Beyond the lager, Beethoven

An exceptional woman has lived in our historical epoch. How many people knew? It was not for ephemeral popularity but for the value she gave to life even in dark, tragic times. Alice Herz Sommer went through the inferno of Theresienstadt with her six-year-old son, she lost her husband, killed in Dachau after gone through Auschwitz, her old, sick mother, along with numerous relatives and friends, who were made into ashes in the extermination camps. Nonetheless, she never stopped saying: “In life I look for beautiful things. I know there are awful things, but I only look for the good things”. Culture, music, concerts… Also the fact of being the oldest Shoah survivor, died a few days ago, could sound as a merely celebrative reminder. What counts is her approach to life in its manifold range of experiences. Her testimony, registered in a short documentary, “The Lady in number 6” by Malcom Clarke, awarded with an Oscar, will be spread worldwide: what will be grasped? Her firm and smiling glance, depicted on the face of an old lady who outlived the century by 10 years along with her resounding, limpid words. Alice, twin sister of Marianne, was born in the legendary Prague of 1903 to a Jewish family of retailers, in a household open to culture, whose guests and friends were figures such as Franz Kafka, Max Brod, Gustav Mahler and Franz Werfel. It was a polyglot environment: German was the language spoken in the family, Czech was spoken by the house servants, Yiddish was the grandmother’s idiom. At the age of three Alice was already behind the piano keyboard, under the influence of her older sister’s passion for music. At 5 she took lessons from Conrad Ansorge, a student of Franz Liszt, at 11 she was celebrated as a great musical talent by the press. At a very young age she completed her piano diploma at the Music Academy in Prague, while with unprecedented determination she continued her musical career. From Prague to the extermination camps. Nel 1931 Alice married Leopold Sommer, a businessman, good amateur musician. She gave birth to a child, Stephan, who eventually took the name of Raphael and became a professional cellist. Everything seemed to be favourable in the life of Alice, but the dark shadow of Nazism was looming: many relatives decided to emigrate to Palestine. They were deported in 1942. The harsh conditions in the Nazi concentration camps didn’t bend the optimism and the solidity of the young woman who fought for her and her child’s salvation. Her fame as musician enabled her to continue with her music and help all the other prisoners: “Through music we were kept alive. The concerts, the people seated around us, were old, desolated and sick people attending the concert: that music was nourishment for them, music was our own nourishment”. She held as many as 150 concerts. “Life is beautiful”. While return to freedom restored the certainty of life, it brought with it also the emptiness and sadness of the loss of her dear ones: “What helped me survive? My temperament; my optimism and my discipline. On a regular basis, every day, at ten a.m., I sit behind the piano. Everything is in order around me. For thirty years I have eaten the same things, fish or chicken. A warm soup, and that’s all. I don’t drink tea, coffee, or alcohol. Only warm water”. Alice, old and ailing, was never discouraged: while suffering from severe pain, she imposed herself to walk because “after 20 minutes… it all goes well”, she said. That of this petite woman was not an abstract philosophy. It was a concrete aspect that she put into her life: “The world is wonderful, it’s full of beauty and miracles. Our brain, our memory, how do they work? Not to mention art and music… It’s a miracle”. She always kept her witty humour and enjoyment that made of her an ultra-centenary child, firmly grounded on her certainties. “It’s a miracle. Beethoven is my religion. I’m a Jew, with Beethoven being my religion. Beethoven is a fighter. He gave me the strength to live and to continue saying to myself: life is beautiful and worthwhile being lived, even when it’s harsh”.