Eyewitness account

'I composed this piece when the horrible razzia’s on the Jews were taking place in 1941. Now – at the very moment I am copying this, German soldiers (just across the street, opposite my house) are searching a house, the man is arrested. 12.4.1945. He seems to have had weapons? So a death sentence? The wife stands in front of the house, crying with two children.'

This emotional eyewitness account was written between the staves with pencil by Ignace Lilien. He witnessed the last days of war in Apeldoorn, where he managed to stay under the radar. In Apeldoorn, he organised a liberation concert and as a fee, he was given three lorries to transport his furniture back to The Hague.

In the summer of 2019, with financial support of the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, the Leo Smit Stichting collaborated with the Netherlands Music Institute to scan more than 30,000 pages of music manuscripts. The manuscript of unpublished works will be available online in May 2020 in the webshop of Donemus Publishing. The files will be downloadable for a smal administrative fee.