Strings of history: Violins of Hope and the Holocaust connection
Amnon Weinstein, founder of Violins of Hope, restores a violin in his workshop in Tel Aviv. Amnon and his son, Avshi, have devoted the last 30 years to locating and restoring rare violins of the Holocaust as a tribute to those who were lost, including their relatives.
The Violins of Hope have been played in concert halls and exhibited in museums worldwide. They have been featured in books, print, film, and television and used in lectures and educational programs. Their stories and messages have impacted hundreds of thousands of individuals. This fall, the collection comes to Pittsburgh.
Part of the Violins of Hope exhibit, this instrument was defaced before it was returned to a Jewish musician who took it to get repaired.
Painstaking repair work is done to one of the instruments that will be on display as part of Violins of Hope in Pittsburgh.
The Violins of Hope, a rare collection of restored violins from the Holocaust, will be displayed and played at venues throughout Greater Pittsburgh this fall.
The Violins of Hope Exhibit and traveling collection of restored instruments from the Holocaust will resound in venues across the region this fall. Programming by more than 50 community partners runs Oct. 7 through Nov. 25.
Writer and philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
For this reason, the Violins of Hope exhibit exists — not only to help others learn about a tragic and horrific time in our world’s history, but also to commemorate the triumph of the human spirit over the atrocities of their fellow man. Violins of Hope Greater Pittsburgh has launched a campaign to educate the community on the Holocaust and the role that violins played in a time when even a fleeting sliver of joy seemed to be but an impossible dream.
Sandy Rosen, chair of Violins of Hope Greater Pittsburgh explains that “A Composition of the Human Spirit,” will take place over the course of seven weeks starting on Saturday, Oct. 7, and will include educational and cultural programs and exhibits designed to explain the lessons of the Holocaust and humanity’s resilience.
The centerpiece of the event is the free Violins of Hope Exhibit, which will begin a seven-week run at the Posner Center at Carnegie Mellon University starting on Oct. 7. The exhibit showcases violins played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust, thanks to the work of Israeli luthier Amnon Weinstein. Weinstein has spent the last 20 years locating and restoring violins that relate to the Holocaust and dedicates this work to 400 relatives who were lost in the slaughter — relatives who stayed behind in Eastern Europe when Amnon’s parents immigrated in 1938 to Palestine and opened a violin shop.
Rosen recently explained some of the backstory on the musical instruments and how they were used at the time.
“Musicians were called out during roll call at the beginning and end of the work day,” said Rosen, adding that they were required to play marching music so those in the concentration camps would leave and then quickly return to their barracks at the end of the day. “Because they had fewer minutes at either end when they weren’t working, they had a better likelihood of survival because they could expend less energy than the others.”
According to Rosen, the Nazis also enjoyed music.
“In Auschwitz, they had a female orchestra, whose members were given warmer clothing and a little more food so that they could perform for them,” she said.
Music also soothed the prisoners for those precious minutes when they were able to slip away undetected.
“At the end of the day when the Nazis weren’t watching over them, those who were locked in their barracks would retreat to the bathrooms where someone would play music for 10 minutes. Then the next group would come,” said Rosen, who noted that they are now finding music written on scraps of paper and hidden, or buried in these places.
Violins on display
Man’s inhumanity towards man is exemplified in one of the instruments called “The Heil Hitler Violin,” and owned by a Jewish musician who needed repair work done. He took it to a shop and, unbeknownst to the owner, the violinmaker secretly opened it up and inscribed on it a swastika and Heil Hitler, 1936. A violinmaker from Washington, D.C. had purchased the instrument and was aghast when he found the inscriptions. His first instinct was to bury it, but he instead donated it when he found out about the Violins of Hope project. It will never be played again.
Feivel Wininger’s violin is also on display. Wininger, in October, 1941, joined thousands of other Jews, who were deported by train to the Ukrainian ghetto of Shargorod, where a famous judge recognized Wininger as a gifted child violinist he had known years ago. The judge gave Wininger his Italian Amati violin. Years later, Wininger’s daughter Helen brought the instrument to be repaired at a workshop in Tel Aviv and it has been a part of the Violins of Hope exhibit ever since.
Emily Loeb, director of programs and education at the Holocaust Center of Pittsburgh, said that the project has brought the community together in a different and unique way.
“It’s been fantastic to see the collaboration of so many organizations,” she said, adding that it takes a very complex topic and focuses it on a tangible item.
Loeb said that her organization is partnering Violins of Hope with public programming so that people can understand and connect to the material in a personal way. As part of that, her organization is working with other groups to help the community better understand the history of antisemitism.
“Members of the Speakers Bureau will be sharing their stories about their descendants who survived the Holocaust,” she said.
To close the project, on Saturday, Nov. 25, star violinist Joshua Bell will join Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) for a concert inspired by hope. Works will include Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto in E minor,” Ernest Bloch’s “Nigun” from Baal Shem and Israeli composer Boris Pigovat’s “Yizkor,” a PSO commission.
“We hope that this community-wide initiative will help to uplift and unite us as we honor the lives lost in the Holocaust and the musicians who found solace, inspiration and courage in their music at a time of immense anguish,” said Rosen.
To view the Violins of Hope exhibit, free tickets can be reserved online at violinsofhopepittsburgh.com/tickets-to-exhibit through Nov. 21.
For details on the more than 60 relative exhibits, concerts, lectures, films, interfaith programs and a World Kindness Day Celebration, see the events calendar at violinsofhopepittsburgh.com.