Stories From Main Street: Holocaust Survivor's Accordion Part Of New Exhibit On Long Island
GLEN COVE, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- An amazing tale of survival -- involving Schindler's list, a boy and his accordion -- are all part of a new exhibit on Long Island.
Alex Rosner, 79, was just a little boy when he and his father entertained the Nazi guards during World War II.
Stories From Main Street: A Boy And His Accordion
"In Auschwitz concentration camp, a female guard having heard my father play the violin, she asked if I play any instruments, and I said, 'Yes, an accordion,'" Rosner told WCBS 880's Sean Adams. "So about an hour or two later she came back with an accordion."
"Music hath charms that soothes the savage breast," Rosner said, and he believes it saved their lives.
"He took risks and they paid off," Rosner said. "He considers his violin to be his weapon."
Rosner also credits Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who protected roughly 1,200 Jews.
After the Nazis moved Rosner and his father to other camps, Schindler employed his mother and held onto the violin and accordion.
"The irony is that after the war, after we liberated and we were reunited with my mother, when she came to Munich to meet us she had his violin and my accordion. Oskar Schindler found those instruments somewhere, somehow and he gave it to her to bring to us,' said Rosner.
The accordion accompanied the family to Queens and spent decades in a basement until Rosner met Steven Markowitz at a tennis court.
"He told us about the accordion and says, 'By the way, I still have that accordion, it's in my basement. Would you guys like it?'" said Markowitz, chairman of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County.
The red and white child's accordion is now part of an exhibit at the center, along with other artifacts including a child's shoe, a swastika flag, striped prisoner's uniform, and a Star of David light bulb.
"It's a relic from a time past, but it is evidence that I'm not a figment of someone's imagination," Rosner said.
