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The Dachau violin
This violin belonged to Abram Merczynski. In August 1944, Abram and his two brothers, Isak and Zysman were deported from the ghetto in Lodz, Poland, to Auschwitz and then to Dachau concentration camp. Abram was 21 years old and played his violin wherever he was, even in the labor camp he was sent to, Kaufering, a subcamp of Dachau.
Abram and his brothers survived, as did his violin. Before they emigrated to the United States in 1955, the three brothers rented a room with a German family, Sesar in Loichinger street, Munich. Abram soon bought himself a new violin and gave his old instrument who accompanied him through all his troubles, to the young Julius Sesar, then a 14-year-old boy.
Abram lived to be 88 and his daughter, Eleanor, said he never stopped playing the violin. Julius Sesar, now an old man himself, gave the historical violin to a friend, Eberhard Thiessen, a violinmaker who gave it in turn to the Violins of Hope project, so that the violin will continue to play and tell the story of survival, music and also – friendship.