Ole Dahl handcrafted violins in the late-1930s, though he set aside his instrument-making and focused on weapons once the Nazis invaded his native Denmark.

Joining a Dutch Resistance group that secretly sabotaged German troops, while his childhood home near Copenhagen served as a refuge for Danish Jews, Dahl occasionally found wartime solace playing his favorite violin.

That violin, an early 19th century Hopf, got added last week to the national Violins of Hope exhibit, through the assistance of a New Brighton business.

Brad Wittmer at Brighton Music Center connected the museum with Christian Dahl of Ross Township, a son of Ole, who wondered if the precious keepsake would be suitable for Violins of Hope, which last week finished its eight-week, 60-event visit in Pittsburgh.

Wittmer contacted Violins of Hope co-founder Avshi Weinstein, who gratefully accepted the violin donation on behalf of the traveling exhibit, which teaches Holocaust lessons and provides insights into perseverance by showcasing and sharing the stories behind string instruments played by Jewish musicians during the Holocaust.

Wittmer publicly presented the violin to Weinstein on Nov. 25 at Violins of Hope’s closing concert at Heinz Hall, featuring the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra joined by world-famous violinist Joshua Bell.

Bell, 55, grew up in Bloomington, Ind., and by happenstance was quite familiar with the violin shop Ole Dahl operated for decades in that city. Bell said he got his first violin when he was 4 at Ole’s store in Indiana.

“Now (Ole’s violin) is going on the road, and it’s kind of amazing,” Tina Richardson, spokeswoman for Violins of Hope Greater Pittsburgh, said.

Here’s the abbreviated story of a valuable violin given a new purpose:

Rosin replaced by gun oil

Born in 1919, Ole Steffen Dahl crafted violins as a young adult living in a bucolic town north of Copenhagen. learning the luthier’s art as an apprentice in the late-1930s.

“Ole’s peaceful, music-filled life changed in an instant,” explained a heartfelt letter that son Christian wrote to Violins of Hope to explain the donated violin’s significance. “He had joined the Danish Navy and along with all other Danish military personnel were interned by the Germans. Like many brave Danes, he joined the Danish Resistance, secretly fighting against the Nazis.

“The comforting smells of rosin and freshly carved wood were replaced by odors of gun oil and explosives.”

Dahl’s clandestine war efforts came with great peril; the Nazis would not hesitate to execute anyone found sabotaging them.

“Throughout the Occupation, Ole must have taken solace in his first love, classical music,” his son’s letter said. “This violin served as a touchstone, a way for Ole to recapture the beauty of life in the harmonies of Vivaldi, the precision of Bach, and the melodies of Mozart. He could pick up this instrument and forget about the dangers of everyday existence, lost in music, only to face the reality when his Resistance group planned their next missions.”

Ole survived the war and lived into his mid-80s, never sharing the stories of what life-risking missions he took on during the war.

“He never talked about his time in the Danish Resistance, preferring to keep his experiences to himself,” his son’s letter said.

Though Ole is recognized for his efforts today in database documentation at the Museum of Dutch Resistance in Copenhagen.

Historians verified his specific Resistance group blew up train tracks to impede German supplies and carried out other acts to make the invaders’ lives difficult.

Once Denmark was liberated, Ole joined the British Army, serving as a trooper in a Royal Tank regiment. While in England, he met Diana Parry who was serving in ATS, a women’s branch of the British Army. They commenced courting through letter writing before marrying in 1947 when their military service was complete.

Deciding to leave war-torn Europe, they emigrated to America, with Ole bringing along his Hopf violin and a similarly valuable Italian violin the couple used as an investment when settling in Chicago. Ole revisited his luthier skills in the Windy City by working as a violin maker with Lyon & Healy and then Kenneth Warren & Sons.

