Adolf Strauss (composer)

Adolf Strauss (16 August 1902 – 28 September 1944) was a Czech pianist, violinist, accordion and harmonica player, composer and kapellmeister. Biography Strauss was born to Jewish parents, Josef and Rosa Strauss, in Žatec, a historic town in Louny District, Ústí nad Labem Region, in the Czech Republic (at the time still part of the Austrian Empire). He was killed on 28 September 1944 in Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland, under the Nazi regime. He studied music at the Prague Conservatory, earning his living by playing music in Prague’s cafes. Due to an antisemitic incident in Prague, he eventually continued his studies at the conservatory in Leipzig, Germany. There, he became the conductor at the Leipzig Kristallpalast. In Leipzig, he also published his first composition, “Karawanen Fox Trott” (Caravan Fox Trot), which was published by the Fritz Brandt Musikverlag Leipzig in 1923, and which was often played in the radio at the time. When the Nazis gained in power in Germany and the musicians refused to play under a Jewish conductor, Adolf and his wife Maria, herself a musician from Bohemia (singer, violinist and pianist) decided to go back to Czechoslovakia. They opened a shoe sh