One by one, they arrived in a Tel Aviv violin maker’s studio: broken, scratched and disfigured, as damaged as their former owners, but also cherished before the tragedy of the Holocaust irrevocably changed or ended those owners’ lives.

They were sold or given to the studio for preservation but also often abandoned by musicians or their relatives who could no longer bear them as reminders of their personal tragedies of displacement, banishment, loss of loved ones and outright murder.

And yet, what violin makers Amnon Weinstein, who lost 400 of his relatives, and his son Avshalom (Avshi) saw was more than the collective tragedy of their people. What they heard was music, their spiritual and creative sustenance, measures of comfort and, on occasion, survival.

Unable to turn away from the wounded wooden survivors, they set about restoring the instruments to their former glory.

By last reported count, they had restored around 75 of the violins. These now have traveled to several countries, including the United States, with renewed purpose – as Violins of Hope.

A presentation of Violins of Hope will be hosted by the Laguna Woods Shalom Club on Sunday, March 6, at Clubhouse 1.

Many of the violins were given names based on their stories or that of their owners, passed down by survivors or their descendants.

The Train Violin from Lyon, France, is so named because a man on one of the notorious cattle car transports headed east concluded he would no longer need the instrument where he was going. When the train stopped near a road in France, the man threw the violin from the train and it landed on the rails. A worker picked it up, and it wound up languishing in an attic. After the worker died, his children found the instrument and sold it to a local violin maker. Once this violin maker heard its story, he passed it on to Violins of Hope and gave it a new life.

The Storch Violin immigrated to the United States with Ruth Katzenstein, who, at age 11 in 1939, was sent to the Netherlands on a Kindertransport (Children’s Transport) for safety. The violin is the only memento that Daniel Storch has of his grandmother Elsa and his mother, Ruth.

Then there is the Auschwitz Violin, first owned by a survivor of the notorious concentration camp that tragi-ironically also held musical performances. After the war, someone bought the violin for $50 hoping his son would play it some day. The son later donated the fully restored instrument to Violins of Hope, and it reportedly has been played by renowned musicians the world over.

The Haftel Violin has a different story: It belonged to Zvi Haftel, the first concertmaster of the Palestine Orchestra, renamed the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in 1948. In 1936, Bronislav Huberman, a Polish-Jewish violinist, had a vision to create an all-Jewish orchestra in Palestine, and to that end he brought around 100 musicians from around Europe to Palestine, thus saving their and their families’ lives. Reportedly, he saved more than 1,000 lives.

Lastly, there is a jarring image of a violin, its pale wooden innards scarred by a swastika and the signature “Heil Hitler.” That one was relegated to obscurity, never to be played again, but its story deserves mention: A Jewish violinist of no particular distinction took his violin to be repaired by – unbeknownst to him – a Nazi. The repairer defaced the instrument before closing it up and handing it back to its unsuspecting owner. When the Weinsteins began to restore it, the vandalism came to light.

Susanne Reyto, chair of the Los Angeles chapter of Violins of Hope, will introduce some of the violins and tell their touching stories Sunday at Clubhouse 1. Her presentation will be accompanied by a 45-minute violin and piano concert performed by Bethany Grace and Michael Bogomoiny.

Reyto first learned of Violins of Hope from a friend who had seen a presentation in Louisville, Kentucky. Reyto subsequently contacted violin makers Amnon and Avshi Weinstein in Tel Aviv four and a half years ago, she said. Since then, she has been to Israel five times, once taking her granddaughter along after her Bat Mitzvah.

Reyto describes herself as a Holocaust child survivor; she was born just six days before the Nazis invaded her native Hungary in 1944. Months later, her grandmother, mother and two aunts were picked up for deportation, but her mother miraculously escaped the roundup with the help of a kind stranger.

“That was my mother’s life-saving moment, and it allowed her to return to me,” Reyto recalled.

Her grandmother and two aunts were not as fortunate: They were taken to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany, Reyto said. “Thank God, we are here,” she added.

Reyto eventually left Hungary for Australia, where she was sponsored by an aunt and uncle. After finishing school there, she set out for England but met her husband in the United States and stayed, she said.

“It’s a long story that is in my books ‘Pursuit of Freedom’ and ‘Destination Freedom,’” she said, adding that the latter book is intended for children.

Reyto has made it her mission to educate younger generations about the Holocaust, especially as the number of those who experienced it is dwindling.

“Violins of Hope were just what the doctor ordered, an opportunity to teach history and the Holocaust through music,” Reyto said.

She visits schools with the violins, bringing along a musician to play them or, if a student violinist is in the audience, he or she gets to play them.

She also has given presentations at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust, now named Holocaust Museum LA.

Regarding the current surge of anti-Semitism in the U.S., Reyto said it is part of a rising tide of hatred around the world.

“I would like to say that the violins and music are the storytellers of the future,” she said. “They teach young people to overcome, to acquire knowledge that can be used to fight hatred.”

The website for Violins of Hope – violinsofhopelosangeles.org – has more stories of the violins along with the bios of the Weinstein violin makers.

Books of interest include “Violins of Hope: Violins of the Holocaust — Instruments of Hope and Liberation in Mankind’s Darkest Hour,” by James A. Grymes; and “The Sound of Hope: Music as Solace, Resistance and Salvation During the Holocaust and World War II,”  by Kellie D. Brown.

There is also a PBS presentation, “Violins of Hope: Strings of the Holocaust,” narrated by actor Adrien Brody.

“Violins of Hope” will be presented by the Shalom Club on Sunday, March 6, at 3 p.m. at Clubhouse 1. Doors open at 2:30 p.m. All are invited. Free for club members, $5 for non-members. Masks required. For information, call Paula Kruger at 510-917-1486 or email [email protected].