Film Premiere: Symphony of the Holocaust

November 15, 2023
Laemmle Town Center 5

A Sunn Stream Productions Film featuring the LAJS

Symphony of the Holocaust, a SunnStream Productions film about the life of master violinist and Holocaust survivor Shony Alex Braun, premiered on November 15, 2023 at Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino. The film features Maestra Noreen Green and the LAJS with Founding Concertmaster Mark Kashper as featured soloist, performing Shony’s moving piece “Symphony of the Holocaust.” 

Symphony of the Holocaust is a documentary film about the miraculous survival, life, and final wish of master violinist and  13-year-old Holocaust survivor Shony Alex Braun, who later transformed his horrific experience in four Nazi death camps into the “Symphony of the Holocaust,” a haunting and hopeful musical testament to the millions of Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War Two. Shony longed to play it at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp where his nightmarish journey began. Unfortunately, he died before he had the opportunity. But now, Shony’s family has found his violin, and is on a journey to fulfill his final wish –  traveling to Auschwitz with an Armenian violinist to play his symphony in front of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau gate, the very gate that so many Jews traveled through to their horrific deaths.

The film’s opening weekend was accompanied by a Q & A featuring Maestra Green, Kashper, director Greg DeHart, and LAJS violinist and teaching artist Jonathan Rubin (who assisted in the restoration, sale, and eventual rediscovery of Shony’s violin with the violin shop Robert Cauer Violins).

The film is available to stream now on the streaming service SunnStream.com.

Q&A Speakers