When I got out of the barrack, I figured when my turn comes to play, I'm gonna play which I feel comfortable. I'm gonna play either a sonatina by Dvorak, which I performed, in fact, later I performed in Radio Munich, but which...or I'm gonna play, uh, a Kreisler composition. But when, when I saw what I saw, and the violin in my hand, my mind went completely blank. Nothing came to me. And I said to myself, "God, how is it that sonatina starts? How is, how is, how is the, the Kreisler piece starts? My God, how, how does anything starts?" I couldn't think of anything. And now I noticed, from the corner of my eyes, that the murderer Kapo picked up his iron pipe again and was walking toward me. And I knew I'm gonna be killed. I knew it. So my right hand and my left hand all of a sudden started moving in perfect harmony. And the Strauss Blue Danube was heard coming out of my violin. Now, how? I never thought of the Blue Danube. Never. I heard it, in fact, I, I am even, hate to admit to you, I never even played it really. I heard it many times from the Gypsies, and my brother, who was a fantastic accordionist in his high school group. But playing, I was not even allowed to play anything else but classical. And the Kapo looked at, eagerly, to, to the SS, "When shall I whack him? When shall I hit him?" Instead, the SS guard was humming the melody, and was beating the rhythm with his fingers--like 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3. And he, he just smiled and, "Let him live."
