Tennessee professor reveals story of her late husband, a Holocaust survivor, amid today's antisemitism
World-renowned pianist Herman Godes spent 4 years in Nazi captivity, was 'grateful to have survived,' his wife told Fox News Digital
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}As reports of antisemitism on American college campuses continue to swirl since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks on Israel, one piano professor at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, Tennessee, has been finding her own way through the issue.
She's spent her career working to educate and inform students — through music and thoughtful conversation — as she promotes a better understanding of the history of the Jewish people.
She works to counter antisemitism as well.
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"So many students today do not really understand what they are seeing in the news," Dr. Catherine Godes, music professor at Tennessee Tech, told Fox News Digital.
"I think knowing the history, they can hear about what's going on with more understanding and maybe more empathy. You can still have your opinions, but with a little bit more perspective on what's really happening. Education is the key to understanding."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Catherine Godes, professor of music at Tennessee Tech in Cookeville, Tennessee, has spent her career educating students on music and engaging them in conversation to "counter antisemitism," she told Fox News Digital. (Tennessee Tech University)
Godes gained an understanding through her late husband, world-renowned Latvian pianist Herman Godes.
He spent four brutal years as a prisoner in the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp. It's a story of suffering and survival that she shares with students who are willing to listen.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Herman was born in 1917, in the beautiful city of Riga, Latvia, which was then a part of the Soviet Union," Godes said.
"His mother was a concert pianist, a wonderful teacher, and he started piano at a very young age. He was enormously talented."
Herman Godes was a world-renowned Latvian pianist and a Holocaust survivor who spent years as a prisoner in the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp. (West Virginia University)
Herman Godes was studying in Paris with pianist Robert Casadesus in the late 1930s, Godes said, when Adolf Hitler began moving troops into the Baltic States.
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"Herman wanted to go back home to be with his parents because this was a very tense time for all Jewish people," Godes said.
"Very shortly after that, all hell broke loose and the Nazis came into Riga in the middle of the night," she said. "There was a knock on the door and Herman, his parents and his brother were forced out of their home with just a few belongings. They had beautiful paintings and a marvelous Bechstein grand piano, but the Nazis confiscated all of that."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I’m always amazed that they don't really know that much about [the Holocaust]. But I think the students embrace the knowledge, and embrace my story."
They were moved to the Riga Ghetto — where Herman Godes was separated from his parents and forced to work under very difficult circumstances, his wife said.
On Dec. 8, 1941, Herman’s parents and brother died in the Rumbula massacre, in which some 25,000 Jews were slaughtered in a forest outside Riga.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"They were forced to dig their own graves, lined up, and they were shot," Godes said.
She said her late husband was then forced into a concentration camp, where he met up with a cousin.
"I talk a lot about music history, about form, about harmony," said Dr. Godes of Tennessee Tech (shown at far right). "And on occasion, students will ask me about my past and I tell them a little bit about my husband being a Holocaust survivor." (Tennessee Tech University)
The two pretended to have auto-mechanical skills in order to stay alive.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Herman would often talk about the fact that he survived because he was young and strong," Godes said.
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"That’s how he survived — because of his will. He said, ‘You wake up in the morning and your only goal is to get through the day.’ He said, ‘You can survive lice, cold, humiliation, starvation, but you can't survive the gas chamber or a bullet. So you just do what you have to do.’"
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}After four long years, liberation came in 1945 — and Herman Godes escaped the camp as the Nazis tried to dispose of as many remaining prisoners as possible, Godes said.
"There's a lot out there, [including] slavery, and I think we can't ignore it. We have to face it and we have to know it and understand it as we move forward."
She said that later, her husband was able to immigrate to New York City, where he had family who moved there before the war, she said.
"He had nothing," she said. "He quickly learned English and started his career again. He started to practice and everything came back. His career started to take off and he enjoyed this very wonderful life of performing."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Godes said that today, she takes any opportunity to share her late husband's story with her students, both to keep his memory alive and to do her part in preventing something like this from ever happening again.
Dr. Godes is shown performing on the piano. Her husband, Herman Godes, was an accomplished pianist. She heard him perform for the first time in New York City. (Tennessee Tech University)
"I talk a lot about music history, about form, about harmony [in my teachings]," she said. "And on occasion, students will ask me about my past and I tell them a little bit about my husband being a Holocaust survivor."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}She added, "The reaction is always shock. Some [people] are overwhelmed … I’m always amazed that they don't really know that much about it. But I think the students embrace the knowledge, and embrace my story."
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Godes said she first heard her husband play a concert in New York City, where she was studying as a young pianist.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Though there was a more than 30-year age difference between them, the two fell in love. They shared 35 years of marriage and music with each other.
"Herman lived life to the fullest," Godes said of her husband. "He was a survivor, and he had this optimism about him. Many of his fellow survivors were still very bitter, but Herman's attitude was quite different."
Craig Terry, a student of both Herman Godes and Catherine Godes, went on to become an accomplished, Grammy Award-winning pianist and director of the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago. (Todd Rosenberg)
She added, "He was so grateful to have survived, and he embraced everyone with no grudges. His whole attitude was so healthy and that did a lot for me. I was very blessed to share my life with such a man."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Together, the couple touched the lives of music students at Tennessee Tech until Herman Godes died in 2007.
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One of those students is Craig Terry, a Grammy Award-winning pianist. He is director of the Ryan Opera Center at Lyric Opera of Chicago and studied with the couple beginning in 1993.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I believe that Dr. Godes’ knowledge and experience with the Holocaust brings so much to our students in terms of perspective, understanding and empathy."
"I'm from a very small town in Tennessee," Terry told Fox News Digital. "At that point in my life, I had not traveled very much and they were kind of my windows to the world and to history."
He added, "'Schindler's List,' I remember, came out maybe my junior year and Herman talked about those experiences. It was quite something for me as a young person who didn't have much worldwide experience or firsthand experience from people that had been through significant world events and world history. So to hear him talk about that was quite something."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Terry stayed in touch with his teachers after college. To this day, he said he considers Catherine Godes a friend.
"Cathy is someone who, once you have a relationship with her, you have it for life, like most great teachers," Terry said.
Jennifer Shank, dean of the College of Fine Arts at Tennessee Tech University, said that Dr. Catherine Godes "is able to approach musical works in a much richer way." (Jennifer Shank)
Jennifer Shank, dean of the College of Fine Arts at Tennessee Tech University, said Godes is able to take her experience and story and draw parallels to what is happening in the world today — for the benefit of students.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"She is able to approach musical works in a much richer way, as well as use her knowledge and experiences to help bridge the gap for students that might think of the Holocaust as only history or not contextual," Shank told Fox News Digital.
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With antisemitism erupting on college campuses today, Godes said she thinks students need to "go deeper."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"It’s about awareness," Godes said.
A university professor, Dr. Catherine Godes (left), is using her platform to educate her students about the ugly parts of history, including the Holocaust, so they can understand and move forward. At right, her late husband. (Tennessee Tech University/West Virginia University)
"Not being afraid to talk about history, the ugly parts of history … There's a lot out there, [including] slavery, and I think we can't ignore it. We have to face it, and we have to know it and understand it as we move forward," she said.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}As she also said in a recent episode of Tennessee Tech’s "College Town Talk" podcast, "I believe that children in school need to learn about the Holocaust. They need to learn about antisemitism, about slavery, what is at the root of prejudice against Black people and so on. That is important — and to always remember that we’re all humans. We’re all a part of this world and we all come from different backgrounds."
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