For almost a century the Linetzkys keep up an intensive love for Hausmusik [home concerts] far from the old ‘Heimat’ [homeland]. 1929 dramatic social changes in Europe force the family to leave Europe and to start a life in the diaspora. The album »Diaspora in Buenos Aires« is a unique, moving AudioFilm [sound story] about the Jewish traditions far from home but not uprooted and homeless.
Andrés Linetzky’s grandfather José Linetzky is born during World War I in the village Belz in Eastern Europe. At that time still 3,600 Jewish people live in that village with a total population of 6,000. Jewish culture is here at home. The Linetzkys stay in a house in the ‘Musician’s Street‘, they are Klesmer, that is the name of musicians who play Yiddish music. And they have a book shop. The family of Andrés’ other grandfather Jaime Szczupak comes also from Europe, from Poland, and also that part of his family moves to Argentina to find a new place in 1929. In the year of the emigration José celebrates his thirteenth birthday and his mother teaches him how to play the mandolin. Much later, José falls in love with Rosita Garber. She has music in her veins, too. She plays clarinet, and during a rehearsal for home concerts both sit on one chair at the piano, and José plays the left hand and Rosita the right. Secretly they kiss each other and tell that later to the family. 1934 they get married. Several decades later in 1988 Zeide [grandfather] José – now 72 years old – plays a polka [track 23] together with his fourteen year old grandchild Andrés. The second last track represents this scene as a flashback and is an important structural component of this story.
In the history books is written that 1929 is the year of the Wall Street crash and the start of a worldwide Great Depression. In Europe significant changes happen also before this date, and the village Belz is at the center of the dreadful development. Beginning of the 19th century Poland falls apart and the originally Jewish homogeneous population in Eastern Europe is separated in different national states. The situation for the Jewish people has grown steadily worse decade by decade. The largest part of the Jewish population is now part of Tsarist Russia. Pogroms are growing, and the Jewish are losing almost all rights and have to stay in the so-called Pale of Settlement, the Western border regions of the old Russian Empire. In between 1890 and the end of World War I around two million Jews flee from that area to start a new life in America. George Gershwin’s parents are part of them, and [track 8] »Suite mozaica« shows where his roots lie. In 1924 the immigration into the United States abates because more stringent restrictions come into force. Mauricio Kagel’s father flees like the grandparents of Andrés Linetzky to Buenos Aires. And also Uri Caine’s grandparents immigrate to the US. Through Uri Caine’s »Primal Light« floats Jewish music, which is a reference to his roots and also to the source of Gustav Mahler.
