Laszlo Roth

László Roth (aka Ladislau Roth, Roth Laci) (b.1920), conductor and composer, born in Satu Mare, Romania. After August 1940, the region was incorporated into Hungary and the family suffered the anti-Semitic persecutions. At 21 Roth began has music studies at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest but was forced to terminate his studies prematurely in 1943, when Jews were banned from pursuing academic studies in Hungary. The ghetto in Satu Mare was established in the Jewish section of the city on May 3, 1944, where Roth and his family lived. Jews from Satu Mare, as well as from the surrounding areas, were concentrated there until the deportations began on May 19, 1944. Roth, his parents, and a few additional members of his family, were deported to Auschwitz on May 20th, 1944, where his mother was killed upon arrival. He served in evacuating bodies from the crematorium, until he and his father volunteered to work as woodcutters and were transported to Mauthausen in Austria, and finally Melk and Ebensee, both subcamps of the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp in Austria. Roth was singled out for his musical abilities, and assigned to form a small orchestra along with eight other prisoners. As no piano was available, Roth was forced to learn how to play the accordion. He was freed from Ebensee camp by the US Army.

After WW2 he continued his musical studies at the Ferenc Liszt Music Academy in Budapest, Hungary, that he started in 1941. He returned to Romania and settled in Timisoara. As of 1947 he started working at the Timisoara Opera House becoming it principal conductor, a position that he held until 1958, when he was fired following his request to emigrate to Israel.

Roth immigrated to Israel in 1960 settling in Bat Yam. He started working as conductor of the Israeli Opera, Tel Aviv chamber choir, the Jerusalem Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Israeli Broadcasting Choir and Orchestra. From 1965 to late 1970s he served as conductor of the Tzadikov choir in Jaffa, and then he was conductor of the Israeli folklore ensemble Anahnu Kan ("We are here"), composed of new Jewish immigrants from the Soviet Union. Roth was a guest conductor of the Scarlatti Orchestra of Naples, Italy, in 1965. He conducted at the Opera House of Pretoria, South Africa, during 1967-1968, then he was a guest conductor at Radio Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1968, and a guest conductor at Landestheater of Salzburg, Austria, in 1970. During 1980-1984 he conducted various symphony orchestras as well as the Opera House in Mexico City, and during 1985-1987 he was active in the United States. After the fall of the Communist regime in Romania, Roth renewed his activities in that country and collaborated with the opera houses in Timisoara, Brasov, and Bucharest. For years he conducted concerts of the Dinu Lipatti Philharmonic in Satu Mare, his hometown. On June 2, 2013, he conducted a concert for the former Jewish residents of Timisoara who arrived from all corners of the world for a meeting at the Sinagoga din Cetate in Timisoara. In October 2013 Roth was invited to conduct the Kiev Philharmonic.