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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - After the Soviet army liberated the Terezin concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic in May of 1945, something was revealed about the human spirit.

Children had concealed drawings, poems and other art in the walls of the gruesome prison. Their words and images expressed sombre beauty and indomitable hope.

Between 1942 and 1944, the Nazis used Terezin to imprison tens of thousands of Jewish people from the region and from Germany, Austria, Hungary, Denmark and the Netherlands. Most were sent to the Auschwitz death camp to be murdered but thousands died in the crowded, vicious conditions in Terezin.

Many of those Jewish inmates were artists, musicians, organizers and academics. Among them were 15,000 children, of whom little more than 100 survived.

Local artists and children will honour the lives lost in Terezin this week with a concert titled Journey Through Night: a Remembrance in Words and Music.

The event features poems written by the children at Terezin sung by the Fireweed Children's Chorus accompanied by the musicians of Table for Five.

"The shape of the concert gives us time to think about the darkness that was and to hear in some of the survivors' and non-survivors' own words what they were going through in that time," said vocalist Shelly Gislason. "It expresses that sense of loneliness and the abandonment felt as this horrible thing that we cannot comprehend surrounded them. But, they also had a real sense of hopefulness in their situation. The concert is really a journey for all of us, the audience and the performers together, to think about this and to move ourselves into the hopefulness together."

Flutist Maureen Crotty-Williams and visiting violinist Alycia Jan of Edmonton will present solo instrumentals.

"For me it's a very special concert," said pianist Anita Kuzma. "(We) really desire to be a vessel for some higher feelings through the words and music."

Kuzma, who grew up near Krakow, Poland, visited Auschwitz at age 12. She held tightly to her father's hand as they toured the institution, she said.

They saw piles of human hair, mounds of children's shoes, toys, clothing and other artifacts that communicated the scale of the horror.

"The concert is not about us. It's not even about music. It's about the feelings and about paying tribute to the people who suffered," she said. "In my country I was always told that if we forget about past history and the people who suffered we're going to forget our identity. This particular genocide is one of many in the world before and after World War II. It is important to remember and have a lesson. This is happening in a different version. Hopefully we can learn the lesson."

After the Soviet army liberated Terezin they used the institution as a prison for captured Gestapo. However, the Soviets also interned German children and elders there following the war.

"The holocaust is really the depths of what people can do to each other, but what children bring is a sense of renewal that life goes on and that there's always hope for change in the next generation," said clarinetist Adrian Wright.

The concert is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Nov. 9 and 3 p.m. on Nov. 11 at St. Patrick's Church.