One of the sites I regularly visit is http://www.americablog.com and today they included a video about Alice Herz-Sommer the 110-year-old woman who is both the oldest living Holocaust survivor and oldest living pianist. There is a new documentary about her called "The Lady in Number 6."
You can find out more and buy a DVD of or stream the whole documentary at http://nickreedent.com
There is also a book about her, A Century of Wisdom: Lessons from the Life of Alice Herz-Sommer, the World's Oldest Living Holocaust Survivor by Caroline Stoessinger
(NY: Spiegel & Grau, 2012 ISBN 978-0-8129-9281-6) which I read last Spring after finding it in the new books section of my local library. My notes follow with page numbers in parentheses (), although I did leave out her recipes for chicken soup and apple cake.
(xvi) "Where they burn books, they will ultimately burn people also," Heinrich Heine from "Almansar"
(28-29) Nearly a year after her first encounter with the Nazi soldier, Alice played an exceptionally inspired concert of works by Beethoven, and afterward, another young soldier waited for her in the darkness of a doorway. His voice startled her, "Are you Mrs. Sommer, the pianist?"
Continuing to walk, Alice answered, "Yes, I am Mrs. Sommer."
"A moment please," he commanded.
Alice stopped as a man nearly twice her height blocked her way. "I must speak to you. Do not be afraid."
Alice looked him straight in the face and responded, "What do you want?"
"Frau Sommer," he continued in German, "I come from a musical family. My mother was a fine pianist. She took me to many concerts. I understand very much about music. I only want to thank you for your concerts. They have meant much to me."
Alice smiled as she whispered, "Thank you. I am glad that the music helps you." In those few seconds she had seen a frightened young man who might have been her friend if they were not separated by the uniform he wore. "I must go."
Looking around to see that they were not observed, he said, "Please, one more thing. You and your little son will not be on any deportation lists. You will stay in Theresinstadt until the war ends. Do not worry, you will be safe." With those words he quickly disappeared.
Alice never saw him again. Nor does she know his name or rank. Was he sent to the front? Did he survive?
After the war the Nazi deportation lists to Auschwitz were discovered in the archives of war records. Neither Alice's name nor the name of her child could be found on any of the final lists.
Alice has always wondered what the cost may have been to the young Nazi who she believes saved her life, and also what happened to the Hermanns - and, if they survived the war, what became of their son. More than half a century later, memories of these individuals continue to haunt her.
(34) Golda Meir in Alice's kitchen in Jerusalem: "Peeling potatoes gives me naches (joy)."
(40) Alice: "I am Jewish, but Beethoven is my religion."
(47) When questioned about stage fright, Alice simply has nothing to say because she never experienced it. "Stage fright comes mainly from caring more about what others think than about the music itself," she says. "The only possible fear that I might have had was of my own inner critic. But once I began to play, even that anxiety disappeared."
(97) After the war Edith Steiner-Kraus was offended when questioned about the quality of the performances in Theresienstadt. "You are no doubt speaking about precise rhythm, intonation, balance, diction... The superficial nature of your question troubles me terribly - as if any of that mattered. Don't you understand? We had returned to the source of the music... I don't understand why people, when they talk about Theresienstadt, mention those elements that you ask about. You'll never understand, or get close, to what music truly meant to each of us as a sustaining power and as a way of using our skills to inspire, beyond criticism, beyond any superficial evaluation. We were music."
(122) [Stephen] Zweig's early portrayal of Hitler's rise to power haunted Alice. She would ask herself over and over: how could Zweig's vision have been so acute when most of the world took so little heed? "Nothing misled the German intellectual as much as his lack of education into believing that Hitler was still only the beer-hall agitator who never could become a real danger," Zweig wrote. "Then came the Reichstag fire, Parliament disappeared, Goering let loose his hordes, and at one blow all of justice in Germany was smashed... National Socialism in its unscrupulous technique of deceit was wary about disclosing the full extent of its aims before the world had become inured. Thus they practiced their method carefully: only a small dose to begin with then a brief pause... The doses became progressively stronger until all of Europe finally perished from them." Still, "everybody had a ready-made phrase: That cannot last long... It was the self deception that we practice because of reluctance to abandon our accustomed life." Discussing Zweig's account of those days, Alice says, "Ja, the world did not want to look at the truth until it was too late. And we should have known."
(129) Alice: "Since when has making enemies been a solution?"
[Abraham Lincoln: "Madam, do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?"]
(135) Eichmann testified: "I never did anything, great or small, without obtaining in advance express instructions from Adolf Hitler or any of my superiors." At one point he even said, "I regret nothing." During his trial, he acknowledged the trait of obedience that his parents had instilled in him: "Now that I look back, I realize that a life predicated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's need to think."
(142) Martin Buber: "The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings."
(159-160) The Czech poet Rainer Maria Rilke had tried to explain that wisdom does not presume - wisdom is not knowing the elusive answer but fearlessly facing the questions. "Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue." He went on, "Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
(166) Goethe: "We only think we are original because we know nothing."
(176) Asked what is the most important lesson piano teachers can share with their students, Alice says, "Love to work." She mentions that, when Bach was asked how he managed to write so much great music, he answered, "Hard work... anyone who works as hard as I do will be successful." Alice continues, "And this is true for all teachers of all subjects... Instill a love of work, a love of practicing or of cleaning the kitchen until it shines. Love to make things better. Love the process of learning. We must learn to enjoy work because it is good in and of itself and not because of the triumph we hope to achieve."
(184) When Anita [Lasker-Wallfisch] speaks of the war, she says, "The cello saved my life. Literally." She goes on to explain, "When prisoners first arrived in Auschwitz, they were immediately treated to a kind of initiation ceremony where their heads were shaved and their arms were tattooed with identification numbers. This work was done by female prisoners. I was expecting to go to the gas chambers, as that was Auschwitz. Then one of the prisoners asked me, 'What do you do for work?' The answer that fell out of my mouth, 'I play the cello,' was completely ridiculous. I had just turned seventeen, and I had no occupation other than student. That prisoner whispered, 'Thank God, you will be saved.'" The Auschwitz-Birkenau women's orchestra needed a cellist.
(185-186) When typhus ran rampant in Auschwitz, Anita contracted the disease and was held in the so-called sick bay or infirmary. She was nearly delirious from high fever when she heard the Gestapo pointing out patients who were to received immediate "special treatment" - the gas chamber. Aa soldiers were preparing to cart her off, she heard an officer yell, "No, not that one, she is the cellist." In that moment Anita recognized that she still had an identity even though her name had been replaced with a number.
(200) Kafka: "Our art consists in being dazzled by the Truth."
(206) As I write this, Alice Herz-Sommer has just celebrated her 108th birthday. She continues to practice and polish her repertoire with miraculous concentration, always searching for that elusive perfection. One of her visitors recently asked her why she still spends so much time practicing the same pieces. Folding her arms, she looked him straight in the face. "I am an artist. Some days I admire myself. Not bad, I think. But the longer I work, the more I learn that I am only a beginner. No matter how well I know a work of Beethoven, for example, I can always go deeper, and then deeper still. One of the rewards of being a musician is that it is possible to practice the same piece of music and discover new meaning without boredom for at least a hundred years. I study the language of music with the same fervor that scholars re-examine the holy scriptures. The artist's job is never done. It is the same with life. We can only strive towards rightness. As with music, I search for meaning. I practice life."