Summertime - Music

Heinz Jakob "Coco" Schumann 14 May 1924 - 28 January 2018 Was A German Jazz Guitarist. Schumann Was Born In Berlin Germany. His Father Alfred Was Jewish By Choice A German Christian Practicing Convert To Judaism And His Mother Hedwig Née Rothholz Was Jewish By Birth. Schumann Became Passionate About Swing After Having Heard It During The Berlin Olympics. He Was Transported First To Theresienstadt At The Age Of Nineteen Where He Became A Member Of The Ghettoswingers. Finally He And Martin Roman Were Transported To Auschwitz Where He Came Face To Face With Josef Mengele. When Mengele Inquired Of The Blue-Eyed Nineteen-Year-Old Coco Where He Came From And What He Did Schumann Shouted "Berlin Herr Obersturmbanfuhrer! Plumber Herr Obersturmbannfuhrer!" When The Americans Dismantled The Camps Liberation Reached Coco Almost Too Late Just A Few Days Before The End Of The Nazi Regime He Had Contracted The Dreaded Spotted Fever That Had Carried Off His Campmates By The Hundreds And He Spent Weeks Fighting High Fevers And Delirious Nightmares. He And One Other Man Were The Only Ones To Survive The Sick Bay. When He Was Finally Able To Return Home To Berlin He Learned That His Grandparents Aunts Uncles And Cousins Had Perished In The Camps. But He Found His Parents Alive. Coco’s Father Had Ingeniously Succeeded In Keeping His Jewish Wife Hidden From The Nazis By Declaring Her Dead After A Disastrous Fire. After The War Coco Schumann Became A Celebrated Jazz Guitarist. He Played With Marlene Dietrich Ella Fitzgerald And Helmut Zacharias Among Others Before Founding His Own Coco Schumann Quartett. Coco Schumann's Eventful And Colorful Life Is A Subject Of And Is Celebrated In A German-Language True-To-Life Color Graphic Novel By Caroline Gille And Niels Schröder. Subject Graphic Novel Has An Unmistakable Highly Compelling "autobiographical/first-Person Account" Narrative Thread. read less