Recently, violins inlaid with mother-of-pearl six-pointed stars have been showing up in the antiques market, advertised as having some sort of Jewish connection—perhaps having been played by a Klezmer band, or having belonged to a victim of the Holocaust, or, in at least one case, having been played in a Nazi concentration camp. But, writes Dina Gold, there is no evidence backing up these claims, nor is there reason to believe that the symbol on the violins, described by sellers as a Star of David or Jewish star, has any Jewish significance at all:
These distinctive decorations were a signature feature of violins made in the small area known as the Vogtland, on what is today the German-Czech border. The German town of Markneukirchen, located in the state of Saxony, and the town of Schönbach, now the Czech town of Luby, just across the border from Germany in western Bohemia, were noted for such instruments.
For generations, ethnic Germans in Schönbach were employed in violin-making, while final production took place in Markneukirchen, which served as the business and export hub for the industry. . . . Advertised widely as “fancy violins” in U.S. mail-order catalogs, . . . these violins cost on average eight dollars, then likely a week’s pay. Buyers could choose from a large array of patterns and designs as decoration, including statues, flags, flowers, artists’ heads, harps, swirls, eagles, Stars and Stripes, as well as four-, six-, and eight-pointed mother-of-pearl inlaid stars.
Six-pointed star decorations were just one of a range of popular design elements, according to Enrico Weller, a historian living in Markneukirchen who has studied the catalogs produced by Vogtland musical instrument makers and dealers. He points to many wholesalers who advertised violins for sale decorated with what were simply described as “six-pointed stars.” . . . Weller says that none of the violin makers or wholesalers in the Markneukirchen region were Jewish.
Read more on Moment: https://momentmag.com/violins-stars-of-david/