Jewish Chicago: A new life for the ‘Violins of Hope’ rescued from the Holocaust

A violin can inspire unmatched emotional heat and historical power. Just ask anyone who has heard the heartbreakingly beautiful score for Schindler’s List, as played by Itzhak Perlman. In fact, it was the violin that kept some Jewish musicians alive during their captivity in Nazi concentration camps, as many of their monstrous overseers had a taste for classical music. And somehow, a number of those musicians’ violins managed to survive, even if many of those who played them did not, and now are traveling the world as “Violins of Hope.”