A number of Israeli violins had just arrived in Los Angeles after a string of concerts in San Francisco. They were there to perform at a variety of events that were about to be cancelled. These instruments, just like musicians, had to spend several months in quarantine before being allowed to return home to Tel Aviv. These violins had seen worse in their long history. These instruments, which are part of the collection called the Violins of Hope (or the Violins of Hope), have some connection to the Holocaust. Many Jewish musicians were their previous owners, some of them having died during the Nazi genocide, while others survived. The collection contains 88 violins. 60 of these were sent to Los Angeles for a concert series at the Younes & Soraya Nazarian Center for the Performing Arts, commonly known as The Soraya. They were stored under the concert hall’s stage in order to prevent theft and other damage. This was yet another chapter in the long history of these instruments.

Story of a Vivid Violin

Every violin has its own story, some very vivid. The Auschwitz death camp saw one violin survive, as did its owner, who used the instrument to entertain his Nazi captors. The musician was left homeless in a Displaced Persons Camp after the war. He sold his violin to an aid worker. His son donated the violin to Violins of Hope. A second instrument was left out of the train carrying French Jews to Auschwitz. The owner wanted a passerby to find it and keep safe. It was kept by the man who found it and donated to Violins of Hope following his death. A tainted violin is also included in the collection. It was never used for performance. Inside the instrument, an antisemitic craftsman wrote the words “Heil Hitler 1936”, while repairing it for a Jewish musician. The inscription was not discovered by the musician, but it is possible that he knew. A later owner gave the violin to the collection.

The Violinist, Niv Ashkenazi

Niv Ashkenazi, a violinist, first heard about the Violins of Hope when they were featured by the Cleveland Orchestra in 2015. He has had one of the violins in his possession since 2017, and he is the only musician to do so. He said that he does not know anything about the violin’s history, except that the former owner survived the Holocaust and immigrated from Israel to the United States. Ashkenazi wrote that he tried 10 instruments at the Tel Aviv collection, but that this one was the most open and responsive. He then decided to record the performance at The Soraya, before the violins returned to Israel. Those filmed performances that also featured Janice Mautner Markham and Lindsay Deutsch will be shared later. Ashkenazi wrote that he has been focusing on the Violins of Hope in recent years to play music composed by Holocaust-affected composers. This includes Szymon Laks who survived Auschwitz, Mieczyslaw Weinberg who fled Poland with his family, and Robert Dauber who was killed at Dachau concentration camp. Ashkenazi says that it has given him the opportunity to discover beautiful pieces of music that should be in the main violin repertoire. However, the violins may be able to be used again for live performances once they are returned. Recent research found that 63 percent of young Americans don’t know much about the Holocaust. This is despite the fact that 6 million Jews were killed in the genocide. These instruments were held by some of these young people, and they can’t be more relevant to the history.   If you would like to purchase classic or vintage violins with a vivid story, Check our full size violin for sale