Learning Disguised as Play: Children's Music Education in the Terezín Ghetto During the Holocaust

With Amanda Greenbacker-Mitchell ’17, G’22

While the musical activities of adults in Terezín have been well-documented, the musical experiences of children in the ghetto remain largely unexplored. This talk bridges that critical gap in our understanding of life in Theresienstadt.

Drawing from her dissertation research, Professor Amanda Greenbacker-Mitchell ’17, G’22 examines the nature of children's music engagement while imprisoned in the Terezín (Theresienstadt) ghetto during the Holocaust between 1941 and 1945. Specifically, she elucidates the ways children engaged with music in Terezín, and categorizes those experiences into formal, non-formal, and informal music engagement practices.

This research offers valuable insights for scholars and practitioners in music education, general education, and Holocaust history. Through examining the nature of music engagement in Terezín, we may better understand the daily lives of young people in the ghetto, the creation of educational infrastructures in unstable circumstances, and the rationale and practices of music education under perilous conditions.

Associated Events

• Performance: This film screening is part of a series of residency events in support of the Syracuse Orchestra and Syracuse University Oratorio Society's performance of Defiant Requiem.
• Film Screening: A free screening of Defiant Requiem: A Documentary Film Honoring the Prisoners of Terezín, with special guest Maestro Murry Sidlin.

Co-sponsors

College of Visual Arts and Performing Arts, School of Education Minor in Atrocity Studies and the Practices of Social Justice, and Syracuse University Humanities Center.

About Amanda Greenbacker-Mitchell ’17, G’22

Amanda Greenbacker-Mitchell  ’17, G’22 is Assistant Professor of Music Education, Director of the Wind Ensemble, and Music Education Area Head at Northeastern Illinois University.

Greenbacker-Mitchell has presented her research at state, national, and international conferences, including the upcoming Holocaust Educational Foundation of Northwestern University (HEFNU) Lessons and Legacies Emerging Scholars Conference in Worcester, MA (2025), the National Association for Research in Music Education Music Research and Teacher Education National Conference in Atlanta, Georgia (2024), the International Society for Music Education conference in Helsinki, Finland (2024), and the International Association of Genocide Scholars in association with the Educators Institute for Human Rights Alliance Against Genocide Summer Conference (2024). 

Her research interests include historical research in music education, music learning practices within the context of human atrocities, social and historical contextualization of learning practices, interdisciplinary methodologies in music education, preservice music teacher education, and Holocaust music history and education.

She earned degrees from the University of Missouri (Ph.D., Music Education) and Syracuse University (M.Mus., Wind Conducting; B.Mus., Music Education). She served as a teaching assistant for both the Syracuse and Missouri band programs, and while at Syracuse, she was awarded the Chancellor’s Citation for Excellence in Student Research for her interdisciplinary music performance curriculum written on behalf of the 
 (Washington, DC).

Greenbacker-Mitchell is an active conductor, clinician, and adjudicator, having worked with bands across the United States. She is a passionate guest lecturer on the repertoire, circumstances, and musicians affected by the Holocaust, presenting on music as a sociopolitical mechanism of the Holocaust.