Raoul Wallenberg becomes Australia's first honorary citizen

Lost and found
at the Salvos
Anna Blay
On a hot Friday morning in March my husband
gave me a message that Jayne Josem had rung
from the Jewish Holocaust Centre, something
to do with the Salvos and a piano accordion. I
quickly got in touch with her and she arranged to pick me
up. Apparently, the Salvos had been given an accordion
with the letters ‘ROSNER’ painted on the bellows, and
before putting it up for sale in their store, they’d looked
the name up on the web and found some information
about my father, Leo Rosner, and his Holocaust
experiences.
So there we were, driving in the hot sunshine towards
the Salvos Store in Noble Park. My mind was churning.
My father had died five years ago, but I knew that
everyone in the Jewish community who lived and grew
up in Melbourne in the last sixty years remembered
the musician who played at so many simchas, so many
celebrations and parties. His music had been a link with
the past for so many migrants, a joyful reminder of
happier times. Many people also knew that Leo Rosner
had been saved by Oskar Schindler and was featured in
the film Schindler’s List. My father always said that music
saved his life, and his name was put on the list because
Schindler loved listening to him and his brother playing
at the Commandant’s parties. But could this accordion be
his?
We were met by Michael. As he led us to the offices at the
back of the store, he explained how excited all the staff
had been to find the links to my father on the internet. He
asked me, ‘Could this instrument be the one he’d played
in the camps?’ I had to tell him that that wasn’t possible;
my parents came to Australia in 1949 as refugees with
nothing.
Jenny welcomed us into her small cramped office, and
in the corner stood a big brown case. Michael lifted it up
onto her desk and opened it. There it lay … unmistakeably
Leo Rosner
it was my father’s accordion with his name painted in
broad white letters across the bellows, nestled in its red
velvet lining. It was as familiar as his smell, his touch … I
was instantly taken back to our garden where, as a child,
I watched my father lay his accordion on its back on a
table; then, with a tin of white paint and a fine-haired
brush, he would carefully paint the letters of his name
across each individual bellow. When the accordion was
at rest, the name ROSNER could be clearly seen; while he
was playing, the bellows expanded and contracted as his
name danced in time to the music. Every accordion my
father owned (and there were many) was embellished in
this eponymous way. This instrument before me was the
heavy electronic one he had played for many years.
But how did it get there? Had it been stolen? Jenny even
asked whether there might be a connection between
the fact that Leo had been buried at Springvale, and
somehow the accordion had found its way to the
neighbouring suburb. In any case, the staff were
delighted to know that I was Leo’s daughter and shook
my hand; and I was grateful that rather than treating the
accordion as they would any other donation and put it
up for sale, they’d done the research to try to connect the
item with its owner.
Michael told me he’d found out all sorts of things about
Leo’s concentration camp experiences on the web; he
couldn’t understand how human beings could behave
so appallingly, and had no words for the horrors of the
Holocaust.
We couldn’t take the accordion home that day, as we had
to wait for a phone call to organise release. I was grateful
to Jayne for making herself available that day and
enabling me to connect with the Salvos.
I returned the following week to leave a donation for the
Salvos and pick up the accordion, so that I could bring it
back to our family and have another precious link with my
father. But how it got to the Salvos remains a mystery.
Anna Blay (l) and Jenny from the Salvos Store, Noble Park
JHC Centre News 19