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Frand, a member of a group of musicians who provided the entertainment, religious and secular, to the Jews of Dubiecko and the surrounding communities, brought his violin and sheet music along with him as he sought refuge on a distant shore. Chaskel's granddaughter, Sharon Frant Brooks, is now turning back to her family's musical history to help rescue the lost Jewish heritage of Dubiecko.

On Aug. 8, the music was performed once again for the first time in the United States and the first time since the Holocaust, at the Flemington Jewish Community Center, where Frant Brooks has been a member for the past 22 years. Sam Glaser, a noted Jewish musician and educator, was featured among the performers.

The violin and sheet music circulated among family members after Chaskel left for Israel in the mid-1950s in order to spend his final days there. The violin returned to Frant Brooks after her daughter, who was 12 at the time, needed a full-size violin after playing the instrument since she was 5. It was also at this time that her family, spread throughout much of California, began to send her the music originally enclosed in the case.

In 2006, Frant Brooks was invited to volunteer at a Para Olympics event in Poland. She decided that while there, she would also visit her father's hometown with two of her cousins, a town that her father and grandfather escaped before many members of their family who remained were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators.

"I was reluctant," said Frant Brooks on how she felt before embarking on her trip. "I had grown up with my father saying he'd never go back to Poland."

According to Frant Brooks, historians estimate that in 1939, approximately 50-60 percent of Dubiecko's population was Jewish, though when she visited she found no signs of the robust Jewish history of the area.

"There was no sign that a Jew was ever there. It was very disturbing," she said.

The old Jewish cemetery was without gravestones; there was no memorial to the victims of the Holocaust; nor were any of the former sites of Jewish locales marked so that residents or visitors would remember of what once was. Two gravestones from the cemetery were in the home of the local town historian after rescuing them from the river.

It was upon her visit, that Frant Brooks decided to make it her "quest" to help raise the funds to restore the cemetery, erect a memorial, and place historical markers. Also during her visit, she visited the nearby Dynow library, where a Torah was in a makeshift wooden case and determined she would also dedicate herself to rescuing the Torah.

Frant Brooks realized she could use the music found in her grandfather's violin case to help raise the funds necessary to carry out these efforts.

"The music now became a vehicle for restoring the cemetery," she said.

She said that she was "shocked" by the turnout and the level of interest at the August concert.

"I've been a member for 22 years, and I've never seen anything like it, except for the High Holidays, where people were as engaged and engaged in."

"The efforts of Sharon are inspiring and tireless," Poland's Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich told The Jewish State in an email. "She understands the value of rescuing the past in order to build a better future."

The music has also been distributed for archive at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and the National Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Mass.

Frant Brooks said she hopes that in June, she will return to Poland again with the additional resources to rededicate the cemetery with a mass grave and to place historical markers throughout the town where Jewish institutions once stood.

"The plan, if we raise enough money, is to on the anniversary of the mass execution that happened in the cemetery, to have a rededication," she said.

In her efforts, Frant Brooks has worked with Rabbi Michael Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland, and said that ultimately the site is under the authority of the local Jewish community.

"Anything that happens within the confines of the cemetery is under the authority of Rabbi Michael Schudrich and the Polish Jewish community," Frant Brooks said.

Frant Brooks' father Milton Frant said that he hopes to attend the June event. Frant followed his father, escaping from Poland in 1933 at the age of 13.

"I'm very excited about this whole thing and am hoping it will happen," Frant said.

Frant said that until now he never considered returning to the place where many of his relatives were killed.

"I never wanted to go back -- there was so much anti-Semitism," he said. "You couldn't go outside the perimeter of where Jews were -- they would stone you."

All proceeds from the concert and additional performances of the music will go toward restoring the Jewish heritage of Dubiecko, Poland.

"I'm very excited that Sharon is willing to do what she has done," Frant said of his daughter.