This violin, made in Germany around 1900, carries a story of tragedy and survival.
In July 1942, thousands of Jews were arrested in Paris and deported in cattle cars to concentration camps in the East, most to Auschwitz. On one of these trains was a man clutching his violin. As the train slowed along the French countryside, he saw railway workers repairing the tracks. Through the narrow window he cried out:
“In the place where I now go, I don’t need a violin. Here—take my violin so it may live!”
He threw the instrument onto the rails. One of the French workers retrieved it, and the violin remained with him for the rest of his life.
For decades, the violin lay silent, unused, and forgotten in an attic. After the worker’s death, his children discovered it and passed it to a local violin maker in southern France, sharing the story told by their father. The maker later entrusted the instrument to Violins of Hope, so that the violin—once cast from a train bound for Auschwitz—could live again in music.
