Violins of Hope (22 page)

Thousands of Jews died during that first winter in Transnistria from starvation and exposure, as well as from dysentery and other illnesses. An untreated typhus epidemic ran rampant throughout the cramped, unsanitary, and lice-infested Transnistrian ghettos, claiming 1,449 lives in Shargorod alone in just a few months. The bodies of the dead were simply left in the street, where other ghetto residents would strip them of whatever precious clothing they had left. Once or twice a day, a group of deportees would roam the streets on a horse-drawn carriage, picking up the cadavers and taking them to the cemetery. Sometimes the makeshift undertakers would light bonfires to thaw the icy ground enough to dig mass graves. Other times, the corpses would simply be added to piles of other frozen bodies. When the spring came, the deportees hacked the frozen bodies apart with axes to separate them from each other for burial.

It did not take long for Feivel to find a way to protect his family from starvation and exposure—one that did not put their lives at risk but involved playing the violin.

Ten days after Feivel arrived in Shargorod, a man paid him a visit. Feivel barely recognized him as Judge Robinson. As the chief justice of Gura Humorului, Judge Robinson had once been a tall, elegantly dressed man of great distinction in both the Jewish and gentile communities. Now the judge was stooped, emaciated, and wearing a dirty, shabby suit. He approached Feivel extending a trembling hand that was dried and blistered. In his other hand, he carried a violin case.

“Please be seated, Mr. Robinson,” Feivel said, quickly adding, “Your Honor.”

The judge sheepishly smiled a toothless grin and sat down.

“I live nearby with my two sisters,” the judge started. “I am too weak and too old for the jobs here. We have no food, nor wood.” Then he stopped. “Could I please have some warm water?” he asked.

Feivel gave him warm sugar water.

The judge took just a few sips and said, “I will bring the glass back later. The rest is for my sisters.” He rose to leave.

“Drink the whole glass,” Feivel urged him. “We will give you more water and sugar for your sisters.”

The judge sat back down and relaxed. He closed his eyes and drank very slowly. When he had gathered his strength, he finally got to the point of his unexpected visit.

“I know that you are a musician,” he said. “I also played once, when my hands still worked. You are young and will be able to play for many years.”

The judge opened the case and took out an Amati—an instrument crafted by one of the most respected names in violinmaking. It was Nicolò Amati who had taught Andrea Guarneri, the patriarch of the Guarneri dynasty and the grandfather of the man who made Ole Bull's Violin. Nicolò may have also been Antonio Stradivari's teacher.

Feivel's hands shook as the judge handed him the expensive instrument. He could not even remember how long it had been since he had played a violin.

“Take it,” the judge insisted. “What good is a violin if I have no food? If you're able to earn a little something from making music, then don't forget me.”

The judge left as quickly as he had appeared. Feivel had not even had the time to react. He was too stunned by the gift to do anything but put the violin back in its case and set it aside.

Music had played a large role in Feivel's life for as long as he could remember. As a little boy, he heard a violin being played at a wedding and decided then and there that he wanted to play the instrument. In the absence of a violin, he would escape to the forest as often as possible to listen to the birdcalls that he thought sounded like one. Once, while bringing his father his lunch, Feivel heard a violin playing through an open window. He sat underneath that window, listening intently until the violinist chased him away.

When Feivel was nine years old, his mother brought home a violin for him. His first lessons were with an elderly teacher who had a habit of falling asleep during his sessions, so Feivel taught himself to play by practicing for hours. When Feivel was ten, he proudly earned his first salary by playing principal violin in an orchestra that accompanied silent films. As a teenager, he bicycled to Hungary with a mandolin-playing friend for six weeks, playing concerts along the way to earn money. He also learned to play viola and cello, and enjoyed many happy evenings making music with his friends. For a short while, he even formed a jazz band consisting of a piano, guitar, saxophone, and violin that played in the spa and ski resort town of Vatra Dornei—until his mother found out and dragged him home.

