0044 frank zivic violin 1946

Frantisek (Frank) Zivec (1901–1963) 

Another instrument with a story to tell is our Zivec 1946 violin.

Frank was born in 1901 in Litoměřice, Bohemia (nowadays the Czech Republic) on the River Elbe. Following his apprenticeship in Prague he become a violin maker, a career disrupted by the German invasion in 1939. Zivec joined the resistance in WW2. According to Allen Coggins, Frank went across the German border to a refugee camp in the American sector in 1948, taking two violins with him. It is possible that this violin was one of them as it was made in 1946 in the Czech Republic.

Zivec migrated to Melbourne in 1949 and set up shop at 427 Lygon St, Carlton, now the site of modern brick housing opposite a tram stop.