Alice Herz-Sommer
April 7, 2012 at 8:36 AM | Posted in Books, Connections, Music, Piano | Leave a commentTags: Alice Herz-Sommer, Caroline Stoessinger, Golda Meir, Kafka, Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, Victor Frankl
There is a lady, 108 years old, the oldest living survivor of the concentration camps, in her case Theresienstadt, still practicing piano for an hour a day which is far less than her usual 3 hours, in her flat in London, who knew Kafka well in Prague, who saw Mahler conduct and who had, as a member of her audience for many of her hundred concerts in the camp, both Nazi officers and the great Victor Frankl, and after emigrating to Israel after the war taught Golda Meir, who loved to help in the kitchen, to play piano.
She attributes her survival and long age to her life in music (she was a concert pianist in Prague before the war and then taught till at least 98) and a truly phenomenal optimism.
There is a new book out about her with a very long title: A Century of Wisdom: Lessons from the Life of Alice Herz-Sommer, the World’s Oldest Living Holocaust Survivor by Caroline Stoessinger.
Hers is one of the great lives and I recommend you learn about her while she is still alive — while we are still alive.
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