On January 27, 2015, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra held a commemorative concert sponsored by Franz-Walter Steinmeier, then Foreign Minister of Germany (now President of the Republic), marking 70 years since the liberation of Auschwitz. At this event, Violins of Hope received a new violin with a remarkable history.
The violin was donated by Sabine Conrad, a young German woman who had once cared for Erich Winkel, an elderly communist and devoted violinist. In gratitude, Erich entrusted her with his cherished violin. Decades earlier, as a member of a communist youth orchestra in Berlin in the early 1930s, Erich had purchased the instrument from a Gypsy musician. The orchestra often performed at “red weddings” and other community events, where they were regularly attacked by Nazi gangs even before the Nazis came to power.
Erich took pride in his violin, saying it had survived those violent attacks just as he had. Today, this instrument travels the world with Violins of Hope, carrying both his personal story and the memory of a turbulent era.
