Voices Now Heard and Violins Of Hope

There is an exhibit at the University of North Carolina which is a very unusual exhibit. It is called Violins of Hope. It is a group of restored violins from the Holocaust days, Fifty years ago.Amnon Weinstein is the restorer of these violins from people who were going to the gas chamber. The Germans forced the owners of these violins who were musicians and they were coerced by the Nazis to play music as other prisoners went to their deaths. Amnon was asked by a customer who wanted his violin fixed by Weinstein, because he was a restorer of the instruments about fifty years ago. The customer called Weinstein to repair the violin.He had played the violin on his way to the gas chamber. He survived because he was necessary to perform in the death camp orchestra. It was called the Auschwitz Men’s Orchestra and Jewish musicians were made to play in Nazi concentration camps. Fifty years later in 1996, he was eager to do this. He could not handle it the first time because hundreds of his relatives-grandparents, uncles, cousins and aunts died in the Holocaust. It was too deep a wound in his soul and he did not want to undertake this job way back then. Now in 1996, he was ready to restore the eighteen violins in the present exhibit and each violin has the style of its first owner. Professor David Russell of the University of North Carolina plays some of these violins that belonged to the men of the Auschwitz Men’s Orchestra. He says “When I play one of these instruments, I go through that same process of discovering what makes this instrument sound the best. That means that I’m walking in their footstep and their voice is actually heard by my playing of this violin.” Violins were often hung on the wall of the owner of the home and that was a tradition. Weinstein collected these violins to honor that tradition. He says “what he is doing with the violins is to make his own life a little bit easier from all of this heritage which is unbelievable.” I had a teenage friend who had the number tattooed on his arm from his Holocaust days. It gave me chills and I felt the immediate horror of what it meant to these people from those days. It was irremovable and about twenty years ago, dermatologists found a way to remove them from the person’s arm with some sort of laser instruments. I knew a lady whose mother had it removed from her arm. In its own way, it helped to not see it every day reminding the person of the horrors they went through. Of course, the terrible meaning of those days will never leave the survivors A little bit of the horrendous and abominable, heinous war crimes have been removed from their body. It will never leave their minds or thoughts; it will always be there as they made fresh lives in a new country. The happier days in a new location and in a free country helps them, I am sure to survive and starting new families as they did, when they came here and prospering showed them, that evil can be overcome and love is still around. Freedom is indeed love. I had a teacher in the sixth grade of elementary school whose name was Miss Goodheart. Good heart she had and the kids adored her and wanted to get good marks to show her they loved her. One day towards the end of the term in June, she announced to us almost twelve year olds that she was engaged to be married and her new name would be Mrs. Behr pronounced bear. All of us boys and girls could not imagine her changing from a good heart to a bear. She laughed when we voiced this as we congratulated her and she said she would always have a good heart even with her bear sounding last new name. She gave us a little introductory session on bears, white ones, black ones, Polar bears and most of all teddy bears. She eased our young minds, that she would always be the same person, regardless of her name. I have written previously how powerful names can be or how harmful names can be. In this case a good heart remained a good heart. In the violin story, a sad story indeed, as the violins were restored, there was hope again for the playing of these instruments in their new homes, in an exhibit and wherever they may ultimately reside. The owners were forced to play as other perished and the evil that was in Holocaust times left millions dead and their descendants, whoever they were, to tell and retell the story. I had a doctor whose parents hid in the woods in Germany for two years and were never incarcerated into a prison, because they were able to secretly hide. When his dad died, I went to the funeral. He read from a book that a Holocaust survivor had written and it mentioned his dad’s name in the chapter and his hiding for years and then surviving to come to this country and to Baltimore, Maryland. Morris raised his family, lived to be a prosperous gentleman and to have several grandsons to pass on his story so that it would never be forgotten or repeated. There was not a dry eye at the memorial ceremony, not only for his death, but for what he achieved and conquered to get to this country. Mr. Weinstein married a lady who had another story to tell. Her dad was a famous Jewish resistance fighter portrayed in a movie film called Defiance. Her family killed Germans. Mr. Weinstein’s family was killed by the Germans; his wife’s family by being in resistance groups were able to fight back. So two different stories from the same time period. One of complete and utter despair and the other one with some hope of conquering the enemy. Out of these unbelievably harsh and terrible events so long ago; we can learn many lessons about persecution, about fighting back, about most of all, the ability sometimes to survive great sadness and to renew life in new ways. As the good heart teacher even changing her last name still remained the fine dear person she was; so someone restoring violins from a sad time in our history can show the world how not to be, but how in restoration, sometimes, we can see peace in our futures. Emily Dickinson wrote “we spy the forests and the hills. The tests to Nature’s show Mistake the outside for the in, and mention what we saw.” The survivors saw, remembered, retold and wrote down what they had seen and gone through in order to keep the memories alive, that this should never happen again. There is a slogan in front of many houses of worships that states simply these two words Never Again. We should all remember these two plain words and do our best in our own individual way, that never again will we allow anything like this to occur as we live between the forests and the hills and see Nature’s shows. We should always have a good heart reside in the real heart in our bodies. ELITA SOHMER CLAYMAN