Alice's Piano: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer Author: Melissa M?ller | Language: English | ISBN:
B00633W8Q2 | Format: EPUB
Alice's Piano: The Life of Alice Herz-Sommer Description
How music provided hope in one of the world's darkest times—the inspirational life story of Alice Herz-Sommer, the oldest living Holocaust survivor
Alice Herz-Sommer was born in Prague in 1903. A talented pianist from a very early age, she became famous throughout Europe; but, as the Nazis rose to power, her world crumbled. In 1942, her mother was deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and vanished. In 1943, Alice, her husband and their six-year-old son were sent there, too. In the midst of horror, music, especially Chopin's Etudes, was Alice's salvation. Theresienstadt was a "show camp", a living slice of Nazi propaganda created to convince outsiders that the Jews were being treated humanely. In more than a hundred concerts, Alice gave her fellow prisoners hope in a time of suffering. Written with the cooperation of Alice Herz-Sommer, Melissa Müller and Reinhard Piechocki's Alice's Piano is the first time her story has been told. At 107 years old, she continues to play her piano in London and bring hope to many.
- File Size: 1978 KB
- Print Length: 366 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1250007410
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press (March 13, 2012)
- Sold by: Macmillan
- Language: English
- ASIN: B00633W8Q2
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray:
- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #55,648 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #12
in Books > History > Europe > Czech Republic - #12
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Educators - #32
in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Educators
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in Books > History > Europe > Czech Republic - #12
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Educators - #32
in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Educators
In 1942, The Germans mislead the outside world, especially observers from the International Red Cross, by presenting Theresienstadt concentration camp as a normal town. In an ostensible autonomous environment the Germans allowed the prisoners to organize their own cultural activities. Among the prisoners were hundreds of famous Jewish musicians. In July 1943, Alice Hertz-Sommer, born in 1903 into a Jewish, German-speaking family in Prague, her husband Leopold and son Stephan (later changed to Raphael), age six, were deported to Theresienstadt. Alice was given there a chance to give recitals for a little extra food. This amazing lady was imbued with a strong will to survive and to protect her child. She was enraptured with music and clung to her principles, to be hopeful and focus on the positive.
Melissa Muller and Reinhard Piechocki, the biographers narrate Alice's prodigious talent and feelings in the book ALICE'S PIANO. In Theresienstadt many people were dying of infectious diseases. Bugs, fleas and lice were never defeated, the inmates were defeated. However, when Alice practiced she forgot about the world around her. She played from passion and sheer joy in music; it was her door to paradise. Music has been her source of strength all her life, her safe haven. As the defeat for Germany drew nearer in 1944, most "residents" from Theresienstadt were sent to extermination camps. Alice's husband was among those. After the war, Alice found out that her husband had survived the death-march from Auschwitz to Dachau, but died there of typhus. In May 1945 Theresienstadt was liberated, one out of one hundred inmates survived. It is heartbreaking to realize that among the millions that the Nazis murdered there were so many talented people.
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