This event has been ended!
"Violinen der Hoffnung" Eine Zukunft für die Erinnerung?
"Violins of Hope" A future for memory?
Event by: Evangelische Akademie zu Berlin
Location: Catholic Academy in Berlin e.V., Hannoversche Straße 5, Berlin - Mitte
About event
Discussion evening with music from the oratorio “From Violin Voices”
How can the memory of the Shoah be passed on to future generations? This question is an important task of our present and future. The Violins of Hope project is an attempt to use music to keep memories alive and to address the Shoah. In a panel discussion we ask how memory can be conveyed in a tangible way. With musical excerpts from the oratorio “From Violin Voices” we make this both audible and tangible.
The last contemporary witnesses to the Shoah will soon have died. For a long time, people at various levels have been working on the question of how memory can be made tangible for future generations. The Violins of Hope project wants to achieve this through music and make history audible.
In memory of November 9th, 1938, we want to ask and hear: How can the emotional side of history in particular be conveyed responsibly? And what comes after being touched?
The representatives for remembrance culture of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and the Archdiocese of Berlin, Pastor Marion Gardei and Pastor Lutz Nehk, the composer of the oratorio, Berthold Tuercke, and the translator of the work, Lia Martyn, from the Institute for Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at the University of Potsdam, will discuss this.
Afterwards Parts of the oratorio “From Violin Voices” can be heard. Featuring: Anna Clementi (speaker), Günter Barton (speaker), Sonja Lu (violin) and Ferdinand Eppendorf (violin).
Violins of Hope
In 1938, the violin maker Moshe Weinstein fled from Warsaw to Tel Aviv. Again and again, survivors and those who had escaped brought him instruments that had been given to them by people who were doomed to die - or that they themselves no longer wanted to play after all the horrors. Moshe Weinstein kept them safe. His son Amnon began restoring them in 1992, collecting their stories and other instruments. He later rented out the Violins of Hope for concerts. At the first concert in Berlin in 2015, he said: "It's not easy for me, it's actually very difficult. But the instruments tell this incredible story. It's hard for us to understand them, but that's why we try to understand through their sound what happened back then. The music is for the six million people who are no longer with us and the violins in the concert sound for them."
On January 27, 2025 in the Philharmonie Berlin premiered the oratorio “From Violins of Hope”, designed for the Violins of Hope and composed by Berthold Tuercke on behalf of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz for Weinstein's instrument collection.
The event takes place in cooperation with the Catholic Academy in Berlin e.V. and the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Berlin e.V. instead.
Further information under https://www.eaberlin.de/seminars/data/2025/11/auviolinen-der-hoffnungag-eine-zukunft-fuer-die-erinnerung/
How can the memory of the Shoah be passed on to future generations? This question is an important task of our present and future. The Violins of Hope project is an attempt to use music to keep memories alive and to address the Shoah. In a panel discussion we ask how memory can be conveyed in a tangible way. With musical excerpts from the oratorio “From Violin Voices” we make this both audible and tangible.
The last contemporary witnesses to the Shoah will soon have died. For a long time, people at various levels have been working on the question of how memory can be made tangible for future generations. The Violins of Hope project wants to achieve this through music and make history audible.
In memory of November 9th, 1938, we want to ask and hear: How can the emotional side of history in particular be conveyed responsibly? And what comes after being touched?
The representatives for remembrance culture of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg and the Archdiocese of Berlin, Pastor Marion Gardei and Pastor Lutz Nehk, the composer of the oratorio, Berthold Tuercke, and the translator of the work, Lia Martyn, from the Institute for Jewish Studies and Religious Studies at the University of Potsdam, will discuss this.
Afterwards Parts of the oratorio “From Violin Voices” can be heard. Featuring: Anna Clementi (speaker), Günter Barton (speaker), Sonja Lu (violin) and Ferdinand Eppendorf (violin).
Violins of Hope
In 1938, the violin maker Moshe Weinstein fled from Warsaw to Tel Aviv. Again and again, survivors and those who had escaped brought him instruments that had been given to them by people who were doomed to die - or that they themselves no longer wanted to play after all the horrors. Moshe Weinstein kept them safe. His son Amnon began restoring them in 1992, collecting their stories and other instruments. He later rented out the Violins of Hope for concerts. At the first concert in Berlin in 2015, he said: "It's not easy for me, it's actually very difficult. But the instruments tell this incredible story. It's hard for us to understand them, but that's why we try to understand through their sound what happened back then. The music is for the six million people who are no longer with us and the violins in the concert sound for them."
On January 27, 2025 in the Philharmonie Berlin premiered the oratorio “From Violins of Hope”, designed for the Violins of Hope and composed by Berthold Tuercke on behalf of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz for Weinstein's instrument collection.
The event takes place in cooperation with the Catholic Academy in Berlin e.V. and the Society for Christian-Jewish Cooperation in Berlin e.V. instead.
Further information under https://www.eaberlin.de/seminars/data/2025/11/auviolinen-der-hoffnungag-eine-zukunft-fuer-die-erinnerung/