Alice Herz-Sommer was a renowned pianist whose music helped many survive the horror of a concentration camp.
She wasn’t Alice in Wonderland but a wonderful woman who survived both world wars and the Holocaust, where her mother and husband were killed. One thing Alice never gave up on was her music—it was a miraculous thing that kept her going on. In 2012 at age 108, Herz was filmed playing Chopin impeccably. This lovely lady played the piano for more than a hundred years. Take a look at the video, it will surely prompt you to read Alice’s extraordinary life story as well.
Alice was the oldest known Holocaust survivor.
Alice has survived so much that we could talk about her life for hours. Born in Prague, Alice was a Jewish pianist and music teacher.
When she was five, Alice’s older sister taught her how to play the piano, and that’s how it all began.
The little girl fell in love with the ivory and decided to pursue a music career. Little did she know that it would last more than a hundred years.
The Herz family ran a cultural salon in Prague, and that’s where Alice met many famous names of that time, including Franz Kafka, Franz Werfel, composer Gustav Mahler, Sigmund Freud and many more interesting people.
As a teenager, Herz began giving concerts across Europe, and it lasted until the Nazis took over Prague.
In her two years of being in a concentration camp, Alice played more than 150 concerts, along with other musicians, for prisoners and guards.
Theresienstadt concentration camp was a dark, horrible place where more than 35,000 prisoners died. Periodically, Red Cross representatives visited the camps three times a year, and that’s when the Nazis wanted to show that the conditions were good in the camps. They would take people out and organize a concert, which was when Alice performed.
According to her, music was what kept her sane in the hardest times.
She put it simply:
“Music is magic. We performed in the council hall before an audience of 150 old, hopeless, sick, and hungry people. They lived for music. It was like food to them. If they hadn’t come to hear us, they would have died long before. As we would have.”
It’s hard to imagine that terrible experience and the things so many people had to endure.
Chopin was Alice’s favorite composer.
Decades after the Holocaust ended, we see Alice in her living room, sitting at the piano. Everything around her is peaceful and adorable. It’s a home full of memories. Alice decided to play “Waltz in C sharp minor opus 64 No.2.”
Her fingers don’t look tired as she glides across the piano keys.
She feels the music, and she’s suddenly energetic, ready to speak through music.
It’s remarkable how she doesn’t make a single mistake.
We love the fact that it’s so obvious Alice has been playing the piano her whole life. After surviving the concentration camp, Alice went with her family to Israel, where she worked as a music teacher. In 1986 she moved to London, where she stayed until her death.
In 2014, Alice Herz-Sommer died peacefully with her family by her bedside.
Gigi was the nickname her loved ones had given to Alice. Ariel Sommer, Alice’s grandson, said that their beloved Gigi died at peace. A lot has been written about her life. The 2013 documentary “The Lady in Number 6,” filmed when Alice was 109, won an Academy Award for Best Short Documentary.
The song “Dancing Under the Gallows” by Chris While and Julie Matthews celebrates the life of Alice Herz-Sommer.
Thank you Alice for reminding us to always look for positive things in life. The negative ones will appear without looking for them, anyway. Whatever happens, life truly is full of miracles.
Watch her inspiring and beautiful performance in the link below:
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