In 1943 German SS officers in charge of Auschwitz-Birkenau ordered that an orchestra should be formed among the female prisoners. Almost 50 women and girls from eleven nations were assembled to play marching music to other inmates - forced labourers who left each morning and returned exhausted and often broken at the end of the day - and give weekly concerts for Nazi officers. Individual members were sometimes summoned to give solo performances of an officer's favourite piece of music. It was the only entirely female orchestra in any of the Nazi prison camps and for almost all the musicians chosen to take part being in the orchestra was to save their lives. In The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz award-winning historian Anne Sebba tells their astonishing story with sensitivity and care.
