This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others here.

Joseph Feingold, a Holocaust survivor who found unexpected fame late in life as the co-star of “Joe’s Violin,” an Oscar-nominated short documentary, died on April 15 at Mt. Sinai West Hospital in Manhattan. He was 97.

His stepdaughter Ame Gilbert said the cause was complications of Covid-19.

In 2014, Mr. Feingold was listening to his favorite classical music station, WQXR, when he heard about a program that gives used instruments to New York City schoolchildren. He took the bus from his home on Manhattan’s Upper West Side to Lincoln Center, and donated a cherished violin he no longer played because his fingers had grown stiff.

Mention of his donation was made over the radio. The violin — and Mr. Feingold — had quite a story, as Kahane Cooperman, a filmmaker who was listening, soon discovered.