When Feivel was drafted into the Romanian army, the violin shielded him from basic training. Upon learning that Feivel was a musician, an officer summoned him for an impromptu performance. The officer was so impressed that he invited Feivel to sleep at his house instead of in the barracks with the other recruits. While his comrades were training on the rifle range, Feivel enjoyed easy duty entertaining the officers. Even during his yearlong military service in Bucharest, Feivel was adopted by a lieutenant who would invite him to his house on the weekends to play duets with his pianist daughter.

Although music continued to play an integral role in Feivel's daily life, he never dreamed of attending a conservatory and launching a musical career. Instead, he worked as an accountant and then as the cafeteria manager for a large silk factory in Bucharest. After he and his family were forced to move to Gura Humorului, he managed the nearby sawmill before he was fired for being Jewish. Now, in Transnistria, music would become not just a profession for Feivel, but a means to spare his family and friends from almost certain death.

The day after the judge's visit, Feivel returned home from his job chopping wood and decided that it was time to try out the violin. He nervously removed the instrument from its case, placed it against his neck, and drew the bow lightly across the strings. He was instantly enchanted by the sound. He had never heard such a beautiful instrument.

He closed his eyes and started playing. The music transported him to a different place, to a different time. He was no longer in the ghetto. He was not hungry, he was not soaking wet, and he was not wearing shabby rags. He was the richest man in the world.

When Feivel stopped playing, he opened his eyes. Everyone in the room was staring at him in amazement. Several fellow deportees from the street had entered the room to hear him play. People who were hungry, sick, and infested with lice simply stood there with smiles on their faces. They, too, had been carried away by his violin playing.

Feivel's Ukrainian landlord appeared and shooed away all of the strangers. “You really play nicely,” he said. “Do you know how to play Ukrainian music? I could recommend you to play at a wedding.”

“I play everything.” Feivel stretched the truth, eager to secure employment.

“Find another musician who plays another instrument,” the landlord instructed. “I'll let you know when the wedding takes place.”

Feivel had a friend in the Shargorod Ghetto who had played accordion with him prior to their exile. When the accordionist had been forced out of his home, he had stuck a small harmonica in his pocket.

Two days later, the landlord brought Feivel and his harmonica-playing friend to a wedding in a nearby village, where they saw two large tables that were filled with food. When Feivel and his friend were given permission to eat whatever they wanted, they devoured chicken cutlets, dough with milk, and lots of bread. Stuffing their empty stomachs with such rich food made them both sick for four weeks. A doctor in the ghetto told them that it could have killed them.

The wedding was a traditional Ukrainian celebration that lasted three days and three nights. Feivel and his friend played nonstop, one waking the other if he dozed off. They had never heard the Ukrainian folksongs that the partygoers requested, but they had good ears and quickly learned the tunes as they were sung to them. In exchange for delighting the wedding guests, they each received a five-pound loaf of bread to take home.

When Feivel returned to Shargorod, he immediately went to see Judge Robinson to give him a quarter of the loaf. He was determined to honor the judge's request that he share everything he made playing the Amati. Feivel arrived at the judge's house only to learn that Justice Robinson and his two sisters had been taken to the cemetery the day before. They had poisoned themselves. They simply could not bear another day of starving and freezing in the ghetto. Feivel could not help but wonder if they were better off dead than he was alive. He brought the violin to his chin and accompanied himself while singing “El Malei Rachamim,” the traditional Jewish prayer of remembrance.

Feivel and his friend quickly became popular among Romanian officers and Ukrainian peasants looking for entertainment. The musicians were happy to play in exchange for food that they could bring home to their families. At one party, Feivel and his friend met a music-loving Ukrainian farmer who continually complimented their abilities. He asked them to accompany him while he sang. Once again, Feivel and his friend listened to the melody for just a few seconds and then started playing along, as if they had been performing the tune their whole lives. When the party ended two days later, the farmer tipped the musicians generously.

