(soothing violin music) - [Announcer] Funding for "Violins of Hope" is made possible by the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh and these generous sponsors.

Thank you.

- I get teary when I hear the instruments played.

Would you like to take the cello out of that case?

- It's amazing.

So excited to play it.

(multiple violins playing) - We know it came from Auschwitz, and it was played last Sunday night at the Jewish Community Center.

- They're absolutely stunning and some of these were played in the camps as well, which is just so touching.

- Somebody who treasured their violin enough to bring it with them during the Holocaust.

I don't think that they would've wanted their violin to just sit in a museum.

I think they would've wanted it to be played.

- We made a project called Violins of Hope, which is a collection of violins, violas, and cellos, which were played in and during the Second World War some of them in the ghettos and camps.

- There are violins that were instrumental in helping people to save their own lives.

There are violins that were instrumental in helping people to be defiant.

There are violins that just brought moments of peace and comfort to people who were otherwise suffering, but they each have a story.

- These violins are survivors.

You know, not all humans survived.

Not all instruments survived, but these instruments did.

(music ending) (soothing soft music) - Violins of Hope is a collection of stringed instruments, principally violins that have been collected by Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein.

The collection really began in the late 1930s with Amnon's father who became a violin maker or a luthier in Warsaw, Poland.

He saw what was happening in Europe, and that life for Jews was not going to be as he had hoped, and he and his wife left for what was then the British Colony of Palestine and he set up shop as a violin maker.

- My name is Avshalom Weinstein.

I'm a third generation violin maker from Tel Aviv, Israel.

Many musicians who came to Palestine before the war, they came from Germany and Austria.

They had very good German-made instruments and they came to my grandfather, and they told him something very simple: "Either you are going to buy this instrument from me or I'll destroy it."

But he didn't want to see the instruments being destroyed.

He bought what he could knowing that he cannot sell them again, because nobody wanted to buy anything German.

And they stayed as a collection in our workshop for many, many years until 1991 when my father had an apprentice coming from Dresden.

He saw those instruments, heard their story, and asked my father to give a lecture in Germany to the German Violin and Bow Making Association on how those instruments arrived to Israel.

After that, my father spoke on a radio show asking people if by chance they have an instrument which belonged to Jewish people who survived or died in the war.

And the very next morning we got a phone call from a person who had his uncle's violin.

We started having concerts, and we got more and more and more instruments and today we have over 100 instruments in the collection.

Unfortunately today we don't have that many survivors anymore who can tell their stories.

And we try to tell their story through the instruments, through the music, and to make sure that people remember.

- [Linda] So there were definitely people trying to help.

I think too- - We are very fortunate we spend our winters in Phoenix, and when the Violins of Hope were coming to Phoenix, there was a call for volunteers, and so I volunteered.

And I thought this is a story that really needs to be told, because we're all tied together.

- This violin belonged to a child who managed to escape Europe just before the war started.

- Avshi left Phoenix in March or April of 2019.

It had just been five months since the murders at the Tree of Life.

And I just said, "You have to come to Pittsburgh."

- I didn't know what else to do.

What could we do to combat antisemitism?

What could we do to really better educate our community on unity, hope, resilience, all the things that the violins tell?

- He said Jewish boys in particular were encouraged to undertake artistic and academic study, in part explaining the rarity of violins once owned and played by women in this exhibition.

There were thousands of musicians throughout the countries that were invaded by the Nazis, and when the Nazis interviewed you, when you came into the camp, they wanted to know what you could do.

They decided if you could play music, then in the ghetto or in the camps, this would be something that you could do.

The story of each violin touches people in terms of where they had to play it, how for the violinists, it took them away for a little bit of what they were actually enduring and going through, because they could close their eyes and play music.

It even gave the other victims who were marching into the gas chambers a sense of escape for a little bit.

It's a microcosm of human experience to look at the Holocaust, and I think it still fascinates everybody who looks at this history.

Sadly, we are still dealing with antisemitism, and we have to hope always to be fighting against that, and the exhibit is one way to try to do that.

- The Violins of Hope project is a Pittsburgh-wide series of exhibitions, of performances, of all kinds of cultural experiences that bring people together around the remarkable survival and persistence of these violins.

And then this image is just really lovely closeup image of just Amnon going about his daily Friday morning business paired with these images, really just showing us how he lives and works with these instruments.

Daniel Levin is the only photographer who was able to go to Tel Aviv, Israel to document Amnon Weinstein's workshop.

- I was interested in this man, and I wanted to know what does the luthier do?

I wanted to take the workshop out of itself and share it with the world.

I certainly took thousands of photographs to make the exhibition that years later became a book.

- We are looking at Amnon opening a violin from a box, and we're in his workshop and what's especially curious about his workshop is there's no distinction between his life and his work.

It is all just one big, creative, chaotic cacophony of what's in his life.

- Amnon's father's family, everyone was killed during the Holocaust.

