The photograph above is of a child-size violin that belonged to 13-year-old Boruch Golden, who the Nazis murdered in the massacres at Ponary in September 1943. Baruch began playing the violin when he was six years old. His sister, Niusia (Anna), saved the violin. She survived the war in hiding. Following the invasion of Soviet territory by Germany in the spring of 1941, the Golden family, the parents, Moshe and Basia, and four children—Niusia, Riva, Boruch, and Tevya, were forced into the Swieciany (Svencionys) ghetto in Lithuania. The family was separated when the Germans liquidated the ghetto in April 1943. Niusia refused to get in the cattle cars and went into hiding. The Nazis deported the other members of the family to the Vilna ghetto. Moshe found himself at Klooga Concentration Camp; he did not survive. Basia and the two boys were taken, after the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto, to Ponary and murdered. Rywa was sent to Kaiserwald— it was the first of several concentration camps for him.
A violin is an instrument that only sounds good if played by a skillful musician—a talented violinist.
The skill of playing the violin was not a critical skill to the Nazis because it didn’t belong to a so-called Aryan. Regardless of how many beautiful tunes Boruch would have played on his instrument, the Nazis didn’t care—they murdered him.
This instrument was saved! Musicians know that when you pick up an instrument and play it, you give it a bit of your soul, as Boruch would have done.
A part of Boruch still lives in that carved piece of wood and strings.
A violin
a boy
Music
Joy
A violin
A skill
A boy
A will
A violin
Still whole
A boy
A soul.
Source
History of Sorts 
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