14 DAY TRIAL // Alice Herz-Sommer, the oldest known Holocaust survivor, has died in London at the age of 110 on Sunday, confirmed a family member cited by the Mirror. The concert pianist died in hospital surrounded by her loved ones.
“Alice Sommer passed away peacefully this morning with her family by her bedside,” her grandson, Ariel Sommer, said. “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,” he added.
She was born into a Jewish family in Prague in what is today the Czech Republic. During the Second World War, Alice Herz-Sommer was held in the prison camp in Terezin (Theresienstadt), in Germany. She and her young son were sent by the Nazis to the concentration camp in 1943.
The pianist and musician said optimism and discipline helped her survive two years in Terezin, where more than 34,000 prisoners lost their lives. That's probably because inmates were allowed to stage concerts in which she often showed her artistic abilities.
She was married to Leopold Sommer, who was also a musician. The couple had a son, Raphael, who died in 2001. Alice never got to see her husband again after he was taken to Auschwitz in 1944. Many of her relatives and friends also perished in the Holocaust.
Herz-Sommer and her son were among the nearly 20,000 prisoners who were freed when the concentration camp was liberated by the Soviet army in 1945.
Herz-Sommer's life was the subject of a 38-minute film, called “The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life,” which was nominated for the best short documentary at Academy Awards next Sunday night. The documentary is produced by Frederic Bohbot and directed by Oscar-winner Malcolm Clarke.
On the film's website, the pianist wrote, “I have lived through many wars and have lost everything many times - including my husband, my mother and my beloved son. Yet, life is beautiful, and I have so much to learn and enjoy. I have no space nor time for pessimism and hate.”
“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.”