Three Jewish refugees, dispossessed by Nazi Europe, navigated a system of restrictive immigration policies and xenophobia to help establish Iceland’s classical music scene in the 1930s. Robert Abraham, a pianist from Berlin, Victor Urbancic, a Viennese conductor, and Heinz Edelstein, a cellist and teacher from Freiburg, arrived in a country that largely closed its doors to Jewish immigration, according to a newly translated book by Icelandic musicologist Árni Heimir Ingólfsson.
Abraham, at 22, stepped into Iceland in late 1935, carrying almost nothing. He had fled Germany in 1934 after training at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. Denmark had already turned him down. Urbancic arrived three years later in 1938 with his Jewish wife, Melitta, after years of failing to find safe harbor elsewhere in Europe. Edelstein, with his wife and two sons, arrived somewhere in between. Ingólfsson notes that today, as many as 100 descendants of these three men live in Iceland.
Systemic Exclusion
Iceland in the autumn of 1935 was a small fishing port, home to fewer than 30,000 people. It lacked a concert hall, a proper orchestra, or a conservatory. Despite this need, the country maintained highly restrictive immigration policies. Ingólfsson stated that at least four other Jewish musicians, including composer Viktor Ullmann, who later died in Auschwitz, applied for Icelandic work permits around the same time but were rejected.
These policies mirrored Denmark’s pre-war restrictions. Iceland, struggling economically, fostered suspicion of foreigners. Ingólfsson explained, “Iceland is small and isolated, and in a place like that, xenophobia takes root easily.” He added that a prime minister, acting on his own authority, “closed the country to Jews entirely.” This systemic exclusion, fueled by antisemitism and economic hardship, defined the border regime faced by those fleeing Nazi persecution.
Conditional Acceptance
Urbancic, though raised Catholic, saw his career end under the Nazis because his wife, Melitta, was from a Jewish family. After doors closed in Switzerland and the United States, an old classmate helped him find a foothold in Iceland. Abraham, raised Protestant by his Jewish parents, was no longer religious. Edelstein had become an atheist. Ingólfsson observed, “That made them easier for Icelanders to accept.” Their admission was not based on humanitarian principle but on a combination of luck, timing, connections, and their ability to assimilate or shed aspects of their Jewish identity.
Ingólfsson described their acceptance as happening “in a very Icelandic way,” where applications were forwarded based on personal connections rather than an automatic rejection. Tina Frühauf of the CUNY Graduate Center highlighted the diverse Jewish religious landscape in pre-Holocaust Germany, noting that many emigres had similar biographies to the Iceland refugees. This conditional acceptance underscores the arbitrary nature of refugee systems, where personal circumstances and the host country’s pragmatic needs often override universal rights.
Building a Scene Amidst Adversity
Despite these systemic barriers, the three musicians profoundly transformed Icelandic music. Urbancic became chief conductor of the Reykjavík Orchestra, which evolved into the Iceland Symphony Orchestra by 1950. He led the country’s first performances of Bach’s “St. John Passion” and Mozart’s “Requiem,” and in 1951, its first staged opera, Verdi’s “Rigoletto.” Abraham conducted the Iceland Symphony Orchestra’s first-ever concert in 1950 and founded the Philharmonia Choral Society in 1959. Edelstein was instrumental in building the music schools and teaching pipelines that a country without a conservatory tradition desperately needed.
Ingólfsson noted, “They essentially created it,” referring to Iceland’s classical music scene. He emphasized their willingness to take on any role—training orchestras, building choirs, teaching children—because their old lives had been upended. The book, “Music at World’s End: Three Refugee Musicians from Nazi Germany and Their Contribution to Iceland’s Music Life,” published in English this year, documents this overlooked history. German musicologist Albrecht Dümling stressed the urgency of documenting such stories as eyewitnesses to the Nazi era pass away, ensuring that these artists are not reduced to mere victims but recognized for their artistic merit.