So, I have written about the process of the arrival at a death camp before here and concerning the knowledge at the time of arrival here.

As can be gleaned from the testimony of Dov Freiberg, in the Reinhard Camps – and on occasion in Auschwitz-Birkenau – music was part of the arrival process as the Nazis forced the camp orchestra to play marches as they "welcomed" the newly arrived deportees. Similarly, Abraham Kszepicki, selected from a transport to bury the bodies of those who didn't survive deportation after arriving in Treblinka, testified:

As I stood near the "shower" at Treblinka, I discovered something new. For some time, I thought I heard music. I thought it was a radio receiver installed by the Germans so that – God forbid – they should not be removed from their native culture in this out-of-the-way-spot. Now I could ascertain that their concern for musical culture was even greater. Forty meters from the gas chambers, near the path where the Jews were led to the "showers", a small musical ensemble stood under a tree. Three Jews with yellow patches, three musicians from Stock, stood and played there on their instruments ... They played enthusiastically. It was difficult to make out their repertoire ... these were apparently the latest hit songs favored by Germans and Ukrainians.

As for Jews shepherded to the gas chamber and starting to sing, there are testimonies to this. Salman Gradowski was a member of the Jewish Sonderkommando, a group of specially selected Jewish prisoners charged with clearing the gas chamber and bringing the bodies of murdered Jews to the crematoria ovens to burn them. He testified after the war that when a deportation transport of Jews from the Theresienstadt Ghetto/Camp arrived in Auschwitz in 1944, he heard them being ferried to the gas chamber where they started singing Czech folk songs – something subsequently taken up by the prisoners in a barrack near Crematorium 2. The SS responded by shooting in the air and exchanging harsh words with the prisoners.

A similar testimony came during the Auschwitz Trial in Frankfurt in the early 60s from another member of the Jewish Sonderkommando, Filip Müller. He described how 600 Czech Jews from the Family Camp in Auschwitz (a separate camp within Auschwitz especially erected for Jews from the Theresienstadt Camp) were lead to their deaths. He stated and later reproduced in his own memoir:

... Before they could further think, Voss [Peter Voss, commander of the crematoria in Auschwitz] continued: "Everything will be easier, if you undress fast and then continued into the room next door. Or do you want to make the last moments of your childrens' lives unnecessary hard?" The people had now heard from the mouth of their seeming concerned murderer what their fate was about to be. Many turned away, shaking from fear. Many become silent and muted, hardly a movement of the people remained natural. Their eyes were rigid and almost hyptontized. Parents took their children into their arms and a deadly seriousness filled the room. Most started to undress while others were still hesitant. When their executioners noticed this, they started to use violence to force them out of the undressing room of the gas chamber without regard if they still wore clothes or not. Whoever resisted was brutally beaten. The men had gathered the women and children around them to shield them from the punches and the bites from the dogs. Suddenly chaos ensued. The victims started pushing, kicking with their feet, blood sprayed, SS-men started shouting and beating with clubs, dogs barked and bit angrily. Suddenly a voice rose in song that became more and more forceful and was suddenly taken up by a chorus. The people had begun singing the Czech national anthem »Kde domov muj«. Subsequently they sung the Jewish song »Hatikvah«. Even during their song, the SS-men didn't stop beating them. Surely, they saw the singing as a form of protest against the fate the SS had devised for them and from which they were unable to escape.

This I assume is the testimony, your tour guide was referring to when he talked about victims singing before the gas chamber.

It is interesting that both Gradowski and Müller mention singing in connection to Czech Jews and Müller's testimony already gives some interesting context. Theresienstadt was a special camp, originally conceived as a camp for prominent German Jews and their families, WWI veterans, and some other "special" categories of prisoners. It was also the only camp where families stayed together and men and women weren't separated. When deportations began from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, this was essentially kept by placing the families deported together in a special camp area in Auschwitz.

While this is only a theory but the Theresienstadt families were people who already had had camp experiences and when a certain "culture" if you will of sticking together. Confronted with their end, this might have lead them to begin singing but whether this played a role is something that can hardly be confirmed.

Sources:

• Hermann langbein (ed.): Der Auschwitz Prozess. Eine Dokumentation.

• Filip Müller: Sonderbehandlung.

• Yithzak Arad: Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka : the Operation Reinhard death camps (1987).

• Gitta Sereny: Into that darkness. From Mercy Killing to Mass Murder. A book based on her interviews with Franz Stangl, camp commander of Sobibor.

• Robert Kuwałek: Das Vernichtungslager Bełżec.

• Hermann Langbein: Menschen in Auschwitz.

• "Auschwitz: A New History" by Laurence Rees