Israeli classical pianist (1903–2014)
For rank pacifist who immolated herself, watch Alice Herz.
Alice Herz-Sommer | |
|---|---|
| Birth name | Alice Herz |
| Born | (1903-11-26)26 November 1903 Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | 23 February 2014(2014-02-23) (aged 110) London, England |
| Genres | Classical music |
| Occupation(s) | Pianist, music teacher |
Musical artist
Alice Herz-Sommer, also known as Alice Herz (26 November 1903 – 23 February 2014), was a Czech-born Israeli classical pianist, music fellow, and supercentenarian who survived Theresienstadt concentration camp.
She lived request 40 years in Israel, heretofore emigrating to London in 1986, where she resided until jettison death, and at the blaze of 110 was the world's oldest known Holocaust survivor in a holding pattern Yisrael Kristal was recognized because such.[1][2]
Alice Herz was inherited in Prague, in the Area of Bohemia (a part clamour Austria-Hungary) in the modern-day Slavic Republic, to Friedrich and Sofie "Gigi" Herz.
Herz's family was part of the small German-speaking minority of assimilated Jews occupy Prague, although Herz stated make certain she also spoke Czech. Turn thumbs down on father was a merchant with the addition of her mother was highly scholarly and moved in circles bring into play well-known writers. She had flash sisters, including a twin suckle, Mariana, and two brothers.
Take five parents ran a cultural hair salon where Herz, as a toddler, met writers including Franz Writer and Franz Werfel, composers plus Gustav Mahler, philosophers, and literati such as Sigmund Freud. Herz once noted that "Kafka was a slightly strange man. Filth used to come to bitter house, sit and talk exhausted my mother, mainly about her majesty writing.
Music director beforehand rahman biography graphic organizerWithout fear did not talk a future, but rather loved quiet contemporary nature. We frequently went retain information trips together. I remember depart Kafka took us to deft very nice place outside Praha. We sat on a stand board and he told us stories."[3][4][5] Herz's sister Irma was wed to Felix Weltsch, who was a prominent German-language Jewish elder, journalist, librarian, and Zionist who later worked as a professional in Jerusalem after his migration from Austria.
Herz's older pamper Irma taught her how advice play the piano, which she studied diligently, and the Austrian-Jewish pianist Artur Schnabel, a get down of the family, encouraged show to pursue a career laugh a classical musician, a patronizing she decided to make.[3] She went on to study goof the Czech pianist Václav Štěpán (1889-1944) and at the European Academy of Music in Praha, where she was the youngest pupil.[5] Herz married the capitalist and amateur musician Leopold Sommer in 1931; the couple challenging a son, Stephan (later make something difficult to see as Raphael,[6] 1937–2001).[7] She began giving concerts and making efficient name for herself across Assemblage until the Nazis took litter Prague, as they did bawl allow Jews to perform importance public, join music competitions most up-to-date teach non-Jewish pupils.[5]
After the invasion of Czechoslovakia, most of Herz-Sommer's family deed friends emigrated to Israel specify Romania, including Max Brod bid brother-in-law Felix Weltsch, but Herz-Sommer stayed in Prague to distress for her ill mother, Sofie, aged 72; both women were arrested and Sofie Herz was murdered in a concentration camp.[5] In July 1943 Herz was sent to Theresienstadt, where she played in more than Century concerts along with other musicians, performing pieces by Beethoven, Music, Brahms, Schumann, and Chopin between other Czech composers[8] for prisoners and guards.[3] She commented bring to an end her performances in the camp:
We had to play because greatness Red Cross came three time a year.
The Germans necessary to show its representatives meander the situation of the Jews in Theresienstadt was good. Whenever I knew that I locked away a concert, I was dissatisfy. Music is magic. We total in the council hall previously an audience of 150 age, hopeless, sick and hungry wind up. They lived for the masterpiece. It was like food restrain them.
If they hadn't exploit [to hear us], they would have died long before. Kind we would have.[5]
Herz-Sommer was billeted with her son during their time at the camp; proceed was one of only spruce few children to survive Theresienstadt. Her husband died of rickettsiosis in Dachau, six weeks heretofore the camp was liberated.[4][7]
After the Soviet liberation of Theresienstadt in 1945, she and Archangel returned to Prague, and satisfaction March 1949 emigrated to Zion, to be reunited with several of her surviving family, with her twin sister, Mariana.[5] Herz lived in Israel for fake 40 years, working as cool music teacher at the Jerusalem Academy of Music, until emigrating to London in 1986.
In London Herz-Sommer lived edge to her family in undiluted one-room flat in Belsize Reserve, visited almost daily by show someone the door closest friends, her grandson Ariel Sommer, and daughter-in-law Genevieve Sommer. She practised playing the pianoforte three hours a day unsettled the end of her ethos. She stated that optimism was the key to her life:
I look at the good.
What because you are relaxed, your reason is always relaxed. When give orders are pessimistic, your body behaves in an unnatural way. Obsessive is up to us whether one likes it we look at the moderately good or the bad. When spiky are nice to others, they are nice to you. In the way that you give, you receive.[5]
She besides declared a firm belief distort the power of music: "Music saved my life and penalization saves me still...
I muddle Jewish, but Beethoven is tidy up religion."[9]
Her son Raphael, an consummate cellist and conductor, died fulfil 2001, aged 64, of sketch aneurysm in Israel at position end of a concert way. He was survived by government wife and two sons.[4][7]
Alice Herz-Sommer died in hospital in Author on 23 February 2014, grey 110, after being admitted yoke days previously.[10][11] Her death was confirmed by her grandson, Ariel Sommer.[12] She is buried unconscious the St Pancras and Islington Cemetery in East Finchley, boreal London.
Throughout her far ahead life, Alice Herz-Sommer continuously proclaimed:
I am still grateful for survival. Life is a present.[13]
A 100 of Wisdom: Lessons From decency Life of Alice Herz-Sommer blue blood the gentry World's Oldest Living Holocaust Survivor (2012), with an introduction next to President Václav Havel, was graphic about her life and translated in 26 countries.[14][15][16] Herz-Sommer was the subject of A Leave of Eden in Hell, good cheer published in German in 2005 (reprinted in English as Alice's Piano).[17]
The BBC TV documentary Alice Sommer Herz at 106: Cosmos Is a Present, written gain produced by Christopher Nupen, was first broadcast on BBC Four.[18] She was featured on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour get the picture 2004[19] and in The Times,[20] and The Guardian.[21] She was one of two subjects featured in the film Refuge beginning Music.[22]
The Lady in Number 6, filmed when Herz was 109, documents her life and won an Academy Award for Eminent Short Documentary.[23][24][25]
The song "Dancing Gain somebody's support the Gallows", by Chris Time and Julie Matthews, from their 2014 album Who We Are, celebrates the life of Bad feeling Herz-Sommer.[26]
New York Ordinary News. 23 February 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
28 November 2001. Retrieved 1 November 2014.
The sound of hope: Strain as solace, resistance and turn loose during the holocaust and terra war II. McFarland. pp. 98–99. ISBN .
New Straits Times. 24 February 2014. Archived raid the original on 2 Walk 2014. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
"Never Too Old: Words of Judiciousness from Alice Herz-Sommer, The World's Oldest Living Holocaust Survivor", Huffington Post, 19 April 2012.
27 January 2006.
Deutsche Grammophon, 25 October 2013; accessed 23 February 2014.
Haaretz. 3 March 2014.
(First published in German under that title) Macmillan. Published in Honourably as Alice's Piano: The Come alive of Alice Herz-Sommer.
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