Four Destinies 
In memory of the Jewish members of the Berliner Philharmoniker

The disaster of Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933 overwhelmed Berlin’s Jewish population only gradually. Their civic rights were increasingly curtailed and the authorities systematically removed Jews from public office. Four members of the Berliner Philharmoniker left the orchestra as a result of the mounting pressure exerted on them by the Nazi regime. They gave up their existing lives and made the difficult choice of going into exile. From 10 May 2025, they will be commemorated by four memorial cobblestones outside the Philharmonie. (The German word for these cobblestones is Stolpersteine, literally “stumbling blocks”.) Here is some additional information about these four musicians and their fates.

Szymon Goldberg, first concertmaster 

b Włocławek, Poland, 1 June 1909; d Toyama, Japan, 19 July 1993 
Joined the orchestra in 1930 
Emigration: 1934

Szymon Goldberg was only fifteen when his mentor Carl Flesch introduced him to Berlin audiences in 1924, prompting the critic of the Signale für die musikalische Welt to describe him enthusiastically as a young artist whose career audiences would do well to follow closely. He performed a challenging programme featuring concertos by Joseph Joachim, Johann Sebastian Bach and Niccolò Paganini. Flesch, who was himself an outstanding violinist and in great demand as a teacher, had been so impressed by the young Pole’s gifts that he taught him free of charge. By 1925, Goldberg had already been appointed the concertmaster of the Dresden Philharmonic and become the leader of the Simon Goldberg Quartet. In 1930, Wilhelm Furtwängler appointed him to a similar position with the Berlin Philharmonic. Goldberg also appeared as a soloist in Berlin, performing the Beethoven Concerto, among other works, and inspiring one critic to praise “the simple interiority and the soulfulness of his playing and the maturity of his intellectual and technical control”. Goldberg was also the leader of the Philharmonic Quartet.

Following Hitler’s seizure of power, Goldberg soon realized which way the wind was blowing. “As a Jew and as a Pole I knew that I could expect nothing good to come from my remaining in Hitler’s Germany, and so I decided to free myself from my contract with the Berliner Philharmoniker,” Goldberg wrote retrospectively in 1955. He and his wife travelled first to Switzerland and later to Holland. He was in Indonesia – the Dutch East Indies – in April 1940 when the country was overrun by Japanese forces. As an ally of Germany, Japan also persecuted Jews and interned the couple in a series of prisons and camps. After the end of the Second World War, with his wife, Goldberg moved to the United States, where he was not only a very successful soloist but also active as a conductor and as a teacher. Among the institutions where he taught were the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute of Music. He also worked frequently with the Israel Philharmonic. He wanted to return to the Berliner Philharmoniker, but his request was turned down by the orchestra’s then Intendant. In 1988, following the death of his first wife, Goldberg married the pianist Miyoko Yamane, and the couple settled in Japan in 1992. He died there the following year.

Gilbert Back, violin

b Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 10 January 1902; d Vienna, 11 December 1967 
Joined the orchestra in 1925 
Emigrated in 1935

Gilbert Back was the last of the four Jewish musicians to leave the orchestra. He was born in Bulgaria in 1902 and studied the violin in Vienna and Berlin, before becoming a rank-and-file first violinist with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1925. Once his three Jewish colleagues had emigrated, the pressure that was exerted on him by the Ministry of Propaganda increased. The orchestra’s managers tried to support him, informing the authorities that “not even under the System [the National Socialists’ term of abuse for the Weimar Republic] was he politically committed, and he never belonged to a political party. His father established the first Jewish school in Sofia, his brother served as an officer in the Austrian army during the Great War and was awarded the Austrian Medal for Bravery. […] Gilbert Back is an Austrian citizen.” But none of this was of any interest to the Ministry of Propaganda, and Back was obliged to leave the orchestra.

Gilbert Back emigrated to Ankara, where he joined the staff of the recently-founded State Conservatory and became a member of the Presidential Symphony Orchestra. In 1946 he and his wife travelled to the United States, settling the following year in Los Angeles, where he became a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He also taught at the University of San Diego. He and his wife were divorced in 1966, and the following year, he took his own life in Vienna.

Nicolai Graudan, principal violoncellist 

b Liepaja, Latvia, 5 September 1896; d Moscow, 9 August 1964
Joined the orchestra in 1926
Emigrated in 1935

According to contemporary press reports, Nicolai Graudan possessed a “warm-blooded cello tone” and a “well-developed technique”. A native of Latvia, he studied in St Petersburg and by the time he joined the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1926, he could already look back on several years’ experience as principal cellist in St Petersburg, Riga and Düsseldorf. He had also held a position at the St Petersburg Conservatory.

As a soloist, he had a special arrangement with the orchestra, requiring him to make fewer appearances, and allowing him to accept more guest engagements. He often performed in Berlin and gave recitals at home and abroad, and frequently performed chamber music with Szymon Goldberg, Paul Hindemith and Rudolf Serkin. Despite the National Socialists’ seizure of power, his Berlin contract was renewed in 1935, but the conditions were far less generous. Graudan resigned, and together with his wife, he left for London, before moving to the United States in 1938. Between 1939 and 1944 he was principal violoncellist with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. From 1945 onwards he often appeared – successfully – alongside his wife, the pianist Joanna Freidberg, performing works for violoncello and piano. The couple also formed a trio with Graudan’s former colleague, Szymon Goldberg. Nicolai Graudan additionally taught at the Aspen Festival and at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. He died in a Moscow hospital in 1964 during a tour of the Soviet Union.

Joseph Schuster, principal violoncellist 

b Istanbul, 23 May 1903; d Los Angeles, 16 February 1969
Joined the orchestra in 1929
Emigrated in 1934  

Joseph Schuster replaced Gregor Piatigorsky as the orchestra’s principal violoncellist in 1929. At the time he was only twenty-five and, as such, the youngest musician to have filled that position until then. He was born in Istanbul and grew up in St Petersburg. He studied at both the St Petersburg Conservatory and the School of Music in Berlin. He emigrated to the United States in 1934, and for the next ten years, worked as principal cellist with the New York Philharmonic, subsequently moving to California and pursuing a successful solo career. He was the only one of these four musicians to appear as a soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker in later years, performing Dvořák’s Violoncello Concerto with them on 21 September 1963. He died in Los Angeles in 1969.