Alice Herz-Sommer

Alice Herz-Sommer was born in Prague and began learning piano when she was 5 years old, with her sister as her teacher. Famous artists and intellectuals appeared in the Herz family’s house. Her parents ran a cultural salon and hosted, among others, Franz Kafka, Franz Werfel, Sigmund Freud and Gustav Mahler. Before the war, she gained musical education as the youngest student at the German Academy of Music in Prague. In 1931, she married Leopold Sommer. Even before the war, she was a famous piano player, widely recognized in her country.

She stopped performing after the Germans occupied Prague, when they forbade Jews to play in public. In 1943, she was arrested and, together with her family, sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Her husband was sent to Auschwitz and later to Dachau, where he died. Alice Herz-Sommer remained in Terezin with her son, whom she took care of, he was one of the few children who survived the camp. Raphael Sommer later became a world-famous cellist. In his memoirs he wrote:

I had a wonderful and happy childhood. My mother created a garden of paradise for me in the middle of the camp hell. I have no dark memories of my stay in the concentration camp.

On site, she gave over 150 concerts for prisoners and SS men, playing the greatest composers. She organized various activities and games for her son to make him forget about hunger, she was also taking her son to camp orchestra rehearsals so that he would not have to watch the dying camp prisoners. After the war, Alice Herz-Sommer lived in Jerusalem, but at the age of 83 she moved to London. She played the piano even when she was over 100 years old. She used to say,

I’m the richest person on earth because I have my music.