The 5 Stones Group

03/06/2024

A friend has passed. Had the amazing opportunity to spend the day with master luthier Amnon Weinstein and his wife Assi at their shop in Tel Aviv along with Matthew Rozell, Lee Shackleford and our production team last year. Amnon was the founder of the Violins of Hope; one of the largest collections, if not the largest, of restored violins from the Holocaust in the world. With over 140 violins in the collection, they travel and are played by symphony orchestras around the globe. My favorite part of the filming day was watching one of his young protégé’s come in and play one of the violins as we filmed. He played the Jewish national anthem. It brought me to tears. One of the questions that I asked Amnon in our interview was what do you think about when you work on a violin? He paused, and pointed to his shoulders, then said, “I feel the weight of 6 million on my back as I work. The violins speak. They remember.” Thank you Amnon for carrying the light of hope. Spending the day with you will be one of the most treasured of my career. We will continue to carry that torch of hope forward. Rest in peace.

02/02/2024

What a joy. Our PBS television special aired last night and will continue to air all across America over the coming months of A Symphony Celebration with Dr. Henry Panion III and the 5-time Grammy Award winners, The Blind Boys of Alabama. I hope you have as much fun watching this as we enjoyed making it.

A truly unique television program bringing together songs performed by musical legends The Blind Boys of Alabama and a full symphony orchestra. Throughout the program, a documentary storytelling thread uses small vignettes to connect the artists and their songs. Beautifully orchestrated and conducte...

01/26/2024

Honored to have played a part in helping bring this great TV documentary to PBS audiences across America.

01/12/2024

A TRAIN STORY
“The Kincaid Letter”

On April 13, 1945, there was a liberation that took place of a death train near the Elbe River near the ancient town of Magdeburg, Germany. Charles M. Kincaid from Dayton, Ohio witnessed this miraculous scene. Charles was so impacted by what he saw that it took him a few days to write home to his chaplain to describe what was in his mind, and in his heart. Below are the words from the letter. Our film’s entire purpose is to educate and inspire the next generation to care for others. To not look away when someone is needing our help. No matter who they are.

Dear Chaplain;-

Haven’t written you in many months now, its funny how a few moments are so hard to find in which to write a letter way past due; it’s much easier to keep putting it off the way I’ve done. I’ll try to make up for it in this letter.

Today I saw a sight that’s impossible to describe, however I’ll try. Between 2400 and 3000 German refugees were overran by my division during our last operation; most of them were, or had been, inmates of concentration camps, their crimes the usual ones, – Jewish parentage, political differences with der Fuhrer, lack of sympathy for the SS, or just plain bad luck. Not one of these hundreds could walk one mile and survive; they had been packed on a train whose normal capacity was perhaps four or five hundred, and had been left there days without food.

Our division military government unit took charge of them, and immediately saw what a huge job it was going to be, so they sent out a call for help. Several of our officers went out to help them organize the camp they were setting up for them. The situation was extremely ticklish we soon learned; no one could smoke as it started a riot when the refugees saw the cigarette, and we couldn’t give the kiddies anything or they would have been trampled to death in the rush that would result when anything resembling food was displayed. The only nourishment they were capable of eating was soup; now the army doesn’t issue any of the Heinz’s 57 varieties, so we watered down C-ration[s] and it served quite well. It was necessary to use force to make the people stay in line in order to serve them. They had no will power left, only the characteristics of beasts.

A few weeks of decent food will change them into a semblance of normal human beings; with God willing the plague of disease that was already underway, will be diverted; but I’m wondering what the affect of their ordeal they have been through, will be on their minds; most will carry scars for the rest of their days for the beatings that they were given. No other single thing had convinced me as this experience has that Germany isn’t fit to survive as a nation. I’ll never forget today.

I was going to write mother tonight but thought better of it. I’ll be in a better frame of mind tomorrow. I’m only a few dozen miles from Berlin right now, and its hard to realize the end is in sight. I’m always glad to receive your scandal sheet. You perhaps missed your calling, as your editorial abilities are quite plain.

As ever,

Charles.

01/10/2024

A TRAIN STORY
“That’s My Mom!”

Late last year through a series of truly remarkable events, footage of the train in our story that was hidden away in the National Archives…..was found. When I received the email from Matthew Rozell about it, I nearly fell off my chair in disbelief. All we had were photos up to this point. And now we have actual footage?! Phone calls between our team began as we marveled at what we were watching.

The press around the world covered the story from Israel to London to here in the United States. But that is not the truly meaningful thing about it—the discovery of the lost footage revealed a mother/daughter connection no one could have ever imagined. Click this link below to see this stunning moment and take in this remarkable story from history.

To learn more about how you can help us reach our financial goal of completing the film and to learn more about the story we are making, you can visit MagdeburgTrain.com. You can also share this within your own feed to help spread the word. We are so grateful for everyone’s help around the world who have contributed—from individuals, to foundations to corporations. We are so close to being able to reach our goal

https://youtu.be/qMNpSxDVr94?si=Lq3PqAtOW1emoVLM

Nearly 80 years later after U.S. troops rescued a train full of concentration camp survivors near Magdeburg, Germany, footage from the event was unearthed. N...

01/10/2024

The last remaining survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising was liberated on the train in the documentary film I have been working on for the last 8 years. Her name is Aliza Shomron and she has travelled the world telling her story. She was a young girl and was running guns through the sewers into the resistance fighters in the Warsaw ghetto.

The leaders of the resistance said that because she was young and knew the sewers, she should try to escape so that someone would be alive someday to tell the story that they fought. She escaped, but was eventually captured by the SS and ended up in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. On April 6th, she was in placed upon our train we are telling the story about and liberated by the United States Army on April 13, 1945.

She’s still alive, and we interviewed her in Israel last April when we were filming there for the film. Living history. She told me after her interview was over that “sometimes she feels guilty that she survived”. She also told me that “she is very afraid that when she dies no one will be left to tell the story.”. My dream is that we can finish this film and show it to her while she is still alive.

I held her hand at the end of the interview, and looked at her straight in the eye, and said that we would tell her story, so that future generations would never forget.

This story and many others like it we have encountered continue to propel our team forward every day to get up and not quit until we get this story told to the world. We are so close to finishing the funding we need. If you would have a heart to help us, you can go to A Train Near Magdeburg - the Documentary to learn all about the story, and help donate to bring this remarkable story of caring to the world.

Onward.

11/10/2023