Feivel would also play the violin in the ghetto, bringing comfort to himself as well as to his friends and family members by performing Jewish melodies that they all remembered from their childhoods. Among these was “My Yiddishe Momme,” which had been a favorite of Feivel's own mother.

The local celebrity that Feivel earned by playing the violin convinced a Romanian gentleman to hire Feivel as a servant when he fell ill. Feivel held cold compresses to the Romanian's head and stoked the fire to keep his bedroom warm. He picked up the Romanian's medicine from the pharmacist and made sure that his new master took it as prescribed. After the Romanian recovered, he arranged for Feivel to receive two kilograms each of sugar, rice, cornmeal, and yeast, as well as two liters of milk. It was enough to feed Feivel's family for a long time.

As with many ghettos, Shargorod was controlled by a Jewish Council, which governed the ghetto, and a Jewish Police force, which maintained order. The Shargorod Jewish Police also prevented marauding Ukrainian militiamen from entering the ghetto at night to rob and torture its residents. Although the council and the police both were composed of fellow ghetto residents, membership in either organization came with preferential treatment that was often abused. In Feivel's case, the abuse came at the hands of a Jewish policeman who was jealous of the special favors Feivel was receiving from Romanians and Ukrainians.

One day, a well-dressed young man entered Feivel's room. “Who has a violin here?” he asked.

“I do,” Feivel replied quickly, hoping that his guest was looking to hire him. A second later, he recognized the young man as a member of the Jewish Police and realized that this would not be a friendly visit.

“We know that Judge Robinson left his violin at your place—an Amati violin,” the policeman stated. “You are to bring it to the police station immediately.”

Feivel was shocked. Without the violin, he and his family would starve. “The judge gave me the violin because he was an old family friend,” he protested. “The violin is mine now.”

“If you love your family, you will bring the violin to us today,” the policeman sneered. “It will not be of any use to you in the cemetery outside of town.”

The policeman was not done intimidating Feivel. “Have you heard what the Germans like to do with Jews?” he asked, turning to Tzici. “If your husband chooses the violin over his family, be ready to travel to a German death camp tonight. Only then will you understand that here you are living in paradise.

“Of course, do not forget the girl,” the policeman continued, walking toward Helen and taking her hand. “You are coming with me,” he threatened Feivel's daughter. “We have a special place for orphaned children.

“The girl or the violin,” the policeman said, turning back to Feivel. “A tough choice for someone like you.”

The choice was not difficult at all. Feivel took the Amati out of its case and played it one last time. A farewell melody to a dear friend. Then he took the precious violin down to the police station and walked away with tears in his eyes.

Feivel's performing days were not over. One day, he was stacking firewood for a Romanian officer when he heard the sound of a cello. He could not resist knocking on the door.

“You have already received the flour that I owe you,” the officer growled, not understanding why a Jew would be standing on his doorstep.

“The cello,” Feivel responded.

“What about the cello?” the officer asked, eager to end the conversation.

“I play the cello.”

“A Jew with a cello?”

Feivel did not reply.

“Clean yourself up a bit,” the officer finally capitulated. “Wash your hands, take off your stinking shoes, and come on in.”

Feivel quickly complied.

“Show me your hands,” the officer commanded. When he was satisfied that Feivel was sufficiently clean, he issued one more order: “Play.”

Feivel took the cello and began playing. He was a violinist first and foremost, but he played the cello with the same amount of passion. Back in Romania, when his mother had recovered from a lengthy illness, he had celebrated by playing “Kol Nidrei”—the Jewish annulment of vows that begins the Yom Kippur evening service. Then, as now, Feivel had poured his heart and soul into his performance, sweating profusely with every movement of the bow.

The Romanian officer listened for a long time. “You play very well,” he finally said. “Whenever you bring me wood, you can come in and play for a bit.”

“I would be glad to,” Feivel replied. He had formed another unlikely alliance through his playing, one that would again save his life.