During the Holocaust, many thousands of violins owned and played by Jews were confiscated by the Nazis. Today, Violins of Hope memorializes, through music, the lives lost during the Holocaust. The educational residency brings a collection of about 70 historic violins, violas and cellos – played by Jews before and during the Holocaust and restored by Tel Aviv violin makers Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein – around the globe. Some carry identity tags and Stars of David.
When Linda Edelstein, CEO of the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, saw Violins of Hope in the news 10 years ago, she vowed to bring it to Wisconsin. And now, after a significant community effort, the residency is here through Jan. 31, 2026, for a series of performances, educational and cultural programs, and exhibits. “We must tell stories of the Holocaust, so they’re never forgotten,” Edelstein says.
Architects, interior designers, renovators and landscapers: Submit your best work for consideration!
How the collection came to be is its own story. Decades after World War II, relatives of Holocaust survivors “brought instruments to (the Weinsteins’) violin shop,” Edelstein explains. “They said, ‘This instrument has too many painful memories. I can’t keep it. If you don’t take it, I’ll destroy it.’ [They] said, ‘The instrument isn’t a bearer of evil. It’s a witness of evil. But it shouldn’t be destroyed.’”
Despite knowing they wouldn’t be able to sell the violins post-restoration, the Weinsteins took them anyway. Then, during the 1990s, a filmmaker came into the shop and suggested the instruments tell their own stories. “That is really what became the Violin of Hope,” Edelstein says.
Many Milwaukee theater, dance and music groups are incorporating the instruments and the conversations they generate into their seasons, such as Skylight Music Theatre, which is featuring the violins in its production of Fiddler on the Roof (Oct. 3-26).
Other instruments will be on view at performances and in exhibits at Jewish Museum Milwaukee and more. And this summer, Edelstein’s MYSO students performed in Poland and the Czech Republic, and visited Auschwitz “so they have the grounded experience of what these instruments and these stories represent,” she says.
Violins of Hope’s residency kicks off with a free performance of “From the Diary of Anne Frank” by Michael Tilson Thomas on Sept. 17.
