Ferdinand Adler

Ferdinand Adler was born on May 6, 1903 into a Jewish family in Klausenburg, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The city’s Hungarian name was Kolozsvár. After the First World War, the city was ceded to Romania and became Cluj-Napoca, today Romania’s second most populous city. Adler was first named Nándor when he was born. He was the youngest of three children. He had two older sisters, Erzsi and Margit.

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His parents Adolf Abraham Adler and his wife Jrma Adler (née Stein) owned a children's clothing store. In 1905, Jrma passed away. Adolf Adler married Berta Adler (née Burger). Though Jewish, the family didn’t strictly practice or follow Jewish rules. Nándor grew up speaking Hungarian.

 

After graduating from high school in 1921, Adler went to study violin in Budapest, then in 1923/1924, he entered the Academy for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and studied with Gottfried Feist. In 1924/1925 he joined the newly established University of Applied Sciences for Music and Performing Arts, and continued his studies under Gottfried Feist until his graduation in 1926/1927.

 

After completing his studies, Adler took up a position as concertmaster of the Bad Ischl Spa orchestra, led by the famous operetta composer Franz Lehár. It was during his tenure at Bad Ischl that he met Gertrude Dörfel, the younger daughter of Franz Dörfel, a professor of business administration at the University of World Trade in Vienna. Gertrude’s parents opposed her relationship with a Jewish man. They threatened to cut off all ties with her if she would marry Adler. In 1932, Gertrude Dörfel married Nándor Adler, against her parents’ will. But as a condition to the marriage, Adler agreed to baptize as Catholic and took up Ferdinand as his first name.

 

In the following years, Ferdinand Adler worked as a freelance musician in various orchestras. In 1938 Adler worked as concertmaster of the Lucerne Municipal Orchestra in Switzerland under a season’s contract. He also organized his own string quartet. After his contract, Ferdinand Adler returned to Austria and lived with wife in Vienna.

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After Anschluss – Nazi Germany’s annexation of Austria in March 1938, Adler was persecuted because of his Jewish origins. Musicians must join the Reich Chamber of Music in order to be able to work. Adler initially joined this organization, but was expelled in October 1938 and banned from work according to Section 10 of the "First Ordinance for the Implementation of the Reich Chamber of Culture Law".

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On November 9-10, 1938, pogroms broke out across Germany and Austria, where synagogues were vandalized, Jewish businesses were looted and destroyed, and Jews were beaten and arrested. This was known as Kristalnacht. On the following day, November 11, 1938, Ferdinand Adler was arrested. On November 14, 1938, he was transferred to the Dachau concentration camp.

 

During Ferdinand Adler’s imprisonment, he tried to work out an exit to Palestine but failed. Based on Nazi policy, one must obtain a valid visa from a foreign country in order to be allowed to leave. However, most of the countries at the time refused to accept Jewish refugees. Mrs. Adler, herself not arrested, used all financial resources she could gather and submitted applications to both the US and Chinese consulates in Vienna. Dr. Ho Fengshan, then Chinese Consul-General in Vienna, acting against the order of his superior, Ambassador Chen Jie in Berlin, issued thousands of visas to Jews, allowing them to travel to Shanghai. Most of Shanghai had fallen to Japanese occupation in 1937 except the concessions to Western powers, known as the International Settlement and the French Concession. Self-ruled under the Municipal Council and the French City Council, the port did not require any formalities for Jews to land, and the Japanese occupation authority didn’t intervene.

 

Though visas were not required to enter Shanghai, Dr. Ho Fengshan still issued them, so that Jews could present to the Nazis the required “proof” of emigration and be allowed to exit. It was believed that Mrs. Adler obtained visas issued by Ho Fengshan. On March 4, 1939, Ferdinand Adler was released from Dachau. Without alternatives, they decided to flee to Shanghai. They boarded the steamer Conte Verde from Trieste, Italy. On June 4, 1939, the Adlers arrived in Shanghai. Having been deprived of all their assets, they only brought with them two suitcases and his violin. Immediately upon disembarking, Ferdinand Adler went to look for jobs and Gertrude for a place to stay. They shared an apartment with German Jewish tenor Ernst Krasso, Adler’s fellow inmate at Dachau, and Krasso’s wife.

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Adler first found a job as a band musician in a European café (or possibly a bar, or a night club). Soon, he was hired by the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra under the direction of Italian pianist and conductor Mario Paci. In October 1939, he performed Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 as soloist. In the following years, he was first promoted to the position of co-concertmaster along side of Italian violinist Arrigo Foa, then for many times, the concertmaster. Adler was also active performing various concerts in Shanghai’s foreign expats community, including in community churches, the American Women’s Club, the Shanghai Jewish Club, the Russian Club, the Hungarian Relief Association and Royal Hungarian Consulate and at the Lyceum Theatre. His repertoire was varied, from solo recitals to chamber music concerts, to gala concerts, even operetta and light music.

 

Adler collaborated not only with refugee musicians such as pianist Henry Margolinski, singer Ernst Krasso, but also Russian and Chinese musicians. He also performed in the Japanese occupied Hongkou (Hongkew in old spelling) District where many Jewish refugees settled and a cultural life of its own was developing. In November 1941 Adler also took part in a concert supported by the Committee for the Assistance for European Jewish Refugees at the Lyceum Theater along with other refugee musicians such as Miriam Magasiner, Johann Kraus, and Ernst Krasso. In 1941, Adler was appointed professor of violin at the Shanghai Conservatory.

