A harrowing and enlightening generational tale of a World War II prisoner of war that will make you appreciate the luxuries of everyday life.
Have you ever been so encapsulated by a story that the world around you dissolves? The Music Maker of Auschwitz IV is a tale that is sure to have that effect. It is reminiscent of the stories your grandfather used to tell you when you were sitting on his knee as a young child, but without the comedic exaggerations of him walking uphill both ways to school.
This true story of Drum Major Henry Barnes Jackson was brought to life by his granddaughter and author of The Music Maker of Auschwitz IV, Jaci Byrne, who features her grandfather’s incredible experiences. When World War II begins to encroach on Britain, Drum Major Jackson kisses his darling wife, Mabel, and bids adieu to his four daughters to defend his beloved homeland once again. Shortly after arriving on foreign soil, Jackson is captured by the Germans (or Jerries, as he calls them). His time as a prisoner of war (POW) is described in his journal entries detailing the bad, the terrible, and the downright atrociousness of five years in captivity.
Life as a prisoner of war offers a completely different perspective of World War II than one may get in history class. One major aspect is the Geneva Convention and how it provided the prisoners of war, like Drum Major Jackson, with a few comforts. They were allowed to receive mail and Red Cross packages (as inconsistent as they were), but German soldiers could treat the men however they pleased as the Convention rules seemed almost arbitrary at the time. Jackson’s journals illustrate the soldiers inflicting mental anguish onto the POWs with inflated German propaganda, occasional violence, and thorough bunk searches and subsequent theft of anything good. The inconsistent treatment and lack of attention to the Convention rules is quite confusing and one can only imagine what it could have been like for the men at the time.
The Music Maker of Auschwitz IV puts things into perspective in regards to how much we may take for granted in our everyday lives. Jackson and his fellow men marched for kilometres a day, worked in metres of snow wearing wooden clogs, received a meagre portion of watered-down potato soup each day, and constantly had their lives threatened. Comparatively, our lives seem pretty cushy. Unfortunately, some of the POWs succumbed to the ever-present misery, but Jackson, for the most part, stayed humble and steady in his mental state. He accredited that all to music.
Music was truly the saving grace for Jackson and the men. The German soldiers quickly caught onto the Drum Major’s talents and allowed him to form and conduct a band, create plays, and perform shows. Any sliver of musicality was entertainment in the awful camps, so much so even the Jerries enjoyed his tunes! They called him ‘Kapellmeister’ or maker of music, which is the namesake of the book. Music lifted everyone’s spirits and got them through the delirium of everyday life in POW camps.
Byrne does an impressive job of making the reader feel as if they knew her grandfather. She notes in the author’s note that “men in those days simply didn’t express their emotions, and certainly not in war diaries.” One could then deduce that the tug of heart strings felt in the words of longing for Jackson’s family, and the care and consideration for his mates, are Byrne’s brilliant inputs into the journal entries. The voice of Drum Major Jackson is also remarkably carried beyond the journals and into an unwritten story about his post-war life which was heavily researched and eloquently written by Byrne.
It is no secret this book contains a lot of heavy content. Yet, if you can look beyond that and to the resilience and ingenuity of people during World War II, you will certainly enjoy The Music Maker of Auschwitz IV.
Reviewed by Alessa Young
This review is the opinion of the reviewer and not Glam Adelaide.
Distributed by: Simon and Schuster
Released: March 2021
RRP: $29.99
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