Holocaust Survivors Founded 10 Years Ago: The Story of a 98-Year-Old Drummer

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Holocaust survivor Saul Dreyer started his own band 10 years ago when he was 88.

The wife and the rabbi called such a decision madness, but this did not stop the husband.

He is currently touring the world with a group of musicians who also survived the Holocaust, writes the Washington Post.

Saul Dreyer grew up in a Jewish family in Krakow. His father was a musician and bought his son a clarinet when he was 8 years old.

Photo: Justyna Kołaczek

When the Nazis took over Poland, they sent a 15-year-old boy to the Krakow-Płaszow concentration camp.

In a few months, when Saul turned 16, he was transferred to a sub-camp at the NKF factory, which specialized in repairing car radiators.

One of the men in Dreyer’s barracks was a cantor – someone who sings liturgical music and leads prayers in the synagogue. He and several other prisoners sang together every night in an improvised choir – they performed traditional Jewish songs.

One evening Dreyer told these boys that they were “missing something.” He took two metal soup spoons and began to create a rhythm that helped the performers.

“That’s how I learned to play the drums”– said 98-year-old Saul Dreyer.

The fear of death hung over the boy and other prisoners of the camp, but music became a salvation for Sol.

Dreyer would later believe that it was music that saved him from death.

Sol Dreyer after the concentration camp. Photo from the family archive

In 1945, the US military freed him from the Mauthausen concentration camp in Nazi-occupied Austria.

Saul tried to find his parents, but they and 25 other members of his family were killed by the Nazis.

Dreyer continued to play drums in the displaced persons camp of Santa Maria di Bagni in southern Italy. There he put down his spoons and played a proper drum kit for the first time. Mostly performed traditional Jewish music, but occasionally played some popular Polish and Italian songs along with other music.

Back to music

In 1949, Saul Dreyer moved to Brooklyn. He became a builder in New Jersey.

The man married a woman named Klara, who also survived the Holocaust. They had 4 children, but Sol forgot about music for almost 60 years.

In 2014, he learned about the death of 110-year-old pianist Alisa Hertz-Sommer, who is considered the oldest survivor of the Holocaust.

Like Dreyer, Herz-Sommer played music when she was incarcerated in the Theresienstadt concentration camp, a transit point for Jews bound for the death and labor camps. But Hertz-Sommer saw music as a tool of redemption.

So at the age of 88 Sol wanted to return to music. He called his wife and said he wanted to do something in honor of the famous pianist. And then he added that he wanted to assemble a band of Holocaust survivors.

“She told me I was crazy”– Sol recalls his wife’s reaction.

Saul Dreyer on stage at the age of 98

He then pitched the idea to his rabbi, who reacted the same way, but that didn’t stop the musician.

Saul Dreyer bought a new drum kit and put together a band – an accordion player, a violinist, a guitarist, a saxophonist and a trumpet player. Participants were Holocaust survivors or children of survivors. Together they formed The Holocaust Survivor Band.

Over 10 years of musical career, the band gave more than 100 concerts all over the world.

Musicians play Jewish folk songs known as klezmer.

Dreyer recently played for President Biden at the White House Hanukkah party. Dreyer performed Hava Nagila, a popular Jewish holiday song, accompanied by the United States Marine Corps Band.

Dreyer noted that he is the only permanent member of the band – some of his former bandmates have died. Therefore, 6-8 musicians – children of Holocaust survivors – usually join the performances.

Despite the fact that Saul Dreyer is almost 100, he believes that his musical career is just beginning. Amid the recent wave of anti-Semitism fueled by the Israel-Gaza war, he feels more motivated to speak out and share his story with anyone than ever before.

“We all have one heart. We should all live together in peace, and that’s what I’m trying to promote.” – he said.

Read also: a 70-year-old doctor from France covered 4,000 km on a bicycle to help Ukrainians

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