Stand for Israel

Auschwitz Death Camp

The Auschwitz orchestra was one of many ways the death camp’s commanders humiliated their Jewish prisoners. In the early morning hours, as concentration camp prisoners left for their hard labor, the Auschwitz orchestra, made up of a select group of Jewish prisoners, was forced to stand near the main gate of Auschwitz and play music. They would also play in the evening, when the prisoners returned, many of them carrying their fellow workers who did not survive the day of work.

Several weeks ago, famous violinist Shlomo Mintz played one the violins that belonged to a member of the Auschwitz orchestra in front of Israel Defense Forces cadets and officers:

An emotionally moving closure took place recently during the graduation ceremony of the “Edim Bemadim” (witnesses in uniform) project, when famous violinist Shlomo Mintz played one of the violins which belonged to a member of the ghetto orchestra in front of Israel Defense Forces cadets and officers…

Weinstein decided more than a decade ago to collect violins lost or damaged during the Holocaust and renovate them. The idea came from one of his students, a young non-Jewish man who came to Israel in the mid 1990s from Germany and became a passionate Zionist.

“He’s the one who told me that there are probably quite a few deserted violins which used to belong to murdered Jewish musicians, both in Germany and in other countries. I decided to look for them and renovate them after performing at an event dedicated to this issue in the city of Dresden,” says Weinstein.

Since then he has collected and renovated 28 violins. They came from people who kept them in their attic, people who didn’t know what to do with the broken tools, which found their way to them under fascinating circumstances.