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Kempa’s violin stands alone as the only known instrument actually constructed within the camp’s walls.
By Jewish Breaking News
A chance discovery in Hungary has unveiled what experts now confirm is the only known musical instrument crafted within Dachau concentration camp during the Holocaust.
In 1941, as war engulfed Europe and millions faced persecution, Jewish prisoner Franciszek “Franz” Kempa quietly worked inside Dachau concentration camp, applying his remarkable skills as a violin maker despite the brutal conditions of his imprisonment.
Using whatever materials he could salvage and lacking proper tools, Kempa crafted a violin that would outlast not only his captivity but nearly a century of history.
Before sealing his creation, Kempa tucked a note inside that read: “Trial instrument, made under difficult conditions with no tools and materials. Dachau. Anno 1941, Franciszek Kempa.”
When American forces liberated Dachau on April 29, 1945, Kempa was among the survivors.
According to documentation from the Dachau memorial site museum, he returned to his native Poland after the war and continued making instruments until his death in 1953.
Through channels that remain mysterious, Kempa’s violin eventually made its way to Hungary.
For years, it sat unrecognized, just another piece in a collection of furniture, until Hungarian art dealers acquired it and eventually sent it for repairs.
“If you look at its proportions and structure, you can see that it’s a master violin, made by a man who was proficient in his craft,” Szandra Katona, one of the Hungarian art dealers who traced the violin’s origins, tells EuroNews. “But the choice of wood was completely incomprehensible.”
Baffled by the violin’s puzzling contradictions, the restorer gently pried apart the wooden body. That’s when he Kempa’s handwritten note, untouched since 1941.
Musicians in Nazi camps weren’t unusual; orchestras sometimes performed while atrocities unfolded nearby, a cruel propaganda spectacle for Red Cross visits.
However, all instruments previously documented at Dachau arrived with the prisoners. Kempa’s violin stands alone as the only known instrument actually constructed within the camp’s walls.
“We named it the ‘violin of hope’ because if someone ends up in a difficult situation, having a task or a challenge helps them get through a lot of things,” explained Tamas Talosi, another art dealer involved in the discovery.
“You focus not on the problem, but on the task itself, and I think this helped the maker of this instrument to survive the concentration camp.”
After decades in darkness, Kempa’s violin finally saw daylight again at a press conference on may 4th at Dachau in commemoration of the camp’s 80th liberation anniversary.
Established near Munich in March 1933, Dachau was the first concentration camp created by the Nazis and became the template for others that followed.
Initially housing political prisoners, it later expanded to imprison Jews, Roma, clergy, homosexuals, and others targeted by Hitler. At least 40,000 people died there from starvation, disease, execution, or mistreatment.
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