Violin Of Hope

A secret note hidden in Dachau-built violin tells a tale of survival.

AP World News, 4/28/2025


Art collector Tamás Tálosi holds a Dachau-built instrument dubbed the ”violin of hope”, in Magyarpolány, Hungary, Tuesday April 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Nikolett Csanyi)

Updated 1:04 PM EDT, April 28, 2025

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — During World War II, within the walls of the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau, a Jewish prisoner secretly penned a short note and hid it inside a violin he had crafted under harrowing circumstances — a message to the future that would remain undiscovered for more than 80 years.

“Trial instrument, made under difficult conditions with no tools and materials,” the worn note read. “Dachau. Anno 1941, Franciszek Kempa.”

The origins of the violin, built in 1941 by Franciszek “Franz” Kempa while imprisoned by the Nazis at Dachau in southern Germany, remained unnoticed for decades. It wasn’t until art dealers in Hungary sent the instrument out for repairs — after having stored it for years among a set of purchased furniture — that its history came to light.

Although the instrument’s craftsmanship pointed clearly to a skilled maker, the professional repairing it was puzzled by the poor quality of the wood and the crude tools used to create it, which didn’t match the evident skill involved.

“If you look at its proportions and structure, you can see that it’s a master violin, made by a man who was proficient in his craft,” said Szandra Katona, one of the Hungarian art dealers who discovered the origins of the violin. “But the choice of wood was completely incomprehensible.”

Motivated by the contradiction, the professional disassembled the violin, revealing Kempa’s hidden note — an apparent explanation, even an apology, from a master violin maker forced by the brutal limitations of his captivity to build an instrument that fell short of his own standards.

Dachau, located near Munich, was the first concentration camp established by the Nazis in March 1933. It initially housed political prisoners but later became a model for other camps, imprisoning Jews, Roma, clergy, homosexuals, and others targeted by the Nazi regime.

Over time, it became a site of forced labor, medical experiments, and brutal punishment, and remained in operation until it was liberated by American forces on April 29, 1945. At least 40,000 people are believed to have died there due to starvation, disease, execution, or mistreatment.

There is ample evidence that musical instruments were present in concentration camps across Central and Eastern Europe during World War II. For propaganda purposes, the Nazis often permitted or even encouraged the formation of musical groups to give a false impression to the outside world about life in the camps.

However, all known instruments that survived Dachau are believed to have been brought in by prisoners. Kempa’s “violin of hope,” as it has come to be called, is the only known instrument actually built inside the camp.

It is unknown how the violin left Dachau and ultimately made its way to Hungary. But Kempa, according to documents provided to the Hungarian art dealers by the museum at the Dachau memorial site, survived the war and returned to his native Poland to continue making instruments before dying in 1953.

The documents also suggest that Kempa was known to the Nazis as an instrument maker — something Tamás Tálosi, one of the art dealers, believes may have spared him the fate of millions of others that perished in the camps.

“We named it the ‘violin of hope’ because if someone ends up in a difficult situation, having a task or a challenge helps them get through a lot of things,” Tálosi said. “You focus not on the problem, but on the task itself, and I think this helped the maker of this instrument to survive the concentration camp.”

festival legacy: Newport Folk & Jazz

As explained on our “About” page, this blog was born out of the experience that is the Newport Folk Festival. That experience cannot be captured in words, but this outstanding long-form article from consequence.net makes an extremely impressive attempt:

from Rickie Lee Jones

Why I Love To Share The Films I Love

Lady In White, from a larger writing…

Most of the actors in this film are Italian American. Little Frankie’s family is portrayed as a happy, normal family, with troubles, sure, but lots of love. Kinda like Leave it to Beaver but with Italian food and rhythm and names. This is the kind of thing that helps teach people how we are alike, by showing that what is different is wonderful, not destructive or threatening. It’s important. It is a lesson all of us must learn or we grow up harboring fantastic fears, (you can see it everywhere nowadays) and we grow terrible molds and spores made of rumor and conjecture and convenience, until we are racist, and sexist, and spoiled to happiness. Understanding these simple lessons that films can bring a kid is timely. Different syllables in names can seem like they are insurmountable differences. In the heart of us, we are living the same lives in America. Well, we were, anyway. I believe that we are connected by a common love of one another that is simply not celebrated nearly enough. Films are a way of reminding us how much we value our common legends and history.

Rickie Lee Jones, Fish Sticks, 10/21/2024

quote from Valerie June

“A whole lot of magic has to happen to make music. A whole lot of minds have to see something invisible. The act of making music — that could be spiritual. You’re taking something that’s not physically seen and you’re bringing it from nowhere, pulling it from thin air, so people can experience it.”–Valerie June, 2021

read the article at nytimes.com

article by Warren Haynes

“No true musician can claim to embrace the music of someone without accepting as equal the human being from which it came. It is impossible to regard the influence of someone else’s creativity as great while judging the person who created it as somehow inferior.” Warren Haynes, Newsweek, 6/24/2020

read the full article at Newsweek.com

live music comforts coronavirus patients and caregivers

“I’m hoping to offer a brief moment of comfort or distraction or beauty.”Michelle Ross, violinist in Manhattan

click here to read the full NY Times article

RIP John Prine

“I guess I just process death differently than some folks. Realizing you’re not going to see that person again is always the most difficult part about it. But that feeling settles, and then you are glad you had that person in your life, and then the happiness and the sadness get all swirled up inside you. And then you’re this great, awful candy bar, walking around in a pair of shoes.”John Prine, quoted by Pitchfork, 2018

read rememberances in Rolling Stone and The New York Times

art against coronavirus in Philadelphia

“What you’re seeing is empty businesses, empty schools, empty playgrounds. What is the emotional toll that takes? How can we replace some of that emptiness with images of hope, resilience, anger, and also dreams of a future that is hopefully not far off?” –Mark Strandquist, Mural Arts Philadelphia

read the entire article in The Philadelphia Inquirer