Herman Rosner was a well-known composer and violinist. In March of 1941, Rosner had to move to the Kraków ghetto with his wife Marianne and son Aleksander. During the day, he performed forced labor outside the ghetto. In the evenings, Rosner and his brother Leopold played at various venues in the ghetto. They also occasionally played in Tadeusz Pankiewicz’s pharmacy.
After the ghetto’s liquidation in 1943, Rosner and his family were interned in Plaszow forced labor camp, where he had to play concerts for the camp commandant Amon Göth. One of the regular guests at Göth’s parties was the businessman Oskar Schindler, who owned a factory where many camp inmates had to work. Schindler liked Rosner’s music and wanted to save him from deportation. He therefore placed him and his family on the list of forced laborers to be transferred to his ammunition factory in Brünnlitz. However, Schindler was unable to prevent Rosner and his son being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the fall of 1944.
Rosner survived the extermination camp and managed to find his family. The Rosners emigrated to the United States. Rosner changed his first name to Henry and went on working as a musician.