He hung onto his beloved Hopf and played it in a string quartet with friends who’d get together monthly for living room performances. He later opened his own violin shop in Bloomington, Ind., in the 1960s, successfully running it until he retired. There, he repaired the instruments of many violinists at the Indiana University School of Music.

Ole died in 2004, leaving the violin to son Christian, who had played it a bit as a teenager but not in the many years since. The violin sat in a closet in Christian’s home study for nearly 20 years, until a friend told him about Violins of Hope visiting Pittsburgh for an exhibit based at Carnegie Mellon University.

As done at prior tour stops in Nashville, Charlotte, N.C., The Maltz Museum of Jewish Heritage in Cleveland, the lobby of the Berlin Philharmonic, and next in Miami, the exhibit and spinoff events throughout the Pittsburgh region told the history of dozens of instruments – such as the violin tossed from a cattle train headed from France to the Auschwitz concentration camp; the violin buried under the snow in Holland; and the violin that saved lives of people who played it in a Holocaust camp orchestra.

Brighton Music Center involved

Christian Dahl and his wife decided to attend a Violins of Hope outreach event at La Roche University, near their North Hills home. At that event, they saw a few student musicians play the violin salvaged from Auschwitz.

“I was very taken by it, to hear a violin that was played by the men’s orchestra at Auschwitz, still having a life; still being played and enjoyed,” Dahl said in a telephone interview. “It was very moving. I then wondered if my father’s violin somehow would fit into their collection.”

More:Violins of Hope invites Pittsburgh area to project focused on unity & Holocaust lessons

Dahl asked an on-site Violins of Hope representative who suggested he seek an opinion from one of western Pennsylvania’s leading musical instruments stores, Brighton Music Center.

Celebrating its 60th anniversary last year, Brighton Music was hired by Violins of Hope’s Greater Pittsburgh initiative as consultants and restoration experts for any violins or other instruments donated to the event via announced collection drives. Those collection drives generated close to 200 donated instruments and related elements, which now will be presented to economically disadvantaged schools throughout western Pennsylvania.

“When I first saw this violin, I could tell it was unique and special,” Wittmer, of Brighton Music, said. “Most of the older violins that are hand-carved kind of stick out. It has some very unique marks and dings, and the wood grain is also unique. Obviously, it has been through a lot and the story on the face of it kind of shows that.” 

Not much in the way of repairs were needed for Ole’s violin. Brighton Music luthier and string technician Greg Wilson closed up some open seams, which is common, and refitted the sound post and put a new set of strings on it, “and it played beautifully,” Wittmer said. “We have seen historic violins like this before in our shop. We have had several early 1900s German and Italian violins restored by the hands of our skilled technicians that we have sold.”

Upon learning from Christian Dahl the story of his father’s violin, Wittmer emailed Violins of Hope’s leader, Avshi Weinstein, asking if the traveling exhibit wanted that violin.

Weinstein was excited to hear about the violin and discover Ole’s sons Christian and Peter Dahl, from Kent, Ohio, had provided documentation about it, including photos of Ole.

“The letter and photos were the exact connection and pieces of history that Violins of Hope exhibit is all about,” Wittmer said. “I am humbled and honored to be the messenger and deliver this amazing violin, a piece of history to its final place where it can be appreciated by others and its story will live on forever.”

Ole’s son Peter attended the Heinz Hall concert where the violin officially was donated.

Out of the state that same evening on grandparent duties, Christian missed the presentation but said, “I’m just thrilled. Like one of my daughters said, ‘Grandpap’s violin now will have a nice afterlife.’ I think my father would be happy, though he’d be a bit embarrassed by all the attention. He was a quiet, unassuming man.”

After its educational tour with Violins of Hope concludes, Christian hopes the violin ends up back in the hands of a skilled violinist looking to reach a higher level of musicianship.

“A violin without someone playing it is just a box of old wood,” he said. “It needs a person playing it to make it sing.”

Scott Tady is entertainment editor at The Beaver County Times and easy to reach at [email protected].