The experience that coloured everything Britten went on to write

Three months after Bergen-Belsen was liberated, Britten and Yehudi Menuhin performed there. Survivor and cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was ‘transfixed’ – as she told the composer when they played together decades later In 1945, the violinist Yehudi Menuhin was on a short tour of Germany, offering recitals to survivors of the concentration camps. On Friday 27 July 1945 he reached Bergen-Belsen, liberated three months earlier, and gave two concerts, in the cinema at the camp. The experience ha...

By Philippe Sands