Simon Micha Namenwirth

Simon “Micha” Namenwirth passed away on the morning of Sunday July 20th 2025 at home in the rich summer countryside of rural Wisconsin, peacefully in his own bed.

Micha was active and alert right up to the moment of his passing. The day before he passed he had enjoyed an extended walk in the adjoining woods and prairie and in the evening relished watching the 1945 classic movie Weekend at the Waldoff. He had an uncomfortable night but in the morning had eaten his breakfast of cereal and fruit. After breakfast he went up to his room to rest a bit and his body was found reclined on his bed a few hours later.

Micha was 90 years old, which to everyone, especially and including Micha himself, ninety is a very big number. And yet to get your mind around Micha’s life you cannot look at it in terms of years: you have to look at it in terms of the number of days he lived to appreciate the breadth and depth of the life he lived. Micha lived for 33,164 of them.

Micha was born in Rotterdam on September 8, 1934. He was born into a dangerous time for European Jews and getting more and more dangerous by the day. And those reading this will also understand that being born into a loving middle class bourgeois family provided no safety from the gathering clouds of Nazism.

After the war started and the family witnessed the utter destruction of the family business during the bombing of Rotterdam in the opening days of the War Micha's father began removing money from their bank accounts. One evening at a party his parents came to know that they might be questioned about it. That night itself Micha's mother insisted that she and her husband sit down and get their story straight. Early morning there was a loud knock on the door and German officials entered the house, took each parent to a separate room and interrogated them about the money transfers. Had Micha's mother not insisted the previous evening on establishing their story they would have been arrested and likely not have survived the War.

After this the family cards fell quickly: Eight-year old Simon Namenwirth suddenly became Nico Nanning. He was sent into hiding in the north of Holland with a protestant family. Many of his letters to his parents at this time survived and formed the foundation of his first book “Nico”. They revealed the innocent stoicism of a young lad who had to grow up too soon and struggle to understand things a young mind couldn't possibly grasp.

Micha was a storyteller and relived his many memories of that time: The close encounter with a German checkpoint when he and his mother got lost; the “hunger winter” of 1944/5 when the north of Holland could not be liberated when the allied assault on Arnheim failed and there was nothing to eat (that's the reason Micha retained a lifelong distaste for turnips!); the school medical exam in which his naked body revealed to the doctor his Jewishness (everything was noticed but nothing was said); his close escape from allied planes dropping bombs on a railway bridge as he and his brother ran for lives from a nearby vegetable field where they were gathering food, and on and on. Already at 8 years old Micha had lived a life full of eye popping experiences.

As the clampdown on public Jewish music performances tightened as the War approached, many talented and a few famous Jewish musicians would come to Micha's family home and play for gatherings in the evening. This exposure sparked a deep appreciation in Micha for classical music. After the war had come and gone Jewish people here and there began to reappear. Some went to Israel, some to America, but many stayed and day by day began to recreate their shattered lives. It was at this time Micha realized that almost all of those people who had come to their prewar home to play and to listen had perished. Entire families had disappeared. Micha understood that he had not just been a witness to but was a participant in this unimaginable tragedy. How could things return to way they had been?

Around this time Micha's parents were concerned about his academic performance. He was not doing well at school at all. They enlisted the help of a psychiatrist and were told by him that the war had damaged Micha's intellectual and emotional capacity beyond help and that it was likely he would never amount to much. The parents promptly dismissed this professional assessment as quackery and set about raising Micha normally.

Around this time the benefits of music began to take shape in Micha's life. Music started to become both the refuge for and the expression of Micha-the-young-man. Soon to be followed by the joy of reading, learning, travelling, friends and family life and a normal healthy social boy.

This appreciation for the preciousness of learning through the vehicles of books and music remained with Micha his whole life and found expression in his personal and professional lives.

During high school Micha studied the violin. His teacher was so impressed he came to the family home one evening to implore his parents to convince Micha to dedicate his life to mastering the violin. Again his parents did not force Micha into a mold. Micha himself understood that whilst he loved the violin he also loved to read and have fun and even to compose and conduct and that he did not have the single-minded dedication that he would need to be able to master any single instrument.

Micha did continue his musical education at the Amsterdam Conservatory but focused instead on the bassoon, music theory and conducting. Through the study of these subjects Micha was able to combine his natural love of learning over a wide range of topics along with his love of music.

An early student of Micha's in a New York summer camp in 1962, Ziggy, says that even then at age 27 Micha was an accomplished conductor, composer and musician. He shared his love for learning and performing with everyone and in doing so inspired everyone to be better than they thought they could be; and was able to bring everyone together for stellar orchestral performances.

