Music box, music box, take me away,
Let me hear magic each time that you play.
The cylinder turns with gears and with springs,
Tickling the forks as the box sings.
This little box is more than a toy,
This little box brings out the joy.
A tune we all love tinkles from it,
Whatever the mood, it’s always a fit.
It sits on a shelf wound with a key,
Waiting to play for you and for me.
Just open the top to get it to play,
It’ll turn your mood from dark into gay.
Let your heart listen to the tune,
It’ll bring a smile or maybe a swoon.
When your soul is happy just close the top,
Or wind it some more so it won’t stop.
LDT October 19, ’24.
The Magic Music Box
Anne looked at the little box for the last time. She remembered the day her father had given it to her on her 6th birthday. Oh, what a joy it had been. He had found it in Berlin after the War. It was beautifully crafted from dark-grained wood. The outside was hand-painted with a floral design. The key was gold-plated as were the springs, tines, and cylinder inside. Its beauty was only surpassed by the magical tune that burst forth each time she opened the lid.
“Make sure you don’t overwind it,” her father cautioned as he showed her how it worked. “You might break the spring.”
Anne nodded as she swayed gently to the music. It had just become her most treasured possession. She kept it on top of her dresser and played it every day.
She was 9 years old on that awful day in 1957 when the spring broke. She cried for hours. Then she remembered her father’s admonition, “Don’t overwind it!” Was it her fault? Had she wound it too tightly? What would her father say? She tearfully placed the magical music box in her drawer, never to hear it play again.
The years passed and the box remained in countless other dresser drawers. The plain one at he college dorm; the used one she bought for her first apartment; the nice Maple bedroom set she and Rob bought shortly after their marriage. She thought about having the box fixed when she told Rob they were about to be parents. What little girl wouldn’t want a magic music box? Alas, Baby Mark probably wouldn’t get much enjoyment from a little girl’s toy. Neither would Tom who came later. Life went on as the little box remained silently in the drawer.
Finally, her boys grew up and had kids of their own. Anne loved spoiling little Molly, her first granddaughter. Someday the box would be hers. As Molly’s 6th birthday approached, Anne began to make a plan. She found an old watchmaker who still repaired music boxes.
“Can you fix it?” she asked anxiously.
“”Not a problem. It’s just a broken spring. A little cleaning and it will play like new.”
“Oh ,that’s great. While you are at it, could you check its value? We may need to insure it.”
“It’s valuable all right. The company that made it was one of the best. I’ll talk to an appraiser friend of mine about it.”
A week later, Anne got a call from the Watchmaker.
“I found something interesting inside the box. It’s a picture with some writing on the back. I think you should look at it before I put it back into the box.”
Anne was intrigued. Perhaps the photograph would offer a clue as to the box’s provenance. It would be a neat little element to add to the mystique of the amazing little artifact.
At the shop the craftsman sat the box on the counter. Then he carefully laid the tiny picture next to it. Anne couldn’t believe her eyes. It was a little girl about 6 years old with large dark eyes and a thin enigmatic smile. The little girl looked just like Anne did when she was six. Even the school uniform resembled what Anne had worn when she stated First Grade at St Rafael’s Catholic School. Carefully, she turned the picture over.
Anne gasped. The caption read “Anne Cohen, Mozart Schule, Wein, 1938”
“Anne? What a coincidence.”” she wondered out loud. Cohen. She must have been Jewish. Schule means school. Wein is Vienna. 1938? Was that the year of the Anschluss, the year Nazi Germany annexed Austria?
Anne shuddered at the thought of what might have become of little Anne Cohen after the Nazis took over Austria. The Nuremburg Laws, the yellow stars, the roundups, the boxcars, the camps. Oh God, what had happened to this sweet-faced little girl?
How did the music box in the picture find its way to a second-hand store in Berlin? Confiscation? Maybe some petty Gestapo official stole it from little Anne. Hobnail boots on the cobblestones, a loud knock on the door. “You have 5 minutes.” Poor Anne.
The grown-up Anne from Des Moines took the box home and pondered what to do next. It wasn’t hers. It never had been. But what to do with it?
She did her research. Sadly, Cohen was a very common name. The Goethe School was a big help as were various Holocaust survivor groups. She found more records on the Internet. The family had been interned at Sobibor in 1942. None had survived.
In desperation, Anne posted the picture and what she knew about the Cohen family on Facebook. All her friends reposted it. Their friends did the same. It went viral.
Three days later, Anne got a direct message. “Anne Cohen was my Great Aunt.”
Grammy would have to find another gift for little Molly. She carefully rolled the music box in bubble wrap and placed it gently in the box. It was going home.
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