Saul Dreier stands in the wings of the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in Washington, D.C., waiting to be introduced. A short, wiry nonagenarian, he’s appearing there with his Holocaust Survivor Band in December 2015, a few days shy of the new year. It’s a prestigious venue for a musical group that, up to that point, had only existed for just over a year. Dreier is excited but not nervous. He has seen too much in his lifetime to be unnerved by a mere performance.
When the band is announced, the crowd greets it enthusiastically. Dreier, 90, and Reuwen “Ruby” Sosnowicz, 88, both Holocaust survivors, take the stage, dressed in matching red shirts, black vests and black trousers. Sosnowicz, the more reserved of the two, goes to his keyboard, barely acknowledging…
