Two internationally-renowned musicians wore yarmulkes during a concert appearance at the Salzburg Festival, saying they intended the gesture as a protest against Austrian President Kurt Waldheim.
Violinist Pinchas Zukerman and pianist and composer Marc Neikrug made no statement on stage, but told reporters during the intermission that they did not normally wear the religious head coverings while performing and that “We don’t normally perform in a country which has a President who was sufficiently suspect not to be allowed into our country.”
The U.S. Justice Department has placed Waldheim on its “Watch List” of undesirable persons, citing evidence that he was involved in atrocities while serving in the German army from 1942 to 1945.
Israeli-born Zukerman said of his decision to perform in the yarmulke: “It’s not a political statement but a feeling from inside that I must speak. I wear this as a symbol of the Jewish people.”
U.S. Ambassador to Austria Ronald Lauder was among those attending their performance of works by Mozart, Beethoven and Richard Strauss.
Neikrug, a native of New York, counts among his own compositions the musical theater piece “Through Roses,” about a violinist forced to perform while imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp.
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