The Violin Teacher

New York, January 2001

My name is Katrina O’Connor. I’m 43 years old. I play the violin with The New York Philharmonic. I was born in Buffalo where my father was the principal of a catholic college. My mother was a stay-at-home mom. My uncle was a Bishop in the Boston area where my family was originally from. My family was very conservative. They thought that their Church had become too liberal and permissive.

I started learning to play the violin with the nuns when I was eight years old. When I turned eighteen, Sister Mary was able to convince my parents that, since I was so talented, I should pursue a career in music. I wanted to study in New York City because there were a lot more opportunities to find work as a musician than in Buffalo. My parents were a little bit reluctant to let me go, but they were reassured when Sister Mary told them that she could arrange for me to stay in a convent with nuns, and that I would also be able to pay for my boarding by preparing food and doing the laundry. My father liked the idea very much, and my mother didn’t have much to say. I registered at the Music Department Faculty of Cornell University. I moved to New York City a few weeks before I turned nineteen.

My violin teacher was Walter Hinzer, an Austrian immigrant who had come to America as a refugee through Switzerland at the beginning of World War II. He spoke English slowly with a German accent, enunciating each syllable clearly. Like Sister Mary, he thought that I had a real talent, but he said that I needed to work more on my basic skills. He offered to give me private lessons. When I told him that I had to work for the nuns to pay for my boarding, he said that he would take care of that. I accepted his offer because I really hated peeling potatoes and doing the laundry. It wasn’t good for the fingers and hands of a violinist, I thought.

That’s when I got to know Walter better. He was 66 years old. He lived alone, had no children and never got married. He had a few acquaintances on the campus but no real friends. There was always a deep sadness in his eyes. After my private lessons, he would make tea, and we would go over the things that I needed to improve. We also talked about life and all kinds of subjects. One day, I told him that my parents were not too crazy at the idea of my coming to New York City… with all those perverts and homosexuals. After I said that, he put his right hand to his chest as if he was in pain. I saw a tear rolling down on his cheek. He got up slowly and put on a record. It was Schubert’s String Quintet in C.

He sat next to me and said, “Now, I’m going to tell you a story that I haven’t told anybody since I came here.” I looked at him and I couldn’t say a word. I knew that what I was going to hear was very important to him and, I didn’t know why, that it would also be very important to me.

“When I was about your age, I fell in love with a man a few years older than me. His name was Hans. It was so beautiful! We thought it would last forever. He was ‘die liebe meiness lebens’ which means ‘the love of my life’. In 1938, after annexing Austria in what is known as the Anschluss, the Nazis started persecuting the homosexuals of Austria as they had started doing in Germany. We were both sent to Buchenwald concentration camp, I for only one year but Hans for an indefinite period of time. One day, the Nazis gathered the prisoners for something that they said would be very special. Hans was killed in front of us by dogs that were trained for that purpose. We had to watch, and we were not allowed to show any emotions.”

I really understood the depth of his suffering a few years after when I fell in love with the man who would later become my husband and the father of our children. Walter’s story taught me that love is love no matter what. I stayed in touch with Walter after I graduated and started playing with the Philharmonic. I was a lot closer to him than my parents. I tried to talk to them about Walter but all they could say was, “It’s your life, you do what you want! Just don’t bring him here!" My uncle was under investigation for a few years for not doing enough to protect the children against pedophile priests before the case was dropped. Walter is the godfather of my first child. I think that the priest who performed the baptism suspected that Walter was gay but he didn’t say anything. My parents did not attend. Things were slowly starting to change.

Today, the hospital called me to tell me that Walter didn’t have long to live. When I got there, he was breathing heavily. He turned his head slowly towards me, put his hand on mine, and looked up toward the sky as if he was seeing something or someone. I had to bring my ear close to his mouth to hear his last words, “Hans, die liebe meiness lebens!”

As I was walking under the light snow falling gently on the city to get to the subway, I could hear in my head the music that was playing when Walter was telling me his story. There are a lot of things that I don’t understand in this world, but I know that hating and killing people only because they are different is wrong, no matter who tells you that it’s the right thing to do.

Schubert's String Quintet in C

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5hPdIhTrd4