Escape helper Lisa Fittko takes centre stage at the start of the concert series on Sunday, 23 November, with a reading by Anne Haug and string quartets by Gideon Klein, Hans Krása and Viktor Ullmann.
Image gallery
Lisa Fittko
Anne Haug
Four extraordinary women and their contributions to the fight against National Socialism are the focus of a series of lecture concerts entitled ‘Heroines,’ which the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO) is organising in cooperation with the Stiftung Neue Synagoge Berlin – Centrum Judaicum for the 2025/2026 season.
The first concert will take place on Sunday, 23 November, in Berlin's former main synagogue on Oranienburger Straße. Actress Anne Haug will tell the story of escape helper Lisa Fittko, with texts by Shelly Kupferberg. A DSO ensemble will also perform string quartets by Gideon Klein, Hans Krása and Viktor Ullmann.
Lisa Fittko worked for the Communist Party in the resistance against the Nazis, then joined forces with Varian Fry in France as an escape helper and accompanied Walter Benjamin, among others, across the Pyrenees to Spain. Fittko's story is told by actress Anne Haug, accompanied by a DSO string quartet with Clemens Linder and Amelie Wallner (violin), Annemarie Moorcroft (viola) and Mischa Meyer (cello) will play music by Gideon Klein, Hans Krása and Viktor Ullmann, who wrote their last works in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and were murdered in Auschwitz.
Three further concerts will follow during the season: painter Friedl Dicker-Brandeis will be the focus on 28 January 2026 (with Bibiana Beglau, soprano Ania Vegry and a piano trio); 26 February 2026 will be dedicated to the poet Hannah Szenes (with Dorka Gryllus, singer Manuela Czumanski-Scheidt and a string trio); the concert on 7 May 2026 will be dedicated to social worker and nurse Irena Sendler (with Patrycia Ziólkowska and a string quartet).
Sun 23 Nov 25, 6 p.m.
New Synagogue Berlin – Centrum Judaicum
Clemens Linder Violine
Amelie Wallner Violine
Annemarie Moorcroft Viola Mischa Meyer Violoncello Anne Haug Lesung
Gideon Klein Fantasie und Fuge für Streichquartett
Hans Krása Thema mit Variationen für Streichquartett Viktor Ullmann Streichquartett Nr. 3 op. 46
The concert is sold out. We reserve the right to allocate tickets via a waiting list.
Tickets for other concerts in the ‘Heroines’ series are available online for €35 at ➔ dso-berlin.de, from the DSO visitor service office (Charlottenstr. 56, 10117 Berlin), by telephone on T 030 20 29 87 11 or by email at tickets@dso-berlin.de.
