“Joseph Feingold, a Holocaust survivor who found unexpected fame late in life as the co-star of ‘Joe’s Violin,’ an Oscar-nominated short documentary, died on April 15 at Mt. Sinai West Hospital in Manhattan” of complications of Covid-19, writes Steven Kurutz in Wednesday’s (4/22) New York Times. “He was 97…. In 2014, Mr. Feingold was listening to … classical music station WQXR when he heard about a program that gives used instruments to New York City schoolchildren. He … donated a cherished violin he no longer played…. Born on March 23, 1923, in Warsaw, Joseph Feingold was 17 when the Nazis invaded Poland. He and his father, Aron, a shoemaker … were caught by the Russian army and sent to separate labor camps in Siberia…. Mr. Feingold’s mother, Ruchele, and a younger brother, Henry … perished in the concentration camps…. At a displaced person’s camp near Frankfurt, Germany, Mr. Feingold spotted a violin at a flea market … Music reminded him of happier times before the war [when he] would accompany his mother on the violin … Mr. Feingold emigrated to New York City [and] became a successful architect…. Kahane Cooperman recounted Mr. Feingold’s saga in her 2017 documentary and also told the story of the violin’s recipient, Brianna Perez, a 12-year-old Dominican girl from the Bronx.”
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