The Nazis’ destruc­tion of human life was decid­ed­ly worse than their attacks on mate­r­i­al cul­ture. How­ev­er, their plan to com­mit geno­cide against the Jew­ish peo­ple did involve the theft of all prod­ucts of Jew­ish civ­i­liza­tion. In Vio­lin of Hope, when a music-lov­ing Jew­ish fam­i­ly is arrest­ed by Nazi sol­diers on the eve of the Sab­bath, their cap­tors seize their beloved vio­lin and even­tu­al­ly toss it into a heap of oth­er objects in a damp cel­lar. Author Ella Schwartz and illus­tra­tor Juliana Oak­ley draw par­al­lels between the fate of the musi­cal instru­ment and vic­tims of the Holo­caust themselves.

Schwartz uses metaphor to devel­op the violin’s char­ac­ter. Before the ter­ror begins, the instrument’s ​“quick and live­ly” songs bring joy to young Itzik and Feiga, who dance as their father plays. But ​“slow and sor­row­ful” songs fore­shad­ow the suf­fer­ing to come. Cap­tured by the stormtroop­ers, who grab its ​“beau­ti­ful scrolled neck” and break a string, the vio­lin is brought to a freez­ing base­ment prison where its wood­en ​“bel­ly” cracks. Schwartz and Oak­ley demon­strate the total destruc­tion of Jew­ish life with­out equat­ing the violin’s tor­ments to those inflict­ed on peo­ple. Oakley’s illus­tra­tion of relics impris­oned in a dark room looks like a shad­owy grave of the vic­tims’ for­mer lives. Then, a door opens, let­ting in light and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of hope.

In her author’s note, Schwartz explains that the book was inspired by the project Vio­lins of Hope, cre­at­ed by luthiers Amnon (1939 – 2024) and Avshalom Wein­stein. This father and son have ded­i­cat­ed them­selves to repair­ing vio­lins that were owned by Jews before the Holo­caust. These instru­ments then become part of an orches­tra that per­forms all around the world. Images in the book show a luthi­er care­ful­ly exam­in­ing and repair­ing the once-lost vio­lin. An array of tools hangs on the wall, along with the fin­ished prod­ucts of his artistry. These bat­tered instru­ments resume their lives, their injuries healed and their wood now shining.

The final step in bring­ing the vio­lin to life occurs when a boy named Isaac and his father enter the shop. Encour­aged to prac­tice and per­sist, Isaac grows up to per­form Jew­ish music, putting an end to the silence forced on a peo­ple and their music.