Percy Brand papers

Perec Brandt (later Percy Brand) was born on April 2, 1908, in Liepāja, Latvia, to a Jewish couple, Abram and Basia Brandt. He had one sister named Mary, and at least one brother, Carpel. He began playing the violin at the age of ten. He married Sara Behrmann and they had two children, Judith Basya, born on November 22, 1930, and Mendel, born on August 8, 1933. The family lived in Riga, where Perec was the concertmaster of the Riga Latvian Symphony Orchestra. In August 1940, the Soviet Union annexed Latvia. In spring 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union and, by July 1941, Riga was occupied by German forces. SS Einsatzgruppen units [mobile killing units], assisted by the local population, rounded up and shot thousands of Jewish Latvians who were unable to work, especially children, women with small children, the elderly, and the ill. Perec’s wife and children were among those taken and murdered. Perec was forced into labor, stripped of his possessions, except his violin, and moved into the Riga ghetto, which was sealed soon after. Later, Perec met and married a Czechoslovakian woman named Margit Stransky Rekler, who had been deported from Vienna, Austria, to Riga in January 1942. In August 1943, he was sent to Riga-Kaiserwald concentration camp. In October, Perec was deported to Stutthof concentration camp near the German occupied city of Danzig. On August 16, 1944, he was transported to Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany, where he was assigned prisoner number 82321. Perec kept his violin with him during the transports, and in each camp it was confiscated and then returned to him. In Buchenwald, the commandant summoned him daily to play for him and rewarded him with bread, meat, and coffee. From late November 1944 to early January 1945, Perec was very sick and needed to be hospitalized. On April 11, 1945, the 6th Armored Division of the US Army marched into Buchenwald, several hours after the prisoners took control by storming the guard towers and forcing the guards to flee. Perec weighed 50 pounds at liberation. On May 7, Germany surrendered. In June, Perec joined the Kibbutz Buchenwald, a training farm affiliated with a nearby displaced persons camp in Fulda, Germany, which was preparing survivors for immigration to Palestine. Perec later learned that in August 1944, Margit had been deported to Stutthof and Sophienwalde concentration camps near Danzig, where she perished. Perec regularly performed for survivors in various displaced persons camps. In January 1946, he went to the Zeilsheim DP camp. In 1947, he became the first musician to play Jewish and Hebrew music on the Frankfurt am Main radio. At this performance he met Grunia Lewin (Levine, 1919 – 2008) who was also from Liepāja, and a survivor of Dondangen II, Stutthof, and Mühldorf concentration camps. They married and she went to live with him in the Zeilsheim DP camp. Grunia became his manager as he performed in many DP camps. Gertrude’s great uncle, Harry Marcus, agreed to sponsor the couple, and in February 1949, they immigrated to the United States aboard the SS Marine Jumper. They settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where Grunia changed her name to Gertrude and Perec to Percy Brand. Percy had a successful career as a well-known musician and radio and television performer. Gertrude continued to serve as his manager. Percy, age 77, died on August 8, 1985, in Brookline, Massachusetts.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Gertrude Brand and the Estate of Gertrude and Percy Brand

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Gertrude Brand

The collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Gertrude Brand in 2006. A separate collection donated by the Estate of Gertrude and Percy Brand in 2009. The collections were unified in 2017.