Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
ALICE HERZ-SOMMER, THE world’s oldest known Holocaust survivor and the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary, has died in London aged 110, her family has said.
Herz-Sommer, originally from Prague in what is now the Czech Republic, spent two years of World War II in Czechoslovakia’s Terezin concentration camp, where she entertained inmates by playing the piano.
Her grandson, Ariel Sommer, said: “Alice Sommer passed away peacefully this morning [Sunday] with her family by her bedside. Much has been written about her, but to those of us who knew her best, she was our dear ‘Gigi’.
She loved us, laughed with us, and cherished music with us. She was an inspiration and our world will be significantly poorer without her by our side. We mourn her loss and ask for privacy in this very difficult moment.
According to an update on the Facebook page for her Oscar-nominated film “The Lady In Number 6: Music Saved My Life”, she died on Sunday after a short illness.
“She was still living in her apartment, when she fell ill on Thursday, she spent two nights in hospital and passed this morning,” it said.
A later update read: “heaven just got a little better”.
Life in film
The 38-minute film, in which she shares her life story and describes the importance of music and laughter for a happy life, is up for best short documentary at Sunday’s Academy Awards.
“When we showed her some early footage of the film, she just smiled,” Producer Nicholas Reed told the Los Angeles Times on Sunday. “For her, the Oscar nomination is all very lovely, but it’s more about how we all live out our lives.”
On his website, Reed said of the film: “Kids all over the world grow up on superheroes, what we, their parents, must remind them, is documentaries tell stories about ‘real superheroes.’
“Superheroes are based on great people, real people, like Alice Herz-Sommer.”
Writing on the film’s website, Herz-Sommer, who was a family friend of existentialist writer Franz Kafka, describes how “music saved my life.”
“I am Jewish, but Beethoven is my religion,” she says in a video-clip. “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.
‘Hatred brings only hatred’
In other video clips, she said: “I never hate. Hatred brings only hatred.”
She also said: “When we can play it can’t be so terrible. Music is in the first place of art. It brings us on an island with peace, beauty and love. Music is a dream.”
LA Times film critic Betsy Sharkey said the film “swept her away”.
“Her story began in Prague in 1903 where she was the child of privilege, her memory sharp in remembering Franz Kafka and composer Gustav Mahler’s visits to her house,” wrote Sharkey.
“Then World War II, and Hitler’s death camps, dismantled that life; her skill at the keyboard saved her.
“What is extraordinary is not only the music so beautifully played as she sits on that piano bench in No. 6 but that she does not look back in anger.”
Around 140,000 Jews were sent to the Terezin camp, of whom 33,430 died.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
WE could all learn from from this girl!
Not least the holocaust denier nutjobs.
The term “holocaust denier” is a pejorative used by the mass media to denounce anyone who questions ANY of the details of the holocaust. People like David Irving and Ernst Zundel are called “holocaust deniers” which suggests they are saying not a single Jew died in WWII whereas in fact they are just asking valid questions and coming up with plausible conclusions. I’m sure there are a tiny few who believe no Jews died at the hands of the Nazis and “deny the holocaust” but that term is generally used to discredit historical revisionists.
A truly inspirational woman. Her book “A Century of Wisdom: Lessons from the life of Alice Herz-Sommer” is well worth a read. RIP Alice.
May god himself descend from heaven and personally escort this poor lady into eternal happiness, after the trauma she was put through :-(
It’s very sad that anti-semitism appears to be on the rise again in Europe & elsewhere & that there are still those out there who wish for the extermination of the Jewish people for no other reason than they are Jews.
Pick a number between 0 and 8 million then tell everyone that’s how many Jews got murdered ww2. If anyone argues with you, call them anti-semetic. It will make you seem intellectual.
I’m not sure if I agree with you Other Tom.
Yoav Shamir did a good documentary investigating the rise of anti semitism and it makes for excellent viewing. It’s called Defamation and is worthwhile watching for anyone who is concerned.
It’s very easy to nod and agree with groups that say anti semitism is on the rise but the reality is a lot different as people who may criticise the state of Israel’s current policies in relation to Palestine, etc are not in reality anti Semitic. And when people shout and scream every time about it, they are reducing the reaction to real anti semitism.
May she RIP hopefully she is in a better place considering what she has faced in her early years.
RIP Alice
I visited Terezin a few years back. Though the Nazi’s didn’t use gas chambers there their ways of murdering the innocents were very effective from hanging to shooting to starvation etc. It should be noted that on Germany surrendering the Czechs replaced the previous victims with many innocent Germans in these camps with similar outcomes.
Dreadful atrocities were committed by all sides during that war, it’s just the victors write the history books
RIP on the day Uganda makes hate legal and many other countries do so unchallenged. We must never forget the lessons of the Holocaust and our gratitude to the survivors for telling us.
At least you admitted it Glen!
Hmmm, not so sure about this. The lady in this reddit ama just wrote a book about her experience, is well documented and is younger. Someone’s got their story wrong it seems.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1xt5bb/iama_survivor_of_medical_experiments_performed_on/
Btw, not taking away from this lady’s life or story, just saying i think there are other survivors still out there
Glen it’s says she was the OLDEST survivor
Dermot, you are right of course and now I feel like a nonce! That’s Monday mornings for ya!
A nonce?
Glen makes moronic mistake & now he feels homosexual.
Great choice of words glen.
You are suited to your employer, the Daily Mail..
I’m sure they are proud.
A “nonce” is slang for a Paedophile. If your gonna be a smart arse get it right
Really?
I’ve only ever heard it being used as a slur on gay people.
So, the guy feels like a paedophile for his error.
Stephen is correct. You mean ponce Jeremy.
Context, context, context! He clearly meant neither paedo nor homosexual but was just trying to be light heartedly self deprecating for making an error. Some people seem absolutely determined to be offended!
that’s noncesence!
(brasseye)
‘Jeremy’,
You are a cowardly excuse for a human being and a symptom of everything that’s wrong with modern Ireland, getting personal with someone on a news message board behind a shitty pseudonym and not having the confidence in yourself or your (admittedly limited) abilities to actually risk people knowing your real name.
I am rising to your bait in the hope that you will have an epiphany, see sense and decide to go back and finish the leaving, get a steady boyfriend, maybe hold down a job somewhere outside of your local off license and eventually move out of your long suffering mams boxroom. Hell, you might even be allowed cover the county for the under age GAA in your local advertiser if you stopped masturbating for 10 minutes and wrote something useful! Go get ‘em tiger!
Yours Sincerely,
Glen (proudly working for the best performing media organization in Ireland since 2007)
I hope she has a party up there when she reunites with her family. She deserves peace and happiness.
Ar ais de go raibh a hanam dilis
have your say