Maria Angels Anglada was an award winning Catalans author. Her worked garnered her many prizes during her life, including the highest writing award bestowed in Catalan. Her novella The Violin of Auschwitz details the true story of how a violin maker named Daniel used his skill as a luthier to escape the clutches of the death camps.

Daniel came from a religious family in Cracow that before the war had been violin makers. When the Germans took over Poland and forced all Jews into ghettos, Daniel's mother and sister succumbed to heartbreak. His father survived the ghetto but not the war, and the only family he had left were his fiancé Eva and a niece Regina, who was fortunate enough to be taken in by gentiles for the duration of the war. Knowledge that both were still alive gave Daniel the strength to survive each horrid day in Auschwitz.

Upon finding out that Daniel the carpenter is really a violin maker, an SS officer places a bet with a doctor that Daniel could not construct a violin rivaling one of Stradivarius. Working around the clock with assistance from his friend Bronislaw the violinist, Daniel overcomes hunger and weakness to build a masterpiece. His craft and a little luck allows him to live past the date set by the bet.

As in the majority of Holocaust narratives I have read, the imagery here is difficult to digest. Anglada's use of prose to describe music contrasts with the bleak outlook of life in Auschwitz. Told in flashback by a contemporary violinist who is a friend of Daniel's niece, Daniel's story is meant to provide hope amid the brutalities of the Holocaust.

This is the first novella of Anglada's that I have read. Some of the prose may have been lost in translation from the Catalan, but it is still a beautiful story. I would read her other novels if they are available in English and rate The Violin of Auschwitz 4 bright stars. holocaust novella108 s Elyse Walters4,010 11.3k

“Ah, our musicians’ hands have been severed, our singers’ mouths barred with iron. The sweet-voiced violin lies on the ground”.
—Yannis Ritsos

Daniel Krakowensis was a luthier by profession. An SS officer was going punish Daniel if he wasnÂ’t able to fix a violin that was cracked. He was given one night to fix it in a carpenter shop. If the violin wasnÂ’t to the officers liking, it would be confinement with horrifying circumstances- plus whippings.
At the present moment... while ‘fixing’ the violin, Daniel thought of nothing other than his job at hand. He took pride in his own skill. Even his hunger disappeared. ( for a short time)...
However, Daniel had been naïve to think that the commander would be satisfied with the newly repaired violin.
Nothing was logical in the camps.... but it seem completely unheard of that Daniel was ordered to make a new violin, as well crafted as if it were a Stradivarius.
Gnawing hunger returned in Daniel’s stomach... but when he labored over the violin- he was ‘almost’ happy.

This is a beautiful - ( yet always with heart wrenching brutal history- as the Holocaust was), novella- only around 100 pages -

We follow Daniel - all he goes through-in 1941 in Auschwitz
We visit life - once again - in the camps - those horrors... horrors ... horrors.
Then.....
we are reminded - as in other stories written about victims of the Holocaust- that there were many Jews whose spirits were bigger than their horrific conditions....
This is one of ‘those’ type of stories.

The author begins the story with a remembrance in 1991.
In 1991...
A recital was held in Krakow.... a city of wonderful musicians. The concert was dedicated to Mozart.
Regina was playing the violin. She was extremely accomplished.....(velvety and full).
Practically her entire family were victims of the Holocaust. Her mother, and grandmother died in the Krakow ghetto. Her father and older brother at Auschwitz. All killed by Nazis.
Regina was DanielÂ’s daughter.

The violin
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