Holocaust Survivor Violins Take Center Stage at New Jersey Youth Concert
Historic violins that survived the Holocaust will play once again as the New Jersey Youth Symphony performs at the state’s Performing Arts Center next January. These instruments hold stories from World War II’s darkest moments. In a moving connection across generations, students will play restored string instruments that once filled concentration camps with music.
The unique collection includes 100 pieces, each one saved and restored. After the war, Moshe Weinstein started buying violins from Jewish immigrants coming to Israel. These treasured instruments came from survivors, their families, and musicians who had played with the Palestine Orchestra.
Before the concert begins, Avshi Weinstein, whose father began collecting these instruments in 1990, will tell their stories. He told nj.com, “Nazis went after Klezmer musicians because of their ethnic music.” The concert features John Williams’ moving score from Schindler’s List. While musicians who could read music often survived by playing in camp orchestras, Klezmer musicians faced much worse odds.
Among the young musicians, 17-year-old Joel Marin will play the Zimermann-Krongold violin. Built in 1924, this remarkable instrument bears a Star of David and once belonged to Shimon Krongold, who escaped Warsaw but later died from typhus in distant Tashkent. For Helen H. Cha-Pyo, the symphony’s director, the concert creates a bridge to history. Students learn about the Holocaust’s atrocities through music’s universal language.
The first Violins of Hope concert was in Istanbul in 2000, and the second big project was the one in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2015. It was at that one that the PBS documentary was made. New Jersey’s concert was originally scheduled for 2020, but COVID-19 forced a postponement. The organizers emphasize this timing isn’t connected to the current situation in Gaza.
From Charlotte to Berlin’s Philharmonic, these violins have touched audiences worldwide. Each instrument carries memories of survival against unthinkable odds.
Music meant survival in the camps, those who could play often lived while others died. Today these instruments serve as living tributes to six million lost lives, showing how art keeps memories alive.
