Alma Rosé's father was the violinist Arnold Rosé who was the leader of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for 50 years: from 1881 to 1931 as well as leader of the Vienna State Opera orchestra and leader of the legendary Rosé String Quartet. Her mother, Justine, was Gustav Mahler's sister. Alma was named for her uncle Gustav's wife, Alma Mahler ; her elder sibling was Alfred E. Rosé.
Marriage
Alma grew up to be a violinist. In 1930 she married the Czech violinist Váša Příhoda. In 1935 the marriage was dissolved.
Career
Rosé had a highly successful career. In 1932 she founded the woman's orchestra, Die Wiener Walzermädeln. The concertmistress was Anny Kux, a friend. The ensemble played to a very high standard, undertaking concert tours in Austria, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.
Escape from the Nazis and final arrest
After the annexation of Austria with Germany in 1938 Alma and her father Arnold, also a famous violin virtuoso, managed to escape to London. She went on her own to the Netherlands where she believed she could resume her musical career. When the Germans occupied the Netherlands, she was trapped. A fictitious marriage to a Dutch engineer named August van Leeuwen Boomkamp did not protect her; nor did her nominal status as a Christian convert. She fled to France, but in late 1942 when she tried to escape to neutral Switzerland, she was arrested by the Gestapo. After several months in the internment camp of Drancy, she was deported in July 1943 to the concentration camp at Auschwitz.
Auschwitz
Upon arrival in Auschwitz, Rosé was quarantined and became very ill, but eventually recovered. She assumed leadership of the Mädchenorchester von Auschwitz. The orchestra had been in existence before Rosé's arrival, a pet project of SS-Oberaufseherin Maria Mandel. Before Rosé, the orchestra was conducted by Zofia Czajkowska, a Polish teacher. The ensemble consisted mainly of amateur musicians, with a string section, but also accordions, percussion, guitars, flute, recorder and mandolins, but lacked a brass section. Singers and music-copyists rounded-out the membership of the Music Block. The orchestra's primary function was to play at the main gate each morning and evening as the prisoners left for and returned from their work assignments; the orchestra also gave weekend concerts for the prisoners and the SS and entertained at SS functions. Rosé conducted, orchestrated and sometimes played violin solos during its concerts. Given that this ensemble had but two or three professional musicians, the group rehearsed eight hours daily under Rosé's demanding leadership. Apart from the official activity, she had the band rehearse and play forbidden music by Polish and Jewish composers to boost the spirits of band members and fellow inmates they trusted. She herself orchestrated Fryderyk Chopin’s Etude in E major, Op. 10, No. 3 and combined it with the lyrics she wrote. The conductor helped to mold the orchestra into an excellent ensemble, all of whose members survived during her tenure, and after her death, all except two would live to see the end of the war. Rosé died, aged 37, of a sudden illness at the camp, possibly food poisoning. During this illness, Josef Mengele signed an order for a spinal tap to be performed on Rosé. The orchestra included two professional musicians, cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch and vocalist/pianist Fania Fénelon, each of whom wrote memoirs of their time in the orchestra. Fénelon's account, Playing for Time, was made into a feature film of the same name, and was decried by orchestra survivors as being misleading, and containing preposterous distortions of the truth. Alma's father, Arnold Rosé died in England in 1946. Her brother, Alfred Rosé and his wife Maria Caroline Rosé, had fled Germany in 1938, eventually settling in Cincinnati, OH, prior to their move to London, Ontario, Canada, ca. 1948. Maria and Alfred's acquaintance with local London, Ontario newspaper critic, Richard Newman, eventually resulted in Alma's biography.
Recordings
Arnold Rosé's performances together with Alma were eventually released on CD.
