"MUSIC SAVED MY LIFE"
The inspirational story....
Alice Herz Sommer is a 109-yr old pianist (oldest living pianist)
and oldest living Holocaust survivor!
Music saved her life!
Alice Herz-Sommer also known as Alice Sommer, (born 26 November 1903) is a Jewish pianist and music teacher from Bohemia, and a survivor of the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Herz-Sommer has lived in North London, United Kingdom since 1986, and is the world’s oldest known Holocaust survivor.
At age 108, Holocaust survivor Alice Herz Sommer still practices piano
for three hours every day. At age 104, she had a book written about her
life: "A Garden Of Eden In Hell."
As might be expected Alice is rather unique. Living entirely alone in a tiny flat in central London she spends hours each day at her piano, practicing beloved Bach and Beethoven, for she was once a renowned and celebrated concert pianist performing to enthusiastic audiences throughout central Europe. But of course, all of that was before… before the ‘lights went out all over Europe’ and the continent was plunged into years of misery and bitter conflict.
During those years Alice suffered experiences that no human being should have to endure. She saw both her mother and her husband put aboard the transports to Auschwitz and yet today she speaks of those times with an absence of malice and quiet grace that wins the hearts of all who know her. Along with her six-year-old son, Raphael, Alice was imprisoned in the Theresienstadt concentration camp where her most enduring memories are of her helplessness and inability to feed her child or to answer his many questions about why they and so many others were being subjected to the indescribable nightmare of the Holocaust.
Yet Alice found a way to survive the terror of the camps – a means to look beyond the horrors of day-to-day life in order to recall and cherish what was joyful, pure and noble about her fellow man. Alice survived through music…
Still today, she speaks with great pride and passion of playing more than 100 concerts inside the concentration camp and she likens that experience, both for the performers and their imprisoned audience as being close to the divine. Alice is unequivocal in stating that music preserved her sanity and her life – while bringing hope into the lives of countless others. To this day Alice never tires of saying;
“Music saved my life and Music saves me still.”
When she plays Schubert and Beethoven, it’s in a style that the world has long since forgotten. It’s the style of her mentor and teacher; the majestic Artur Schnabel: a style redolent of a happier and more confident time in music-making and one which today many may find heartbreakingly nostalgic.
Yet despite all that has befallen her, Alice insists that she has never, ever hated the Nazis, and she never will. Some see in her tolerance and compassion a secular saint who has been blessed with the gift of forgiveness, but Alice is far more pragmatic – she has seen enough in her life to know all too well that hatred eats the soul of the hater, not the hated. Alice laughs easily and still becomes flirtatious in the presence of young men. With her remarkable memory she’s able to keep her busy schedule in her head without a diary or the assistance of a secretary. She makes her own appointments, does her own cooking and shopping, takes two long daily walks and frequently talks with journalists, students, musicians and just about anyone else who understands and loves music.
And it’s from music that Alice derives her supreme optimism. As she’s so fond of saying;
“I have lived through many wars and have lost everything many times
– including my husband, my mother and my beloved son.
Yet, life is beautiful, and I have so much to learn and enjoy.
I have no space nor time for pessimism and hate.”
BIOGRAPHY
Alice Herz was born in Prague, Austria-Hungary, along with her twin sister Mariana, to Friedrich and Sofie Herz; he was a merchant and her mother was highly educated and moved in circles of well-known writers. Herz-Sommer's older sister Irma taught her how to play piano, which she studied diligently. She also studied under Vaclav Stepan, and at the Prague German Conservatory of Music.
Until the occupation of Czechoslovakia Alice had enjoyed a successful concert career in central Europe. Frequently she had been the featured piano soloist with the Czech Philharmonic and had completed a number of commercial recordings before her arrest. No surprise then that she and her son, Raffi, continued to let music sustain them whilst suffering at the hands of the Nazis. Alice played the piano at every opportunity and Raffi became the youngest cast member of the famous childrens’ opera.
She married businessman and amateur musician Leopold Sommer in 1931; the couple had a son, Raphael, who died in 2001. After the invasion of Czechoslovakia, most of her family and friends emigrated to Palestine via Romania, including Max Brod and brother-in-law Felix Weltsch, but Herz-Sommer stayed in Prague to care for her ill mother, who was one of the first to be sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp.
Until the occupation of Czechoslovakia Alice had enjoyed a successful concert career in central Europe. Frequently she had been the featured piano soloist with the Czech Philharmonic and had completed a number of commercial recordings before her arrest. No surprise then that she and her son, Raffi, continued to let music sustain them whilst suffering at the hands of the Nazis. Alice played the piano at every opportunity and Raffi became the youngest cast member of the famous childrens’ opera.
She married businessman and amateur musician Leopold Sommer in 1931; the couple had a son, Raphael, who died in 2001. After the invasion of Czechoslovakia, most of her family and friends emigrated to Palestine via Romania, including Max Brod and brother-in-law Felix Weltsch, but Herz-Sommer stayed in Prague to care for her ill mother, who was one of the first to be sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp.
In July 1943, she, her husband, and their six-year-old son Raphael were sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp. She played more than 100 concerts in the camp along with other musicians. Leopold Sommer was later sent to Auschwitz. Although he survived the camp, he died at Dachau in 1944. After the Soviet liberation of Theresienstadt in 1945, Herz-Sommer and Raphael returned to Prague and in March 1949 emigrated to Israel to be reunited with her family. She lived in Israel and worked as a music teacher in Jerusalem until emigrating to London in 1986. Raphael Sommer, her only child, was an accomplished cellist and conductor. He died in 2001 and is survived by his widow and two sons.
At 109 years old, Alice lives close to her family in London, with visits almost daily from her closest friends, her grandson Ariel Sommer, and daughter-in-law Genevieve Sommer.
Israel:
Alice and her son returned to Prague after being liberated by the Soviet Army in May of 1945. She found no one and nothing of her past. Strangers lived in her apartment – which had been confiscated by the Nazis. Already 45 years old, she made the decision to immigrate to Israel where she hoped to find other Survivors.
In the “promised land” she built a new life and supported herself and her son by teaching at the Music Academy. She did find other Czech immigrants – friends and relatives – including Max Brod who had been Kafka’s close friend and biographer. The greats of Israel; Ben Gurion & Abba Eban visited Alice and listened to her play though she never revived her international career. Raffi flourished and showed serious promise as a cellist. When he won an audition and scholarship to the Paris Conservatory Alice learned French so that she could stay in touch with him through letters. Suddenly alone again – Alice persevered.
England:
After becoming a successful cellist, Raffi settled in England where he married and had two sons. Shortly before her 100th birthday Alice decided to retire from teaching and to emigrate once more, this time to England to be near Raffi and her grandchildren. But disaster struck shortly after she moved to London when Raffi died suddenly in Israel while on a concert tour with the Solomon Trio. Grief-stricken, Alice was hospitalized for weeks before she gradually began to recover from the shock and sadness. Then, around the time that she turned 100 Alice took up the study of philosophy to bolster her indestructible spirit, to try and make sense of everything that had befallen her, and to keep her insatiably curious mind alive.
To this day Alice Herz-Sommer still plays the piano, loves to meet
people,
talk with her few remaining friends. Alice says,
“I am no longer
myself. The body cannot resist as it did in the past.
I think I am in
my last days but it doesn’t really matter
because I have had such a
beautiful life.
And life is beautiful, love is beautiful, nature and
music are beautiful.
Everything we experience is a gift,
a present we
should cherish and pass on to those we love.”
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