CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — It was shortly after the death of Holocaust survivor and writer Elie Wiesel when Chicagoan Ira Antelis said he came up with the idea to create and produce “We Are Here: Songs from the Holocaust,” a special, one-night only concert that will come to Chicago’s Salt Shed this November.
The concert features music written and composed by those who were inside the ghettos and concentration camps of Nazi-occupied Europe. Antelis, a Jewish man who grew up with the children of Holocaust survivors, said he had no idea this music existed.
“I’m reading about music from the Holocaust and the concentration camps, and … I didn’t actually believe it was true,” he said. “I started doing some research, and I realized it was true. I’m like, ‘I’m going to get the songbooks and see what this music sounded like.’”
Antelis said he tracked down 14 songbooks and set to work on turning them into a concert. That part of the process felt more natural, he said. After all, Antelis spent most of his life writing and producing music; he’s perhaps best known for producing the “Be Like Mike” Gatorade jingle.
Those talents helped Antelis turn those songs into a full concert that didn’t feel “overly dated,” he said. The format includes presenters, as well as performers, who will introduce each song.
“I wanted to make sure that every song was from a different composer,” he said. “About 90% of them were murdered in the camps. I thought, ‘What a great way to honor their lives.’ Never would they have thought that here we are, 85 years later, on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, performing their music and trying to carry it on.”
The concert is coming to Chicago after its sold-out premiere at Carnegie Hall in January 2023.
Antelis said the process of creating and producing “We Are Here” has reaffirmed much of what he understood regarding the horrors of the Holocaust.
“It’s one thing to understand what happened in the camps, but when you’re reading the music, playing through it and working on the lyrics … it was Jacob Rabinowitz who said: ‘I want to live; I don’t want to die; I want to live to see my brothers and sisters stop suffering this way,’” he said.
Among the performers: Tom Higgenson, the lead singer from Plain White T’s; Tony Award nominee Andrew Lippa; Broadway performer Adam Jacobs and others who include Grammy Award winners and stars from NBC’s “Chicago Fire.” Some of the musicians will be using actual violins that were used in the concentration camps, thanks to the organization Violins of Hope. Meanwhile, the presenters include Cubs legend Ryne Sandberg, former Chicago Bear Charles Tillman, movie critic Richard Roeper and more. Editor's note: WBBM's Lisa Fielding will be a presenter at the Nov. 6 show.
The show will take place almost one month after the Israel-Hamas war broke out, an event Antelis said made him consider canceling the concert. Ultimately, he said it felt like canceling would defeat the purpose of a show that’s “really about bringing people together.”
“I want to show the world what it can be like if we all come together,” he said. “It’s been difficult to see all of the lives that have been lost. Some of them parallel the Holocaust — what happened on Oct. 7, and now all of the other loss of life to the Palestinians. It’s been really difficult just to watch every day.”
Through performances of “We Are Here,” Antelis said he hopes to keep the lessons from these songs and from that era from being forgotten. He added that there have already been talks to arrange this music for high school performances.
“Our kids grew up not really knowing, and if we don’t know, then we forget. If we forget, look at what could happen,” he said. “We must pass it on.”
“We Are Here: Songs from the Holocaust” will take place at the Salt Shed on Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets can be found here.
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