Percy Brand Papers

Percy (Peretz) Brand, a noted violinist and Holocaust survivor, was born in Liepaja, Latvia on April 2, 1908. He began studying the violin at age 10. When the Germans took control of the Baltic States in 1941 (Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, which bordered Poland and was under Russian control) he was concertmaster of the Riga Latvian Symphony Orchestra.

The SS Einsatzgruppen units that occupied Latvia killed Brand's first wife Sara, son Mendel, and daughter Judith Basya. Brand was first imprisoned in a Jewish ghetto in Riga and later sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Playing the violin saved his life during the Holocaust. In interviews given after emigration to the United States in 1949, Brand described playing for the ghetto's commandant and being rewarded with food. "Every time they called me to play, I would get a bit of food, probably the only thing that kept me alive", he said.

After liberation, he joined other Buchenwald survivors in the Zionist collective Geringhof, known as Kibbutz Buchenwald, in Fulda, Germany. He continued to play his violin and performed for other survivors in various Displaced Persons (DP) camps. In 1947, he became the first Jew to perform Hebrew and Jewish music over the radio in Frankfurt am Main. He met his second wife, Gertrude (Grunia) Levine, at one of his concerts. Widowed during the Holocaust, she had heard a violinist from her hometown was performing in a concert. They married soon after, and Gertrude also became his manager.

The couple immigrated to the United States under the sponsorship of Harry Marcus, Gertrude's great uncle. They arrived in New York in February 1949, and moved to Boston. Brand became well known as a radio and later television performer in America. He performed for charitable organizations and causes, including the Beth Israel Hospital, Brookline Hospital and the Zionist Organization.

He died on August 8, 1985, at the age of 77, and was survived by Gertrude and his sister Mary, the only family member to survive the war.

1908

Percy Brand born in Liepaja, Latvia

?-1941

Concertmaster of the Riga Latvian Symphony Orchestra

1941-1945

Imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany

1945-1949

Lived in Fulda, Germany as a violinist, and married Gertrude

1949-1985

Emigration to the United States, Violinist in Boston, MA