Karel Reiner - Life

Life

He was born in Žatec, Bohemia into a Jewish family. His father Josef was a kantor in Žatec's synagogue. He studied law, and acquired his doctorate in 1934. In 1929 he also studied composition privately with Alois Hába and composed Fantasia for Quarter - tone piano. In 1931 he graduated from the Master School of Composition with Orchestral suite, as a student of Josef Suk. Reiner was also a concert pianist who cooperated with Theatre of Emil František Burian (1934–38). During World War II; he was imprisoned in German concentration camps, first in Theresienstadt (deported on 7 July 1943), he participated in musical activities there, created incidental music for the play Esther, directed by Norbert Frýd. Later, on 28 September 1944, he was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, afterwards to Landsberg and finally to Kaufering, a subcamp of the Dachau camp. Following the death march and liberation he returned to Prague, where he reunited with his wife Hana (she also survived the imprisonment in concentration camps). He had problems with gaining his Czech citizenship after the war, even though as an adult he considered himself always as a Czech, not a Jew or German. He began to participate in music life again, but soon after the communist Victorious February in 1948 he was accused of formalism. Reiner was member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia since 1948, but he left in 1969. He died in Prague in 1979.