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After the Pearl Harbour attack in December 1941, Japanese troupes occupied Shanghai’s foreign settlements. Jewish refugees faced more and more restrictions. In February 1943, the Japanese occupation authority proclaimed a “Designated Area for Stateless Refugees” and ordered all refugees who entered Shanghai after January 1, 1937 to move to this district, known as the Hongkou Ghetto. Residents must apply for official permits to leave for work. However, Adler himself wasn’t forced into the ghetto. It was believed that Jewish musicians of the Shanghai Municipal Orchestra were exempt in a special arrangement to keep the orchestra in operation. The orchestra was renamed the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra and used for political purposes.

 

In the following years, Adler performed several times as a soloist with the Municipal Orchestra. In December 1943, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Tchaikovsky's death, Adler played his Violin Concerto under the direction of the Russian conductor Aleksandr Sluckij, and in January 1944 he played Beethoven's Violin Concerto under the direction of the Japanese conductor Takashi Asahina (朝比奈 隆).

 

Critic Erwin Felber wrote in the "Shanghai Jewish Chronicle“ about Adler’s interpretation of Beethoven's Violin Concerto: "Ferdinand Adler played the solo in the 'high song' of the violin with inner feeling. The slow movement especially breathed all the sweetness, all the dolcezza, without ever over doing it. The panache of his rhythm in the rondo was magnificent, the bravura of his technique in the difficult cadenza was artistically mature.”

 

Adler occasionally performed in the Hongkou ghetto during this period. In November 1943 he performed in a gala concert at the Eastern Theater to support the ghetto’s auxiliary police force – the Foreign Pao Chia. Adler also played in the string quartet with Bernhard Goldschmidt, Adolf Steiner, and Johann Kraus.

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In 1946, Adler and his Municipal Orchestra colleagues, violinist Michail Livshits, cellist Igor Shevzoff, violist Joseph Podushka, as well as singer Vladimir Shushlin, joined the faculty of the Nanjing State Conservatory. They made weekly commutes to teach in Nanjing. And on their way back to Shanghai, Adler, along with Shevzoff and Podushka, stopped over in Changzhou to teach at the State Conservatory Junior Program. A number of the students there were orphans. Among Adler’s students, Sheng Mingliang, Mao Yukuan, Zhang Yingfa, Gao Jinghua, A Kejian and Zhao Weijian, etc., later became professional musicians. Adler's other students in Shanghai also included the young Austrian violinist Gritta Glogau, who had fled to Shanghai with her family; the German-Chinese violinist Leonore Valesby (Yüki Liau), who performed as a soloist in Shanghai at a young age and often performed in events organized by Shanghai’s German community.

 

After WWII, the Adlers resumed contact with his wife's family in Austria. Since Adler was professionally well integrated in Shanghai and it was uncertain whether he would be able to re-establish himself in Austria, the decision to return was not easy. Eventually, facing intensifying civil war in China, the Adlers decided to return home. In April 1947, Adler performed a farewell concert at the Lyceum Theatre, with Erwin Marcus accompanying at the piano. The program included Brahms' second violin sonata, Mendelssohn's violin concerto and pieces by Saint-Saëns, Szymanowski and Sarasate. On May 28, 1947, Adler and his long-time musical collaborator,  Henry Margolinski played another charity concert at the Shanghai Jewish Youth Association School in Hongkou for the benefit of young music students in need. This was also Adler’s farewell to his Hongkou audience. The program included Frank's Violin Sonata and Bruch's Violin Concerto. Critic Erwin Felber commented on the concert: "The musical brotherhood between Adler and Margolinski has stood the test of time for almost a decade. Unfortunately that has come to an end with this beautiful concert, which was memorable for Hongkou." Adler also said goodbye to the Shanghai Municipal Symphony Orchestra. In 1947, the orchestra saw the departure of many long-time European musicians and the number of Chinese musicians surpassed foreign musicians. Ferdinand and Trude Adler, their daughter Christina (born in November 1945 in Shanghai), embarked on the Marine Lynx, and returned to Vienna via Italy in July/August 1947.

 

Unlike many other musicians who had been exiled in Shanghai, Adler soon managed to re-establish himself as a violinist. A few months after his return, on December 6, 1947, he played a concert at the invitation of the Konzerthaus Society. In April 1948, he performed at the US Red Cross with the Adler String Quartet he had newly formed. After several years working as a soloist and chamber musician at concerts and radio broadcasts, in the 1950/1951 season, Adler successfully auditioned to become the first concertmaster of the State Opera in the Volksoper in Vienna.

 

Ferdinand Adler had a heart attack during Christmas holiday in 1951 but was revived. He insisted on playing with his quartet at a live radio broadcast on January 6, before he heeded doctor’s advice to rest. On February 21, 1952, during a rehearsal in the Volksoper, he made a mistake and was harshly criticized by the conductor. So stressed he suffered another a heart attack and died on the scene. He was 48 years old. After Adler’s burial on February 26, 1952, his wife and daughter moved to Kufstein, Austria to live with Trude Adler's sister.

 

* Based on my interview with Christina Adler and in reference of the Lexicon of Persecuted Musicians of the Nazi Era (Lexikon verfolgter Musiker und Musikerinnen der NS-Zeit)