Chicago 'Salt Shed' concert revives Holocaust-era music to inspire hope

CHICAGO - A moving tribute comes to Chicago, keeping the memory of Holocaust victims alive.

They are songs nearly a century old that survived the Holocaust. Many of them contain messages that are relevant even today.

"I was like music in the concentration camps? I didn't really believe, and then I found the book and started playing through the songs," said Ira Antelis.

Chicago-born composer, Ira Antelis, couldn't believe his eyes. Music that had survived the Holocaust, written in the ghettos and concentration camps during World War II. Many of the composers had died.

"The very last number, which is a story that was passed on from a Jewish composer and a Polish prisoner, and the Jewish composer knew he was going to die, and he said you must take my song and pass it on, and we do that song, so 85 years later… and we're doing it with a 120 piece choir, that's the story," said Antelis.

A story told by Chicago performers, like Plain White T's front man, Tom Higgenson of Lombard.

"It was pretty moving to think that in these people's, the most horrific time that you can imagine, that they turned to music to give them hope or to give them a voice in that situation. Obviously music is my entire life, so it went straight to the heart string," Higgenson said.

The one-night-only concert filled Carnegie Hall in New York earlier this year, and it’s even more relevant today.

"Even in the darker times, even one of the song lyrics, 'I hope to live to see the day when my brothers and sisters have a better day' — hope is all around. We're going to really make this a hopeful concert especially with what's going on in the world now," Antelis said.

A message of hope that so many were eager to hear Monday night at the sold-out concert at The Salt Shed.