Fembio Special: European Jewish Women
Frieda Belinfante
born on May 10, 1904 in Amsterdam, the Netherlands
died on March 5, 1995 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States
Dutch-American cellist, conductor, resistance fighter
30th anniversary of her death on March 5, 2025
Biography
In 1994, ten months before her death, Frieda Belinfante was interviewed by Klaus Müller of the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The interview formed the basis of a documentary film by Toni Boumans (But I Was a Girl) that preserves the memory of a woman who was both an outstanding musician and an important witness of wartime Europe.
Belinfante was born in Amsterdam in 1904. Her father, a well-known Jewish pianist, had his own music school, and her non-Jewish mother saw to the running of household and the care of the children. None of the children – Frieda had two sisters and a brother – received a religious education; their lives revolved around music and all four learned to play an instrument. At the request of her father, Frieda started playing the cello when she was nine. She performed in front of an audience for the first time in 1920, together with her father and students from his music school.
Frieda was seventeen when she met the composer and pianist Henriëtte Bosmans, who was nine years older than her. The two fell in love and were together from 1922 to 1929; all of their friends knew about the relationship. Both lived for music. However, Belinfante received little support from Bosmans, who felt that Belinfante was obviously lacking in talent as she always needed to spend so much time practicing. In contrast, Belinfante felt responsible for Bosmans: she protected her from a demanding mother, helped in advancing her career, organized her performances and wrote the texts for her concert programs.
Bosmans often composed for musicians she played with or was friends with and her second cello concerto was dedicated to Frieda Belinfante. The first performance with Belinfante as soloist took place on October 10, 1923.
In 1924 Belinfante took on a position as a soloist with the Haarlemsche Orkester Vereeniging, but she was unable to make ends meet with her earnings and therefore resigned after two years. In the years that followed, she played in various cinema orchestras – it was still the time of silent films – and gave cello lessons at home.
Together with Henriëtte Bosmans and the flutist Johan Feltkamp, Belinfante performed sporadically in a trio known as the Amsterdamsch Trio. Feltkamp fell in love with Belinfante and although he knew that she was a lesbian, they married in 1930. They shared a love of music, and he supported her career, but otherwise they had little in common. The marriage lasted only until 1936.
In the mid-1930s, Belinfante turned to a new field of work: she conducted a children's orchestra. The school had at first refused to award the position to a woman, but unlike her male competitor she proved herself to have no problems in keeping the children in line.
She then moved on to conduct the women's choir of the University of Amsterdam and, in 1937, the Sweelinck Orchestra of the same university.
With the support of other women in the artists' association Kunst voor Allen (Art for Everyone), she managed to found her own orchestra with 20 members. In 1938 the Kleine Orkest performed for the first time in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; the repertoire included both classical and modern music.
That same year, she was the only woman to take part in a conducting competition organized by Hermann Scherchen in Switzerland. Competing against twelve men, she won first prize, and she seemed predestined for an international career. However, due to the outbreak of the Second World War she was unable to appear as guest conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.
Belinfante was well informed about developments in Nazi Germany and was also aware of the growth of Nazism in the Netherlands. On May 10, 1940, Germany invaded the Netherlands. Right at the beginning of the occupation, her brother and sister-in-law committed suicide. Belinfante disbanded her orchestra, some of whose members were Jewish. The idea that the Germans would decide the fate of her orchestra was unbearable for her.
The situation for Jews became more and more difficult.
In November 1940, the Dutch Cultural Chamber was founded and all artists were required to register with the Chamber. A prerequisite for acceptance was the submission of an “Aryan declaration.” Exemptions could be granted to “half-Jews” if they applied for one; Belinfante chose not to apply. Artists who refused to become members were no longer allowed to practice their profession. There were very few artists who did not register.
Despite the ban, Belinfante conducted her last concert in front of a Jewish audience with Jewish and non-Jewish students in early 1942. After that, she withdrew from public musical life and joined the resistance. From 1941, the first networks emerged in artistic circles, and Belinfante was involved in them from the outset. At first, she forged identity papers on her own, but she soon began working with others to support people in hiding.
In the fall of 1942, a group to which she belonged planned an attack on the offices of the population registry in Amsterdam. The attack was eventually carried out only by men as they had not wanted any women involved. It was successful and is considered the most important action of the resistance during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands: thousands of documents were destroyed, making it more difficult to compare forged papers with legal ones. A few days after the attack, most of the members of the group were betrayed; they were executed shortly after their arrest.
Belinfante went into hiding and lived for several months disguised as a man. In view of the increasing danger, she decided to flee to Switzerland at the end of 1943. She was accepted as a political refugee, presumably through the efforts of Hermann Scherchen. There were about 160 Dutch Jews in the Swiss refugee camp; Belinfante met up with many old acquaintances, but she was rejected by some of them because she was a lesbian. Despite everything, she found the courage to continue to live, organizing a cello and founding a choir. In August 1944, she was allowed to leave the camp and to work with Hermann Scherchen in Winterthur.
After the war ended, she returned to the Netherlands in the summer of 1945. But she quickly became disillusioned: most people there simply went on with their lives as if there had never been an occupation and as if nobody had collaborated with the Nazis.
When she applied for a permanent position as a conductor, she was told to withdraw her application because she was a woman.
She soon felt no further desire to build something for herself in the Netherlands given that she had also lost all the people there that she had cared about. So, in 1947, at the age of 43, she emigrated to the United States and started a new life in California. In the summer of 1948, she received an invitation to be a guest conductor at the Lake Arrowhead music camp. She received no pay, but was able to make many contacts there. She began teaching at the University of California and recording film music in Hollywood.
From July 1954, she conducted the newly founded Orange County Philharmonic Orchestra, which was a great success. At the same time, she built up a network of music schools. The Pacific Symphony, founded in Orange County in 1978, has a program named after her: The Frieda Belinfante Class Act Program where the orchestra works with numerous elementary schools throughout Orange County. It is considered one of the most important music programs in the United States.
The Orange County Philharmonic Orchestra was dissolved in 1962 because the Society preferred to have famous orchestras make guest appearances at its annual events. Belinfante could do nothing to protect her orchestra and she herself was dismissed. She suspected that rumors about her private life, i.e. her lesbianism, were one of the reasons for the dissolution of the orchestra.
Frieda Belinfante wanted to make music for people and in public. She saw her homosexuality as a private matter. Disappointed and angry, she withdrew.
After moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, she only taught private students.
On March 5, 1995, Frieda Belinfante died of cancer.
(Text from 2010; translated with DeepL.com; edited by Ramona Fararo, 2025.
Please consult the German version for additional information, pictures, sources, videos, and bibliography.)
Quotes
The true joy I knew as a child, the trust in people and humanity – they never returned. I met wonderful people, and that's the only reason I was able to go on living: because there were beautiful people. There is beauty in people, but not enough.
I have always been a fighter. I don't take no for an answer. If something is not possible at that moment, my reaction is: we'll see.
I was never cautious. I always said: I can do this; I want to try.
It always surprised me how everything always worked out. Everything I needed while living my life was simply there at that very moment.
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