He says an excess of 400 people, and so Amnon had this incredible reason to take on this project.

(opera singing) - We just did a program using four of the instruments from the Violins of Hope traveling collection.

We had two violins, a viola, and a cello, and we did a program of music by composers who either perished in the Holocaust or were tragically affected by it.

(intense string music) - I'm a violinist with the Pittsburgh Symphony, and Nanette Solomon got a group of us together to play these pieces.

My father was born in Vienna, Jewish, and he managed to escape in '38.

His parents survived going into hiding.

He lost I think, aunts, uncles, cousins, countless.

So this concert was very meaningful to me on a very deeply personal level.

(orchestra continuing to play softly) (single violin playing with a piano) - It was a wonderful evening that we spent here at Upper St. Clair High School here in the south hills of Allegheny County.

It was a part of the Violins of Hope, hope for the future, and in hopes that at some point the human race is going to get things right and we're gonna figure this out.

(audience applauding) - Pittsburgh has welcomed Violins of Hope with open arms.

We have been embraced by every denomination, every organization without any question, only focusing on the good that we're trying to do with education being really at the top and at the bottom is really community.

(soft ominous music) - Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre has been thrilled to collaborate with the Violins of Hope Greater Pittsburgh exhibit.

We collaborated particularly on a work called "Sounds of the Sun," a world premiere by Jennifer Archibald.

"Sounds of the Sun" is a documentary ballet work that looks at the story of Florence Warren, who was a Jewish dancer in Paris during World War II and ended up saving Jewish lives and working with the French resistance to do so.

The company together visited the Violins of Hope exhibit to better understand the impact of the Holocaust on Jewish people.

What was particularly meaningful for me was as a Jewish person, to watch people better understand the impact of trauma on Jewish people, the manner in which we all have a responsibility to end oppression by learning about specific stories that's centered around the arts.

I really feel that the arts are a way into better understand people's experiences and to build capacities for empathy.

We were so pleased with having Rachel Stegman, a violinist, play on stage with us as part of "Sounds of the Sun" and the violin that was used in the performance was a violin of the Violins of Hope exhibit.

That violin was owned by a woman by the name of Joyce Vanderveen, who was a dancer and an actress.

There is something about serendipity.

The story of Anne Frank, the fact that she had an image of Joyce Vanderveen on her wall when she was in hiding in Amsterdam.

The fact that this particular violin that was of Joyce Vanderveen who was a dancer and actress that was played on stage as we are learning about the story of Florence Warren.

And this moment in time when we are remembering the Tree of Life massacre, the fifth anniversary, coming together in this beautiful opportunity to reach toward one another, to heal, and have ballet and the arts at the center of this project.

(single violin playing majestically) (soft piano music) - They are free to remove the tags certainly while they are practicing.

Thank you very much for inviting us, us being Violins of Hope to Duquesne University.

I'm Lynn Zelenski, and I'm the project manager for this wonderful project.

Please read the stories, because I hope that will give you an extra little bit of a sense of the significance of these instruments.

- When you select a violin, take note of that instrument, so that you get the same one on Sunday when we perform the concert.

- You can try it.

(violin playing) - I have a violin from a concentration camp from Auschwitz and it's number 35.

It really gets to your heart, because you think about the people who have been forced into these concentration camps and they lost their clothing, they lost family members, they lost their belongings, they lost so many things, but the one thing that was with them was music.

That was their voice in a way.

And when I play this violin, I could hear it.

(orchestra playing) - I'm playing on a extraordinarily wonderful instrument this afternoon from Violins of Hope.

My grandmother's neighbor actually growing up was a Holocaust survivor in her 90s and I actually was aware of the stories early on in my childhood.

It's a very moving to connect emotionally with what some of these survivors have gone through.

Putting hands where hands have been and to think about, you know, what those hands have gone through and be touching history is really amazing.

- Duquesne is involved for two big reasons.

One is community engagement.

It's important for our students.

We are a Catholic university, but it's very, very important that they know about other religions, about other cultures.

I think that being able to play on the instruments from the Violins of Hope collection has an enormous impact on our students.

They're young people.

You know, they're 18, 19, 20 years old and even if they've learned about the Holocaust in school, this is the first time that any of them would've had anything like an experience of actually touching an instrument.

You know, putting it up against their chin playing it, that has to bring the Holocaust home in a way that I expect we're gonna be seeing a lot of delayed reactions over the next few weeks.

(orchestra playing) - Okay, go dancers, have fun.

Go, go.

Big breath.

- We are basically doing a public art performance with Violins of Hope.

- It's this piece that Kiesha Lalama choreographed on us.

We had about four rehearsals, very short time, but it's come together so beautifully in the short amount of time that we've had.

- We had to keep all the choreography in our head and we had to keep rehearsing.

