44 photos Jewish musicians, Romania 1920s and 1930s Ernesto Hennigsberg

Maestro Ernesto Hönigsberg ...

44 photos Jewish musicians, Romania 1920s and 1930s Ernesto Hennigsberg

Maestro Ernesto Hönigsberg was born in 1908 in a small Jewish village in Romania, in a family of traditional Jewish musicians. With the family moving to Bucharest, Ernesto comes into contact with the cosmopolitan music of the time, and soon becomes the leader of one of the most important tango orchestras in the country; composing melodies, arranging melodies, performing and recording constantly, accompanying famous singers, and doing all of this with tremendous success.

World War II forced him to take refuge in the Soviet Union, and the fact that he was a musician ensured his survival, by living on trains and playing for Soviet soldiers. It was on one of these trains that Ernesto met his wife, Rosa Porozowska, a Polish Esperanto teacher and singer. The war destroyed their cities, families and communities, and with so many losses, they migrated towards Latin America – first to Uruguay and then to Brazil, where the Hönigsberg Orchestra reformed itself, now with a repertoire focused on traditional Jewish music, which was on demand for the local Jewish community parties and celebrations.

Perhaps because of the destruction of her past by the Nazis, Rosa became an almost compulsive hoarder, and it is in these various “memory boxes” that she bequeathed us the treasures that made this documentary possible: photographs, letters, diaries, documents and nine impressive compositions by Ernesto – in the styles of tangos and klezmer.

A film about their lives was made in 2021 "When Tango meets Klezmer - The Life and Work of Ernesto and Rosa Hönigsberg”

Most of the photos are postcard size, some are smaller. Very good overall condition.