Joe's Violin: a Survivor Remembers

2017·5.9 MB·English

by  Feingold, Joseph 1923-

JOE’S VIOLIN
A Survivor Remembers
JOSEPH FEINGOLD
joe’s violin: a survivor remembers
Copyright © 2017 by Joseph Feingold. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without
permission in writing from the author or publisher.
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated in loving memory of my wife, Regina Kaufman
Feingold; my mother Ruchele and father Aron, and especially, my little
brother Henryk, who perished at Treblinka.
This book is in tribute to the courageous members of my family and all
those whose lives were cut short by the infamous events of WWII and
the Holocaust. May their lives be remembered.
Joe’s Violin film poster.
CONTENTS
introduction, ix
a musical prelude, xiii
chapter 1
Early Childhood, 1
chapter 2
My Mother’s Family, 5
chapter 3
My Father’s Family, 10
chapter 4
Early Schooling, 12
chapter 5
Moving to Kielce, 15
chapter 6
Leading up to the War, 20
chapter 7
Outbreak of War, 1939, 22
chapter 8
Going to Lvov, December 1939, 28
chapter 9
Arrested by Russian Secret Police, May 1940, 34
chapter 10
My Father Is Taken to a Labor Camp, 39
v
chapter 11
My Father’s Memoirs from the Labor Camp, 1940 to 1942, 41
chapter 12
My Life in Aldan, Eastern Siberia, 46
chapter 13
To Barnaul (West Siberia), 1943 to 1946, 60
chapter 14
Returning to Poland, Spring 1946, 67
chapter 15
Going to Kielce,
July, 1946 – Pogrom Follows, 70
chapter 16
Going to a Displaced Persons Camp in Germany, 1947, 76
chapter 17
The Music Returns, 79
chapter 18
Arriving in New York, 80
Chapter 19
Meeting President Truman, 1953, 82
chapter 20
My Marriage and Filming Joe’s Violin, 84
chapter 21
Joe’s Violin Continues … an Afterword, 86
timeline and chronology of events, 96
acknowledgments, 99
vi
Jozef, second from right, his brothers Alex, Henryk,
and parents Rachel and Aaron, Kielce, Poland, 1936.
Joe’s sketch of his house in Kielce, based on copies of construction plans received
from a historian in Warsaw. Joe filled in missing parts based on memory.