- There are about 105 of us in the freshman class, and we're all participating and so excited to be a part of it and to be a part of their message that antisemitism is very real today, and that we need to remember the displacement of Jewish people from the Holocaust and even now and the message of hope.

And to look into the future.

- It's one of the most meaningful things I've gotten to be a part of thus far, and the fact that this is all of our first performances here at Point Park.

We're all debuting here as artists.

(soft piano music) - Last night we went to the Holocaust exhibit, and as a member of the Jewish community, it's really allowed me to get in touch with that and that feeling of what my ancestors went through.

- Today when we were rehearsing, I saw some of the people come in and watch, and it brought some tears to people, so it made me feel like the work that I was doing was really getting to people, and they were receiving it well.

And I hope that they can take what we're doing and pass it on.

- It's really beautiful, that story.

And then it's also beautiful that we as dancers get to dance to violin music and bring that side of the art to life through our movement.

- I am the managing and artistic director of the Pittsburgh Playhouse.

I'm also the choreographer of this performance.

A lot of what we do is about making positive change and impact as human beings, but we have to start with ourselves.

- As you were dancing today, I was thinking you are the hope and promise.

(audience applauding) - For three years, we heard from the Violins of Hope that they were putting an exhibit together, and then we had partnered with the Point Park University Dance Department to kind of extend the reach a little further beyond just the exhibit.

And so we got the call to create this work, and it was such an honor.

When I talked to Sandy, she really wanted something uplifting and really about a moment to embrace community and a sense of tomorrow.

Her words were so simple: joy, hope, love, and light.

And so I wanted to create something with that sense.

(majestic music) (audience applauding) - Good morning, Ellis faculty, students, and staff.

Welcome to our special assembly.

We have the great privilege today of hearing from Violins of Hope Greater Pittsburgh.

- Good morning.

- [Audience] Good morning.

- It's a thrill to have Ruby playing on Feivel Wininger's violin.

Rebekah Rapp is going to be playing on a violin that was played in the Auschwitz concentration camp and Galena is going to be playing on a klezmer violin.

So ladies, will you please come up?

(audience applauding) - Such a special honor and really exciting to be able to play Feivel's violin, because I have a Jewish connection, and it feels like such an honor to be able to continue to tell these stories through playing, and it's really special.

- My name's Crystal Fortwangler, and my daughter is Ruby Saliterman.

For many years I've been a filmmaker, and about 12 years ago I met another filmmaker in the Virgin Islands, whose name is Ziggy Livnat, and we became close friends.

He unfortunately passed away last year.

He knew that Violins of Hope was coming here to Pittsburgh and he and his mother had donated the violin of his grandfather, Feivel Wininger.

- Feivel Wininger was a fine violinist and during the Holocaust, he and his family got notice one day that they were going to be driven out of their home.

Feivel had a 1 1/2 year old baby girl, Helen.

By the time they reached the ghetto where they were going to be kept, Helen no longer could cry.

She was so weak from lack of food.

When Feivel arrived, a judge from his hometown said, "Feivel, please take my violin.

My hands are too arthritic, I'm too weak.

I cannot play anymore.

Perhaps you can play and you can get some food or earn some money."

- Eventually he gets another violin that he purchases, a lower priced one.

He's able to keep his family alive by getting the food at the end of the events.

He plays that throughout until they're free, and calls it my friend.

And by his 90th birthday, Helen wanted to give him a refurbished violin.

- And Helen took it to Amnon Weinstein and Amnon said, "It's in such bad shape.

Helen, why don't we just get your dad a new violin?"

Amnon, he repairs it, and it gets returned to Feivel on his 90th birthday.

He held it every day until the day he died.

(violin music) - When playing these violins, it brings the stories back to life and it doesn't let the memories die.

- I think there's also an important time to remember that there was hope and that there was defiance.

And I think bringing music brings a different perspective to how we think about the Holocaust.

We're 17, 16, and the Holocaust feels like forever ago.

Hearing about your connection to this violin and that it's only two generations away from the person who played it, and that I think our fellow students could really connect with.

Like, oh, this didn't just happen forever ago in the past.

Like this is real history.

(soft music) - Art is the most expressive and resonating method to transport people to a place that understands human condition.

(violin playing) - Art should poke people a little bit and make them think about what is important in life.

- This is really a story about renewal.

It's a story about perseverance.

It's a story about defiance.

- It feels like I am kind of continuing this legacy of hope.

- Most of the time when we talk about the Holocaust, we talk about numbers that none of us can understand.

6 million Jews, 76 million people who died.

The numbers, we don't really understand them.

But when you talk about a simple person, one person, and his story or his family story, it gives it face and a little bit more reality.

- What do we have in our hearts when the times become really dark?

And I think the violins demonstrate the ability to live beyond darkness.

And so that's hope for me.

- They're a lesson that what happened in the Holocaust didn't achieve its goal.

And hopefully we can take the lessons from that era and apply them today and save ourselves from the same fate.

(soft music continuing) (music ending)