In the spring of 1945, as the U.S. Army’s 80th Infantry of Patton’s 3rd Army moved through central Germany, soldiers entered the Hohner factory in Trossingen. Famous for musical instruments but repurposed during the war to produce detonators, the factory still held instruments—including a mid-18th century violin by Tomas Andreas Hulinzky (1731–1788), a Prague master luthier and founder of the Bohemian Society of Luthiers.
That evening, the violin was shown to William Stepansky, a young surgical technician known for his musical gifts. Born to Jewish émigrés who had fled the 1921 Kievan pogroms, Stepansky grew up in South Philadelphia and studied violin at the Settlement Music School under Emmanuel Zetlin. Asked if he wanted the instrument, his fellow soldiers challenged him to play. Without hesitation, he performed on the spot, and the violin became his.
Soon after, orders came to discard the bulky instruments. But Stepansky had already secured a wooden crate from a local farmer and shipped the violin home to Philadelphia. After the war, it became his cherished companion for the next fifty years—easing the memories of Bastogne and Buchenwald, and filling his home with music. Balancing his career as a physician, Stepansky rehearsed chamber music with friends and led a string quartet through the 1960s and 70s, performing for neighbors and patients alike.
Rescued from a German factory in wartime, this violin carried his music for half a century and stands today as a testament to survival, heritage, and hope.
This instrument is on loan from Robert A. Stepansky and his brothers.
