The violins of hope sounded in Libertad
On Monday, March 20, more than 300 people gathered at the emblematic Templo Libertad in Buenos Aires to participate in “Violins of Hope”, the project that calls for music as an expression of life, memory and peace.
The activity was organized by Fundación Judaica, Templo Libertad, Museo Judio de Buenos Aires, B’nai B’rith and the German Embassy.
Rabbi Sergio Bergman, founder of Red Judaica and president of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, started the evening with a call to reflection: “We are committed to honoring survivors. These violins survive, not as a testimony of horror, but of love that transcends what death does not command. We honor the survivors, but we decide not to be survivors, but witnesses… as the Torah says, being witnesses equals us, without distinction. We are witnesses of the horror that happened in the Shoah, but in the memory that still is active. May we repair in love and hope, giving thanks for being able to get emotional, but moving with the memory of the past towards a better world”.
Representatives of B’nai B’rith and the German Embassy followed with their messages: “We commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp with a captivating and moving testimony of the highest importance and significance, as a way of overcoming the pain and the trauma that the loss represents and transform the legacy into a memory commitment so that human beings never commit atrocities against other human beings”.
Then, the documentary “Violins against oblivion” was shown, which tells how violins, violas and cellos, used by the Jewish community before the Holocaust and during World War II, were recovered by luthiers Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein, father and son. The screening ended with the words of Avshalom Weinstein who was present.
Santiago Kovadloff, philosopher, said: “We will be the expression of music when we aspire to reach with it where words cannot reach. Knowing how to play the violin is not enough to play those violins that want to speak again, nobody’s mastery is enough to play those violins. It is essential to embody the pain, the hope, the passion of those who held them in their hands.
The musical closing was in charge of Elías Gurevich, violinist, with Adaggio from Bach’s sonata 1 enchanted with one of the violins of hope.
