Holocaust Project Blog #2

Artifact: Music of Beethoven, which was banned by the Nazi's

Passage: Night pg. 94-95

"Those were my thoughts when I heard the sound of a violin. A violin in a dark barrack where the dead were piled on top of the living? Who was this madman who played the violin here, at the edge of his own grave? Or was it a hallucination?

It had to be Juliek.

He was playing a fragment of a Beethoven concerto. Never before had I heard such a beautiful sound. In such silence.

The darkness enveloped us. All I could here was the violin and it was as if Juliek's soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future. He played that which he would never play again."

________________________________________________________________

One of the most touching moments throughout Night by Elie Wiesel is Wiesel's recount of Juliek's violin performance when the entire group was huddled in in an old wooden building on a bitter cold night. What makes this a particularly moving part of the book is the fact that everybody in the concentration group essentially had nothing left with them except themselves, and whatever few personal belongings that they were able to salvage throughout their life in the concentration camp; in Juliek's case, his violin. By playing his violin until what was probably his death, Juliek is able to die in a peaceful state, and "prove" to the Nazi's that they can't take everything away from him. 

The first thing that is crucial to note about Juliek's solo is the fact that the piece that he played was a work of Beethoven's, a famous German composer of the 18th century. It turns out however that Jews were actually banned from playing music written by German composers during the Holocaust. This could be viewed as an act of rebellion by Juliek demonstrating that the Nazi's couldn't hurt him anymore. Juliek didn't care what the set standards were for the prisoners at the time, and that he was playing the violin in order to stay true to himself. One can view this in a sense that Juliek has finally obtained freedom from the trap he has lived in for such a long time.

The idea that Juliek achieved a sense of freedom by playing his violin is also supported by Wiesel's description of the performance. Wiesel writes: "All I could here was the violin and it was if Juliek's soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings." One can only imagine how engrossed Juliek must have been into the violin at that moment in time. At that moment, he was not thinking about the past, nor was he worrying about the future. He was just living the moment as if he had nothing to lose at that point. "He played that which he would never play again."