UWM Opens “Violins of Hope” Exhibit with Stories of Survival, Song and Hope

MILWAUKEE – The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee hosted an opening event program for its “Violins of Hope: Call and Response” exhibition on the evening of Tuesday, Dec. 3, with a program that intertwined Holocaust history, musical performance and the personal stories of the Jewish musicians who played on those instruments in acts of resistance and resilience of the human spirit in the face of one of the darkest hours in human history.

The event, held in the fourth-floor conference center of UWM’s Golda Meir Library, invited students, faculty and community members to examine the exhibition of restored violins played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust.

The instruments are part of Violins of Hope Wisconsin, a regional initiative that has partnered with the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra (MYSO) to bring the collection to schools, arts organizations and public venues across the state in the hopes of honoring the voices of the past, enlightening the present, and inspiring the future, according to the Violins of Hope Wisconsin website.

Jamie Hofman and Sherry Sinift, instructors from UWM’s String Academy, served as the evening’s performers at the event, and each got to select a violin from the exhibit to play musical pieces on during the program, which was a process they both described as emotionally overwhelming.

“There are a lot of very strong feelings whenever you think about where this violin has been,” Hofman said in a somber tone. “All of these violins have stories. You just can’t help but identify with them and think about how their life was during these very hard times and how maybe music was a source of sustenance and hope.”

“I know about the atrocities of World War II, and I have visited the Holocaust Museum,” Sinift said in a choked-up voice. “I have a fair amount of knowledge of everything that happened, but this experience made the whole thing much more personal.”

Before Hofman and Sinift played music pieces to the crowd, the two shared the stories behind the violins they chose to play at the event.

Hofman told the crowd at the event that the violin he would be playing on for them that evening was once owned by a man named Dr. Leon Schatzberg, a Polish violinist and medical student born in 1918. Hofman also said during the event that during World War II, Schatzberg concealed his Jewish identity by using a Polish name and made a living during the war by playing violin on street corners and in restaurants. Hofman also noted to the crowd that Schatzberg and his wife did survive the war and eventually immigrated to New York, where he built a medical career and raised a family before he died in 2008.

“He has a legacy,” Hofman said about Schatzberg after the program. “It’s a beautiful violin, and I know this is an important part of his life.”

Meanwhile, Sinift told the crowd that the violin she chose to play on belonged to Violette Silberstein, a French teenager and the daughter of Hungarian immigrants.

“I was walking along, and I noticed this lovely name, Violette, that this was Violette’s violin,” Sinift said during the event.

During World War II, Silberstein was separated from her family and placed into Auschwitz, according to Sinift. After an initial rejection, she was later accepted into the Auschwitz orchestra under conductor Alma Rosé, niece of composer Gustav Mahler, a circumstance Sinift said “probably saved her life.” Silberstein did survive Auschwitz and return to France following the war, but she decided to sing in cabarets and play guitar instead of ever playing her violin again, Sinift told event attendees.

“Maybe this violin chose me,” Sinift said while fighting back tears after the event. “It surprised me how personal it became. How moved I was by her story.”

UWM Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology Gillian Rodger spoke at the event about the program’s musical selections by tracing the cultural and historical backgrounds of the composers and musical selections. Some of the works she discussed at the event included “Under Your White Stars,” written by Avraham Sutzkever and set to music by Avrom Brudno, and “Es Brent” (translated into English as “It Is Burning”) by Mordechai Gebirtig, which were pieces rooted in ghetto life, resistance and cultural survival. Rodger said these works reveal “the complexity of Jewish culture in Europe” and document daily life under oppression.

The program concluded with the playing of a song called “Hatikvah,” which translates to “The Hope” from Hebrew, according to Rodger. The melody, which predated World War II, became an anthem of defiance during the Holocaust and ultimately the national anthem of Israel, according to Rodger at the event.

“It came to be a song of resistance,” Rodger said during the event. “A song that was sung in the face of the unthinkable.”

There wasn’t a dry eye in the house while “Hatikvah” was played, as the crowd gathered at the event gave a standing ovation to Hofman and Sinift after they were done playing the tearjerking piece of music. Both performers said after the event that the final piece, “Hatikvah,” holds deep emotional weight with them.

“Hope is an important thing to cling to,” Sinift said after the event. “It gives us courage to stand up against awful things happening in the world.”

“I just learned this summer that that’s what Hatikvah means and just how important that idea of hope is,” Hofman said in a post event interview. “That despite all these horrible things that might be happening in our personal lives, in our society, in human history, we persevere. We have this hope for something better, we fight for that, work for that and play for that.”

The “Violins of Hope: Call and Response” exhibition remains on display on the fourth floor of the Golda Meir Library from now through Jan. 23, where visitors can view the restored instruments alongside archival materials and contemporary artworks reflecting on Jewish life, persecution and resilience.

You can learn more about the exhibition by visiting the Violins of Hope-Wisconsin website for more information.