Alexander Tamir — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Alexander Tamir (Wolkowyski) was born in 1931 in Vilna, Poland (now Lithuania) and died in Israel on August 2019.

He was the only son of Fania Kowarski and Dr. Noah (Leon) Wolkowyski a physician. Tamir attended a Jewish school in the Polish language, and heard his first songs in Polish. He learned to play the piano at the age of five, and as a child played and composed as well.

After the occupation of eastern Poland by the Soviet Union in September 1939, and the subsequent annexation of Vilna to Lithuania, the family fled to Belarus. They lived for a short time in Minsk and from there moved to a small town nearby. There, Tamir studied music and was even sent to Moscow to participate in a talent festival. He studied Russian and belonged to the communist youth movement.

In June 1940, the Soviet Union annexed Vilna from Lithuania, and Tamir and his parents returned to Vilna. With the German invasion and the conquest of Vilna, the family was confined to the ghetto. The father was a member of the ghetto's cultural club together with Abba Kovner and Avraham Sutzkever, and held many conversations with them in the ghetto apartment where the family lived. The father wrote a song in Polish about Ponar, which Shmerke Kaczerginski translated into Yiddish, and to which he added stanzas, and 11-year-old Alexander Tamir composed the music. In April 1943, Tamir won a composition competition held in the Ghetto on "Ponar." He studied French in the Ghetto, which helped him when he went to France after his release.

In the winter of 1943-1944, several months after the competition, a 'selection' was made in the Ghetto. Tamir was transported by train to a labor camp in Kiviõli, Estonia, where his father was camp doctor. As the Soviets approached, the camp was liquidated and a selection of prisoners was made. Tamir was in the selection which separated him from his father. "Only later did we realize that they were actually executed," Tamir said.

Tamir was transferred by ferry to the Stutthof concentration camp, where his uncle and some of his acquaintances from the ghetto were also interned. There, too, he survived a number of selections. He was selected to be transferred to the children's hut, but escaped from that hut and returned to the hut of the adults that came from Vilna. He worked brushing the boots of the Wehrmacht soldiers in the camp and ate leftover food which he managed to bring to the barracks after work to help the rest of the prisoners. His uncle perished in Stutthof. From Stutthof, Tamir was transferred to a labor camp in Dautmergen-Schoemberg.

In April 1945, Tamir was liberated in the area of Stuttgart by the French army, and transferred to Paris. After a few months, he made aliyah to Eretz Israel, was taken in by relatives and met his mother who had survived the Holocaust. During the War of Independence, being born in 1931, he was drafted, but later released due to his young age, like most young people of his age.

In the early fifties, he moved to Jerusalem and studied at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem, where he met the pianist Bracha Eden, and in 1955 formed a duo of pianists that performed for over 50 years, won competitions and awards and appeared in many halls around the world.

In 1968, Tamir and Eden founded the Targ Center for Music in Ein Kerem active in diffusion of classical music to the general public. His performance was recognized by composer Igor Stravinsky, played by the British Broadcasting Authority (BBC), and in many recordings.

Tamir was a professor at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. In his weekly program "Kol Hamusika" (The Voice of Music) he analyzed piano performances of the classical music genre. In his words: "For me, my greatest satisfaction would be to travel to Germany as an Israeli pianist."

From: Yad Vashem [Hebrew]

April 2019 marks the 88th anniversary of Alexander Tamir, known to radio listeners for decades as editor and presenter of informational programs on The Voice of Music and Kan Voice of Music, and as the veteran editor of the concert series at the Eden-Tamir Center in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem. Last week, Alexander Tamir won a special award from the Board of ACUM (Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel) for his contribution to art, culture and music.

As part of the "Otzar Israeli"/ (Israeli Treasure) program 22/4/2019, Omer Rita spoke with Alexander Tamir about his childhood in Vilna, about his father who pushed him to study piano, and who composed the words of the first stanza of the song "Ponar" which Alex composed in the ghetto at the age of 11 - a song that became one of the symbols of the Holocaust, his immigration to Eretz Israel, his participation in the War of Independence, his piano teachers – headed by Prof. Carol Klein and Prof. Alfred Schroeder - who deeply influenced him; on his fateful meeting with Bracha Eden that produced a common successful fifty-year international career, on the special connection he had with Stravinsky around the arrangement for two pianos of Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," and the two important enterprises he headed: the Eden-Tamir Music Center, and the Kan Voice of Music Young Artists Competition. During the interview, a selection of pieces played by the duo Bracha Eden and Alexander Tamir was heard.

Kol Hamuzika (The Sound of Music is proud to announce that Alexander Tamir has been awarded a special prize on behalf of the management of ACUM (a non-profit organization that administers the copyrights of authors, composers and musicians) for his contribution to creativity, culture and music. The prize will be awarded at the ACUM prize-giving ceremony on the 16/4/2019 at Bet Hayotzer in Tel Aviv.