 Welcome back. Well, finally this hour. On Sunday, the Jacksonville Symphony will present Violins of Hope, a powerful concert featuring 16 violins recovered and restored from the Holocaust. This is a special event presented in collaboration with the Anne Frank A History For Today exhibit at the Mosh, the Museum of Science and History. We've got a preview right now as we welcome Amnon Weinstein. He is one of the most respected violin makers in the world and he's played a central role in this incredible story. He joins us now in studio. Mr. Weinstein, a pleasure. Good morning. Thank you very much. It's so good to have you on the show and we'll talk in a little bit about the concert. But first, your story is absolutely riveting. You became determined to reclaim this lost heritage of incredible violinists. These were violins played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust. Can you take us back to where you first learned of this and it started you on your quest to find and restore these violins? You know, in Israel, everybody is touching the Holocaust. My family, we lost about 400 people. Other family, it's 100 or 50 or none and you cannot escape from that. Right. In my profession, there have been a lot of people who played the violin in Europe. Most of them survived because the Nazis used them to do the orchestras, to cheat the Jewish people because you know, when a train came to Auschwitz or Birkenau, people were thrown out from the trains, but they've seen a violinist playing a violin. So they said, if there is a violin here, nothing can happen. But the next step was the gas chamber and the Nazis needed these people. So there are many survivors and I'm trying to get each instrument that have a touch to the Holocaust, restore them, bringing them to perfect condition, and we are doing concert like it's going to be here in Jacksonville. That's right. The concert on Sunday will be performed with the violins that you have painstakingly restored a couple dozen of them. How, what was the process like to track down these instruments and find them and then bring them back to glory so they could be played? First of all, it's detective work. You have to find. Then many people approach me now especially because we began the history with four violins and today we are 64. So that's a quantity. 64 today and tomorrow I hope I will have 66. You know, it's growing up all the time like a snowball. First concert that we had in Paris, there were four violins. Now I can give violins to two orchestras and this is very important because people when they're coming to concert, they have a little bit easier to understand the Holocaust. This is so horrible issue, but the music is making it a little bit softer we can call and then it's easier to come and to repeat never again because the most important thing is educational part that here in Jacksonville I have forgotten how many schools we are doing it. It's a list of three schools a day. It's not a joke. My son is doing it with all these students and going back with about 12 instruments and people that are playing on it and we have done in Cleveland, for example, an educational program for 12,000 students. That's incredible. And the teachers wrote one remark. You could hear a needle falling on the floor. Pretty difficult with kids to do that. That's exactly the answer. And you mentioned a minute ago when people would come into the camps, they would see people playing violins and that would temporarily reassure them. So the Nazis exploited the talent of the musicians as a form of mind control basically, right? Completely. Yeah. And so the violin is such a symbol in so many ways of the concentration camps. The violin is first of all a symbol of the Jewish people. Yeah. Then of the concentration camps because everywhere they've had orchestras in the ghetto, in the camps, in Auschwitz alone, there have been eight different orchestras. The main orchestra besides the Albert Mayfairi woman orchestra of Alma Rosé, which was very, very famous, Dorf orchestra of Mr. Mengele. And we have the instrument from this, not either, the shem. And some other places have had orchestra all the time to show people that the camp is not so bad. There's music there. Yeah. It was propaganda. Now you said it took detective work to find the violins. What all did that even entail? I can't even imagine. Were they recovered from survivors who had survived their time in the camps? Were they left behind in some of the camps? How did you find them? Very complicated and there's a lot of differences issue because most of the survivors didn't want to see the violin again because playing the violin, they've seen horrible thing. And they decided to put it away. When they passed away and the children found a violin inside the house, they didn't have any idea what it is. Such a point. Now, some other violins, the family knew about what the father or the mother did in the time. When time came, they came over to me if I want the violin to the collection. And there are many instruments with a full, full story that I know, even with the picture of the people. Yeah. Here, for example, in the case is one violin from Auschwitz, orchestra. You've brought this violin with you today. Could you just open up the case? And we'll post this video later today at wjctnews.org. So this violin you brought with you today was played at Auschwitz. These two violins? Two violins. They will be in the concert. This violin was in the main orchestra in Auschwitz. The players survived completely. In the end of the war, there have been a lot of Israeli people to help, say, survivors. And then one named Davidovic, the guy, the owner of this violin, came to him and said, I have nothing to eat, please buy the violin from me. And he gave him about $50, which is five times more than the value of the violin, because he thought maybe his child will continue and will study. And not when he had about the project. He gave me the violin, the story, the clinic, and now it's looking wonderful. You've started beautifully. Yeah, it looks gorgeous. And it's concert violin. It in Berliner orchestra, there was a concert now in the 27th of January, and this violin was for the soloist. You are in fact one of the most respected violin makers in the world. So your talents have been put to an incredible use here with the violence of hope. You know, I think that this violin, they have one mission to speak, meaning to play and to tell the stories and there are stories. You can imagine that the man who played a violin in this orchestra, what he has seen, it's unbelievable. That's why he wanted to sell the violin. And I know many people like that. Many people after the war, the first things that they've done, they sold the instruments. And one year later on, they came back to my music. It's not all of them, some of them. It is such a pleasure to speak with you and thank you so much for being here with us as Jacksonville commemorates not only this concert violence of hope, but we also encourage people to go and see the Anne Frank exhibit, Anne Frank History for today at the Museum of Science and History. You can learn more about everything happening around town at the website, AnneFrankJax.com. Meanwhile, Violence of Hope, that concert will be Saturday at the Jacksonville Symphony, tickets at Jacksonphony.org. And he is the restorer of these violins. Mr. Amnon Weinstein traveled here from Israel. And so we so appreciate you being on the show and thank you so much. Thank you so much. That's our show for today. Thanks so much for listening.