(accordion polka music) I think it's because it's personal.

When I put on an accordion, you can't play it unless you hug it You strap yourself into it so its snug on your body.

So right away, there's a personal relationship with that crazy hunk of plastic and reeds.

And then you're looking around for a musical victim.

(accordion music) I was, 12-ish, 13.

My mother, came to me one day and she said, your father and I want you to learn how to play an accordion.

I was traumatized, and I said Mom, anything but that.

Don't do this to me.

So I played it for Mom and for the relatives.

Went to college, put it away.

And it was away in a bo in our house for 40, 42 years.

It was in Vermont.

My wife and I, one week vacation I woke up on a Wednesday mornin sat on the edge of the bed, and I just looked at my wife and said Marcia I gotta find an accordion today.

I call this poor guy downtown.

One little store there.

I asked hi if there was anybody in the area Guy's name was Cliff and he had some accordions.

In the collection happened to be at that moment, the little hexagonal concertinas we call them.

I asked him, I said, what are these here for?

And he looked at me funny and h you know, I'm sending them down to Glen Cov where there's a Holocaust museum And I said, now, why would you be doing that?

And he said, because they came from Dachau in the camps, Dachau in World War II And I said, oh, there's something more going than just playing and entertaining people.

(fast accordion music) And then I went around with my wife and we found here, two there, five there.

And there was always a story.

These things found their way in camps, into recreation centers during the wars, during the Spanish flu when so many people were dying.

They were literally canisters of happiness, reminders of the good old days back home.

Come on in.

Watch the step there.

Here, the music literally transports people back and they all of a sudden were thinking about about their mother or an uncle, or somebody that the relationshi that's no longer there, resurfaces.

The memories resurface.

-One of my favorite memorie is one of my birthday parties.

We played musical chairs, and my dad played the Mexican Hat Dance and the accordion and he played a lot of polkas.

My dad was Polish.

- I'm still trying to find ou the name of the accordion school that I went to.

I'm writing an essay, I think I may have told you.

(Paul) Yeah, you did, and - (Museum guest) - And I almost finished it but Im still trying to get that.

(Paul) Have you tried - (Guest) - These accordions.

You remember I bought an accordion.

(Paul) - Yes, yes.

(Visitor) - So I'm back on the accordion trail.

(Paul) - So you're in it?

AI, have you punched it into AI?

(Visitor) You know, I havent.

(Visitor) In suburban Long Island You played in catering houses, relatively new places.

There were no pianos.

So you had to have an accordion.

You had to have a mobile keyboard player who had his own instrument and could bring it .

We're sitting in the main room here.

Theres 500 plus on the walls and a couple hundred down in the basement.

They keep coming in from people who don't want to throw away these markers of the lives of relatives, friends.

And I keep saying, okay, bring ‘em in.

(train whistles) Not every accordion valve or a reed or shaft lik this is made exactly the same.

There were zillions of manufacturers of accordions.

Thousands.

So it can be quite a challenge to repair them.

- A lot of patience involved - A lot of patience, and I migh add, a lot of prayer (laughs).

You get to a point and you go, oh, no, I'm not going to make this work.

And, you start looking around for somebody to help you.

And that's another problem.

You don't have a lot of repair people for these anymore.

And, here in New England, there might be 1 or 2 of u that still do this kind of work.

So it's a real challenge.

But other times it works.

And when you get one to work again, it's like you're resuscitating someone who was, in serious trouble medically.

And it feels good to see them get going again.

(slow accordion music) I'm 77.

Eh!

Eh!

I'm in pretty good health now.

But, you know, things change.

And I know eventually, somehow, curate these things to, a place where they can be honored A living museum, not a place where you just plop them and we want it to be almost like an accordion school.

I get folks in here from Generation Z, even, Generation Alpha, that the most recent one.

And they're looking and they go, What are these things?

It's like watching a light bulb light up It's like, weve got current!

We got things moving.

So I'm hoping that will as we move further and furthe away from making our own stuff, going back to make music, would become the thing to do.