Belina: Music for Peace

Florida Premiere

With a varied repertory that focused mainly on folk music, Belina — the stage name of the Polish-Jewish singer Lea-Nina Rodzynek (1925-2006) — was a performer who was able to build bridges between nations and cultures. Traumatized by the murder of her family and by a risky flight from Warsaw to enemy Hamburg during WWII, she was denounced and arrested while staying in a camp for foreign workers, finally escaping and spending months hiding in Lübeck, where she lived in fear of her life. After the war, she set out on the road to reconciliation, championing the ideals of tolerance and of equal rights between Germans, Jews, and the other nations of this earth. Together with the well-known Berlin-born guitarist Siegfried Behrend, she undertook a series of world tours in the early 1960s as a “musical diplomat,” representing Germany in almost 200 towns and cities in 120 countries and singing in 17 languages. Belina’s story remains acutely relevant in this time of crisis involving wars and floods of refugees. For this reason, her life story, her ambitions, and her social commitment must never be forgotten.