Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson

Zhanna Arshanskaya Dawson, 95, a Holocaust survivor whose life was defined and saved by music, died peacefully at her home in Atlanta, GA, on January 9, 2023. She was born in 1927 in Berdyansk, Ukraine, on April 1, a birthday she proudly shared with her musical hero and countryman, Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Her father, Dmitri, was a candy maker and amateur violinist who idolized Paganini and dreamed of Zhanna and her younger sister, Frina, becoming piano virtuosos. Her mother Sara was a champion swimmer and book lover who presciently named Zhanna for Joan of Arc after reading the Russian translation of Mark Twain’s account of the indomitable French heroine.

An adventurous spirit — “born busy” she said — Zhanna’s parents began piano lessons for her at age 5. She made her public debut at age 6 playing Bach on the local radio station.

The family moved to the city of Kharkiv where Zhanna, 8 and Frina, 6, were the first children ever given scholarships at the prestigious Kharkiv Conservatory of Music. The sisters became celebrities, performing publicly and receiving glowing press reviews.

In December 1941, the Arshansky family, including two grandparents, were among 16,000 Jews put on a death march by Nazis. Dmitri bribed a guard with his gold watch to look away as Zhanna bolted out of line and hid in the skirts of women along the route. The parents and grandparents were shot nearby on the edge of a great ravine called Drobitsky Yar. Frina escaped later – a story she never shared with Zhanna or anyone but her husband.

The sisters made their way back to Kharkiv and were hidden for two weeks by a courageous Christian family, the Boganchas. They devised a story for them to use the aliases of Anna and Marina Morozova and helped them flee to Kremenchuk where they entered an orphanage.

Discovered by Nazi soldiers while playing piano for the orphans, “Anna and Marina” hid their Jewish identities. They spent the rest of the war outwitting the Germans as they used their musical talents while performing with a captive troupe of entertainers traveling with the Nazis throughout Europe.

After the war, at a displaced persons camp in Bavaria, the girls caught the ear of U.S. Army Lt. Laurence Dawson, head of the camp and a music lover from Virginia. He got them on the first ship of Holocaust survivors coming to America after the war in May 1946, and arranged an audition at the Juilliard School of Music which gave the sisters full scholarships.

In 1947, Zhanna married the lieutenant’s brother, David Dawson, who had studied at Juilliard and was principal viola of the Minneapolis Symphony and the NBC Symphony under Arturo Toscanini before devoting the rest of his life to playing and teaching chamber music as a member of the Berkshire String Quartet at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN.

Zhanna was a part-time instructor at IU and taught privately at home while raising their sons, Greg and Bill. She maintained a busy stage career, performing sonatas with David and appearing regularly with the Berkshire Quartet at IU and at its summer retreat, Music Mountain, in Connecticut. She was soloist with symphony orchestras across the midwest and in 1961 won the Allied Arts Piano Competition in Chicago. More than one critic described Zhanna’s stage presence as “self-effacing,” which belied “the lyricism and thunderous passion” emanating from the delicate beauty.

Zhanna left Bloomington to join the faculty at the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, subsequently moving to Atlanta where she developed a large class of private students including the daughters of Mayor Maynard Jackson. She became a featured performer with musical societies in the city. In 2012, Zhanna was awarded an honorary degree of letters by Oglethorpe University.

After publication in 2009 of Hiding in the Spotlight, Greg’s book about her story, Zhanna traveled widely to share it with audiences, from rapt middle schoolers to charmed historians and war veterans at the World War II Museum in New Orleans. Greg co-authored with Susan Hood, Alias Anna: A True Story of Outwitting the Nazis, a version of the story for younger readers published in 2022. Her granddaughter Aimée narrated the audiobook which Zhanna enjoyed listening to in the final months of her life.

Zhanna often was asked how she could play for the enemy, the German soldiers and Nazi officers responsible for the murder of her family. She was not playing for them, she explained, she was playing for her mother and father and grandparents and for the composers and the music itself. She and Frina played for an audience of 1,200 survivors of Dachau before leaving Germany for America.

Dmitri’s final words to Zhanna as she fled the death march were, “I don’t care what you do—just live!” For Zhanna, to live was to play the classical music she loved. Music saved her life and was her life.

Zhanna is survived by her devoted partner of 35 years, Richard Schnelker; sons Greg (Candy) Dawson of Maitland, FL, and Bill (Olga) Dawson of Indianapolis, IN; grandchildren, Chris Dawson of Lakeland, FL, Aimée Dawson (Marc Kelly) of Falls Church, VA, David Dawson (Sara) of Sacramento, CA, Anna Dawson of Indianapolis, IN; great-grandchildren, Leina Dawson and Will Dawson of Sacramento, CA, and Félicité Kelly Dawson of Falls Church, VA. Zhanna was preceded in death by her husband, David Dawson and sister Frina Arshanskaya Boldt. She loved and was loved by Lorraine Bowman, her caregiver of six years.

In honor of Ukrainians fleeing the current war, donations may be made to UMACTransport.org —Ukrainian Mothers and Children Transport Initiative which Zhanna’s family supports as we bring one family at a time to safety in the US. Among them is the Bogancha family of Kharkiv whose ancestors sheltered Zhanna and Frina in their darkest hour.