by Rachel Barkai

A commemorative concert marking 60 years since the end of World War II was held on 31 July before an audience of hundreds. Organized by Yad Vashem and the Keshet Eilon Music Center and directed by Gilad Sheba, the concert was held in the Valley of the Communities, within its stone walls bearing inscriptions of thousands of Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust.

Dozens of young musicians, participants in the Keshet Eilon music workshop (under the sponsorship of Maestro Shlomo Mintz and the musical directorship of Professor Itzhak Rashkovsky), played pieces by Holocaust victims Robert Dauber, Zikmund Schul and Gideon Klein, as well as Ernst Bloch, Fritz Kreisler and Emil Waldteufel.

During the concert, violin-maker Amnon Weinstein related stories of Jewish violins that survived the Holocaust, including one made by Yaakov Zimmerman in Warsaw, 1924, decorated with a Star of David. Zimmerman’s violin was used by Shlomo Mintz to play Bloch’s Nigun (Improvisation): From Three Pictures of Chassidic Life. Serenata for Violin and Piano by Robert Dauber was performed by 14-year-old soloist Arslan Sajfi from Russia, who played on a violin once owned by a child partisan Mordechai (Motele) Schlein. The concert also included Two Chassidic Dances, Op. 15 for two violins by Zikmund Schul, played by Vadim Gluzman from Israel and Cihat Askin from Turkey, and Trio by Gideon Klein, performed by Itamar Zorman and Yoni Etzion from Israel and Jana Novakova from the Czech Republic.

A women’s ensemble led by violinist Ani Shnarch played Kleisler’s Liebesleid – Love’s Sorrow and Espania by Waldteufel, in memory of Alma Rosé, conductor of the women’s orchestra in Auschwitz. These waltzes were played by Alma Rosé’s ensemble in Vienna before the war. Membership in Alma Rosé’s orchestra saved the lives of dozens of girls and women in Auschwitz, among them Hilde Simcha (née Greenboim), who attended the concert: “I was especially moved by the performance of this ensemble, which reminded me of Alma Rosé’s orchestra from before the war,” said Hilde. “Her Sunday concerts, which had a varied repertoire, helped many of the prisoners forget the horrors of Birkenau. [Alma] dreamt of establishing a new orchestra after the end of the terrible war.”

The concert ended with a performance by 59 young violinists from 22 countries, who played a song medley arranged by Alexander Povolotsky: Oifen Pripetchik (By the Fireplace, a Yiddish song), Arvoles Lloran Por Lluvias (The Trees Cry for Rain, a Ladino song) and the Jewish Partisans’ Hymn. The performance deeply moved the audience, which quietly sang along with the music.

The author is Director of the Commemoration and Public Relations Division.

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