Through many twists and turns including oddly getting handed a business visa last minute at the US embassy in Amsterdam, Micha began a new episode of his life in the United States.

Before attending a summer camp season in New York state he sent out numerous requests for positions at universities. He had asked his friend that all his mail be sent to him at the camp. (It was at this camp that he met a fellow counselor, Marion, whom he later married). His mail arrived in one package just as the camp season was ending. Responses from Harvard, Yale etc had all expired. Only the University of Minnesota’s response was open-ended. So with about $50 in his pocket Micha headed out to Minnesota where he began his studies for his PhD in Musicology.

This was a time of poverty and retrenchment for Micha. The classic student tale where he cleaned bathrooms daily in the dormitory in exchange for room and board; later with Marion waited tables and cooked in a diner while writing his thesis in the ladies’ ante room in a local church.

Micha understood what it was like to be poor and to be hungry. But instead of being embittered by it he saw the dignity in it. He related to the suffering of others as someone who has themselves suffered. He was at all times a defender of freedom from racism, inequality, and injustice. And Micha never shunned manual work. Just as he knew there was no shame in being poor, there was certainly no shame in labor.

After considering many other possibilities Micha began his academic career at Harvard as head of the Germanic Collection section of its vast library. By this time he had remarried to Hester Meurs and after a while moved to the University of Berkeley where they began a family with baby Beth followed by Robin. It was here that Micha got his Librarianship degree.

After a number of years in Berkeley Micha was offered a position at the Free University of Brussels as Head Librarian and professor of Musicology. It was at this time commercial computers were becoming more mainstream. He applied his mind and as much time his busy schedule would allow to the development of VUBIS, one of the first and most successful early library computer systems.

It was while at VUB Micha authored the incredibly detailed and authoritative three volume set of “Gustav Mahler: A Critical Bibliography”.

After the family had lived in Belgium for a number of years Hester tragically died. It was at this time Barbara returned to Micha's life. She had earlier been married to Micha's best friend Sheldon Rose while Micha had been married to Marion, and they had had many adventures travelling together in France, Greece and Italy during the 1960’s. Barbara was an old friend and they began living together and were married in the few years remaining of Micha's university tenure in Belgium.

Upon mandatory retirement at age 65 Micha and Barbara began a new episode sharing their time together between Barbara’s Wisconsin home and their new home on the Canary Islands. It was at this time Micha wrote his books which was no doubt an opportunity for cathartic reflection on his rich and busy life. This was a time of transition for Micha between being an esteemed member of European academia into becoming a Wisconsin country gentleman. After ten years of 6 months/6 months, they settled for good in rural Wisconsin, at the farm Barbara still lives at after 50 years.

For this last period of Micha's life he had grown very close to the reality of nature-up-close and to the Thich Nhat Hanh Zen community. Music remained a refuge for Micha as did reading, walking in the prairies and woods that adjoin the property as Donald Park. Very often Micha would return from his daily walk wonderstruck at a sudden explosion of color in the prairie or at the cloud patterns in the sky or at the animals he would meet along the trails.

Nature became a source of authentic and intimate constancy for Micha. Micha did not believe in a particular God but felt after he died whatever ethereal remains existed apart from the body would go back to the Nature which for him had become an embodiment of Truth and Harmony.

At the end M both loved life day by day and also accepted his inevitable demise with dignity and grace. This made his final years full not just of 30,000+ days of memories, but millions of moments in which he could enjoy and participate in the beauty and love he saw all around him.

Unfortunately his younger daughter Robin predeceased Micha. He is survived by his wife Barbara, daughter Beth (now a well known Dutch artist) and her son Max, cousin Evelyne, and nephew Aron as well as his stepdaughter and son, Rasya and Haran and a community of admirers and blessed ones who were lucky enough to have been touched by Micha.

Two events are planned to honor Micha and support his family:

1- Burial- Friday July 25

Micha wanted to be buried on the land at the farm. The burial will be this Friday, July 25 at 3 pm. Please arrive about 2:45 pm. There will a simple and short ceremony. Anyone who would like to be present is welcome. Please dress comfortably and be ready for the weather that day as the event will go on rain or shine. There will be light refreshments afterwards.

2- Celebration of Life- Sunday August 3

A Celebration of his life will be held at the Farm on Sunday August 3. Please arrive any time after 12:30 pm with a dish (vegan or vegetarian) to pass for a potluck lunch starting at 1pm. At 2 pm there will be a program of remembrance with an opportunity for sharing from the community.

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to:

‘Friends of Donald Park’

a place which has been such a big part of Micha's life and which brought him so much joy.

Friends of Donald Park, Inc.

P.O. Box 235

Mount Horeb, WI 53572

Designate check for: ‘Memorial for Micha Namenwirth’