Coco Schumann (1924 - ) is known as one of the best swing and jazz musicians of his time in Europe. In the 1940s, as a teenager, he began playing in underground swing clubs in the Berlin scene and continued to do so illegally during the war. After being arrested in 1943 and sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp, he performed with The Ghetto Swingers, a jazz band made up of some of the best musical talent in Europe. Later in Auschwitz-Birkenau, Schumann had a close call with the infamous Dr. Josef Mengele and survived day-by-day as a musician forced to play for the SS, for corrupt and sadistic guards, and streams of people as they were sent into the gas chambers. Ultimately, he was sent to a remote camp of Dachau where he contracted spotted fever, and was then forced on a death march to Innsbruck. An American battalion intercepted this march and liberated them.

Schumann has spent his lifetime playing jazz and swing. He taught at a music conservatory in Steglitz-Zehlendorf for many years and began telling his story in the 1980s at schools in Germany and for documentaries on German and British television, as well as putting out new song collections; his latest collection appeared last year. His life story has been made into a graphic novel and musical stage productions, and has been optioned as a feature film, but his incredible journey has never been told fully for English-speaking audiences.

When he turned 90 years old in 2014, Schumann retired from public performances, and in 2015 he received the prestigious Ehrenpreise Lifetime Achievement Award.