On March 4, in the evening, the town hall in Kahla had filled up. A lecture with live music about the life of the internationally renowned musician, singer and organizer Günter Boas was announced.
Boas worked as a medic in the “REIMAHG” in 1944/1945. Through this activity, he had a lot of contact with foreign forced laborers who worked in the medical stations of the camps. Friendships that resulted from this continued for many years after the war.
Boas, born in Dessau in 1920, was an extremely talented jazz and blues musician, singer, organizer and a person with a big heart for these music genres and the people. He interrupted his medical studies in Jena due to the war and later decided on his true passion, music. She connected him internationally with like-minded people, especially in the cradle of blues, in the USA, he had lifelong and very many friendships with all the great musicians and singers of the blues scene.
It is also music that brought him together in 1959 with Lore, whom he married a year later.
This lecture was the summarized result of intensive research by the Förderverein “Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Walpersberg” e.V., Kahla. The musician and singer Boas is well known, but a lot of data has been mispublished so far and there was hardly any information about his private life. The research involved many archives, authorities, cities and people who reached as far as Poland and the USA. In close contact with his wife Lore, she supported our exhibition and handed over many original objects to the association, her husband Günter, who died in 1993, as a permanent loan. Now 96 years old, she is still a remarkable and intelligent woman who was able to help us informatively very well.
The lecture, supported by multimedia, gave the audience a deep insight into the private life of Günter Boas for the first time. This atmospheric evening was supported by the virtuosity of Alexander Blume, on the grand piano. The concert organizer Volker Albold, generally known for blues concerts, had been able to engage him, which gave this evening the perfect setting. This was also shown by the audience, who were enthusiastic about the theme lecture and clapped and demanded “encore” from Alexander Blume.
