New Mount Sinai Cemetery welcomes the community to its annual memorial service, at 11 a.m. Sunday, Oct. 6, featuring Holocaust Composer Stories and the music that defied the Nazis. 

Holocaust Composer Stories is a collaboration between the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the St. Louis Kaplan Feldman Holocaust Museum, featuring SLSO musicians Alison Harney, Nathan Lowry and Beth Guterman Chu, as well as Yin Xiong, who will perform the second movement from Czech-Jewish composer Pavel Haas’ third string quartet.

Shortly after Haas completed the quartet, the major European powers struck an agreement that led to the annexation of the Sudetenland by Nazi Germany. The democratic government of Czechoslovakia fell, and Haas found himself living under Nazi rule.

Haas’ music was banned and he was forbidden to work due to his Jewish identity. As conditions worsened, Haas divorced his Christian wife in an effort to shield her and their daughter, Olga, from the growing persecution. He tried to flee but was trapped in Europe, eventually deported to Theresienstadt in 1941, and later sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the Nazis murdered him.

In this 7-minute-long second movement of his third string quartet, listeners hear a deep, urgent plea or prayer from Haas. The viola opens with a short melody, repeated three times, each one fasterand more desperate than the last.

Haas also weaves in a reference to the Czech hymn, the St. Wenceslas Chorale, a plea for the protection of Czechoslovakia. In 1938, when Haas composed this movement, his audiencewould have recognized the hymn and its significance.

“We hope that through this performance, you connect with Pavel Haas’ story and music as we have,” a news release stated. “ Together, we remember.”

The memorial service is free and open to the community. New Mt. Sinai is located at 8430 Gravois Road.