Spotlight on Herbert Zipper

June 30, 2011

At Dachau, I saw the list of people incarcerated in that infamous concentration camp. Poets, writers, artists, politicians, and musicians – all were listed. Dachau, after all, was one of the places where Adolf Hitler began his Nazification program in Germany. Artists and intellectuals were among the very first targeted for identification and arrest. It's true what they say: after they burned books, they started burning people.

Going to the list of musicians, one name really caught my attention: Herbert Zipper. Interestingly, in the mid-1980s, when I was a violinist of the old Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO I) at the Manila Metropolitan Theater, I recall seeing two pictures hanging on the wall – one of MSO founder, Alexander Lippay, and the other of Herbert Zipper, the orchestra's famous Viennese conductor.

Herbert Zipper, a Jew from Vienna, was born on April 24, 1904, to a prosperous family. He studied composition and conducting under renowned names like Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss. In 1938, after the Nazi Anschluss (annexation of Austria), Zipper, like many of Jewish descent, was arrested and sent to Dachau.

In that concentration camp, Zipper, together with fellow musicians, organized a secret ensemble, playing with improvised instruments. Along with his friend, playwright Jura Soyfer, he wrote the (Dachau Lied) Dachau Song, which became the protest anthem of the camp.

The Tribune photo of Zipper - May 1939

In 1939, Herbert Zipper was transferred to another camp at Buchenwald. Finally, in the middle of the same year, his family and some friends were able to secure his release. He went to Paris and, on the recommendation of his fiancée, Viennese ballerina Trudl Dubsky (who was living in Manila as a dance instructor at the time), received an invitation to conduct the Manila Symphony Orchestra. Herbert Zipper arrived in Manila in June of that year. Manila, at that time, was fast becoming a haven for Jewish refugees. President Quezon's program of providing asylum to European Jews was unique in history. While other countries refused to take Jews, the Philippines was offering a safe haven and even conceptualizing Mindanao as a permanent home for the asylum seekers.

The Tribune - 20 May 1939

Many came – businessmen, doctors, engineers, and artists like Zipper and his wife, who added their expertise to the already vibrant cultural scene of the country. Collectively, these Jewish refugees would become known as "Manilaners."

After two years of leading the orchestra, disaster struck again. When Manila fell to the Japanese, Zipper was incarcerated at UST for almost four months. Due to the leniency of the Japanese towards German and Austrian nationals in the early part of the occupation, Zipper was released. He was asked to collaborate with the Japanese cultural authorities, but Zipper refused. He even hid some of the instruments outside Manila to prevent them from being used by the Japanese.

Herbert Zipper's hiatus from music during the occupation years was spent gathering intelligence for the Allied forces. He fed information about Japanese naval fleet dockings at Manila Bay. When liberation finally came, the US Army, through Mrs. Jane MacArthur (wife of General MacArthur), asked Zipper to lead the MSO in a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 3 (Eroica) and Antonin Dvorak's New World Symphony. It was a powerful scene, watching the emaciated Herbert Zipper, just emerged from the horrors of the Battle of Manila, conducting the MSO in the half-ruined church of Sta Cruz.

After the war, like most Jewish refugees who came to Manila in the 1930s, Herbert Zipper and his wife emigrated to the US. He received teaching positions at various music institutions and became active in organizing many community art centers throughout the country, returning only to Manila every summer to conduct the MSO in its concert season.

In 1976, his wife Trudl died of lung cancer. But this did not deter Zipper from continuing his work in the arts. In the 1980s, he began a series of trips to China, imparting his knowledge to a new generation of young musicians.

In the Philippines, Herbert Zipper was fondly remembered by the generation he trained and conducted as their "Maestro." When asked about their musical training, most had a familiar refrain: "I was with Zipper!" or "I trained under Maestro Zipper!"

Zipper made a final visit to Manila in the late 1980s. By that time, however, the Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO I) was on hiatus due to lack of funds.

Herbert Zipper died in 1997.