
"Tango of Death"
- ID: 2039
- Place: Lviv
- Date: 1943
The most frequently published photograph of the camp orchestra of the Yanivka death camp in Lviv comes from an album prepared as illustrative material for demonstration at the Nuremberg Trials. Its unofficial name is "Death Tango". In the Yanivka death camp, created by the German occupiers in Lviv at 134 Yanivska Street, there was a camp orchestra consisting of the best Lviv musicians, people with a European, and sometimes world, reputation. The famous violinist, composer, and conductor Jakub Mund was appointed the leader of the orchestra - before the war he held the position of musical director of the City Theaters in Lviv. The initiator of the forced organization of prisoner musicians into an orchestra was the deputy commandant of the Janów camp, SS Untersturmführer Richard Rokita, who before the war was a violinist in Katowice cafes and was distinguished by exceptional sadistic qualities. The author of the tango, which was often performed by the camp orchestra, remained unknown to descendants; a photograph from an album kept in the party archive, now a branch of the State Archive of the Lviv region, remains a reminder of this fact.