Not by Hate

In Germany, Yehudi Menuhin had fiddled for an all Allied audience, and for an all German one. He had also played a charity concert with Conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, who has only recently been pronounced de-Nazified. But Yehudi wanted to play also for his own people.

At Tempelhof in Berlin, arrangements were made to seat 2,000 Jewish D.P.s. But when Yehudi showed up, he found only 600 in the audience. He demanded an investigation, learned that the camp paper at Dueppel Center had carried a long attack on him, signed by its editor, a man called Jonas of Lemberg:

"When I read of your 'human' deeds toward 'distressed German youth' and of how your new worshipers applauded you, I knew that in your audience there must have sat those two passionate lovers of music, Eppel and Kempke--SS men from the Kurewitz camp near Lemberg--who liked to have us sing while they shot our brothers down. . . . Wherever you travel our newspaper will follow you like a curse until your conscience awakes."

Next day, at his own insistence, 31-year-old Jewish Violinist Menuhin faced 2,000 Jews at Dueppel Center. This time he left his fiddle at home. Yes, he had played for the Germans. "I have played for the hard-pressed wherever and whenever I could. . . . You are truly the victims of Naziism, but the tragedy is that you have grown to be like the Nazis. . . . You make your judgments on a racial basis, and you demand that art and music be harnessed in the cause of hate. Love and not hate will heal the world."

The audience greeted his remarks with stunned silence. But Yehudi at least convinced Editor Jonas that he was no traitor. Said Jonas: "If Menuhin offered us a concert today, we would all go. Perhaps it is too much to expect that those who have not experienced persecutions and camps should understand our feelings."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.