One of the last members of the Auschwitz women’s orchestra has got a new crew: Esther Bejarano is now dropping beats with the Cologne-based rap group Microphone Mafia.

Yeah, see I wasn’t kidding.
Holocaust studies can be engulfing, and rightly so. However, allowing events from the past, no matter how horrific, to define our future is detrimental to the health of our people. For too long we have allowed the tears of our history to dampen the potential of our future. The lachrymose view of Jewish history is not without merit but it is not, and should not be, the only way to understand our past.
It would seem that MC Bejarano has got that figured out.  Earlier today she dropped some education on some people at an Auschwitz liberation day memorial. Along with her boyz from Microphone Mafia, this old woman got up, strung together some mean rhymes and remembered the worst of history with song and progressive ideas. Along with her band-mates she is working on rapping about racism and making the world a better place. The fact that an octogenarian is willing to rap says it all.
But if that wasn’t enough, she was a member of the women’s orchestra in the most vile death camp ever to operate in Europe. Along with the other members of this group, she was able to find beauty in a place devoid of life let alone art. This says a lot about her drive, it says a lot about who she is and why she is still singing about making the world a better place today.
Talk about kickin’ it old school.