminating any rights they had as foreigners legally resident in the country.
Herman Berlinski, born there on 18 August 1910, was the last of six children. They were brought up in the Ashkenazic tradition of Orthodox Judaism and they spoke Yiddish at home. Their mother arranged piano lessons for each of them, Herman's starting at age six. He was educated at the Ephraim Carlebach School, Leipzig's only Jewish school at that time.
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