Dallas’ Holocaust Remembrance Day includes concert with a viola rescued from Nazi Germany

The musician who now owns the instrument uses it to teach lessons about the Holocaust.

Tamara Freeman bought the viola from a man who didn't know she was already performing music of the Holocaust. She calls it "bashert," Yiddish for "divinely destined."

DALLAS — Thursday, April 19 is Holocaust Remembrance Day, an international commemoration of the death of 6 million Jewish people at the hands of Nazis. In Dallas, a Holocaust educator named Tamara Freeman will perform music on a viola from 1935 that was owned by a Jewish musician in Germany and secretly shipped to the U.S.

The recital is at 6:30 p.m. April 19 at Temple Shalom in Dallas. The event is free and open to the public.

Freeman created America's first and only Holocaust music curriculum for grades K-12. "An ethnomusicologist and accomplished violist, Dr. Freeman instructs students of all ages in lessons of morality, respect, and courage by teaching them how to sing beautiful and poignant songs from the WWII ghettos and concentration camps that were composed by children and teenagers," reads a press release.

The instrument Freeman will play was made for "Miss Butzell," a Hungarian Jewish woman who moved to Germany to be a music teacher. A petite person, her viola was custom-made to fit her small hands. The story about the viola and its owner is pretty fascinating:

During the Holocaust, the Miss Butzell was captured by Nazi soldiers and removed from her home. A righteous Gentile neighbor rescued her viola from her apartment before the Nazis returned to loot her possessions. The Bausch viola was secretly shipped to the woman’s sister, Senta Butzell, in northern New Jersey for safe keeping, with the hope that the original owner of the instrument would survive the war. Regrettably, the original owner of the Bausch viola perished during the Holocaust.

Dr. Freeman, the fifth owner of the Bausch viola, acquired the instrument in 1998 from Mr. Robert Ames, a bow-maker and string instrument dealer in northern New Jersey. Dr. Freeman visited Mr. Ames to have her viola bows rehaired and to inquire about the possible purchase of a fine quality concert viola. Mr. Ames presented the Bausch viola and its historic papers to Dr. Freeman, not knowing that she was researching and performing music of the Holocaust.

Survivors say that this coincidental encounter is “bashert,” Yiddish for divinely destined. Dr. Freeman feels honored to own the Bausch viola and also feels a deep sense of responsibility for using its “voice” to sing the songs and teach the lessons of the Holocaust.

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Yom Hashoah 2012: One Day in the Holocaust

Thu
Apr
19^th
6:30^PM

Temple Shalom Dallas
6930 Alpha Road
Dallas, TX
Age limit: 11+

During an event at the Holocaust Museum called Days of Remembrance, five short films will play April 15-22, from 3-4 p.m. and 4-5 p.m. each day. The films are free with paid admission.