Alice Herz-Sommer, the world’s oldest Holocaust survivor dies at age 110. Alice lived in London but was originally from Prague, and had been confined in the camp in Terezin, or Theresienstadt, in Germany during the Second World War. She is said to have counted existentialist writer Franz Kafka among her family friends and, more recently, was the subject of an Oscar-nominated documentary about her life. The 38-minute film entitled, The Lady In Number 6: Music Saved My Life, is up for best short documentary at the Academy Awards to be handed out next weekend.
Alice passed away Sunday morning, and according to her grandson Ariel Sommer “Alice Sommer passed away peacefully this morning with her family by her bedside.” (Huntington Post) Herz-Sommer was a talented musician and an adept pianist, and was said to have spent her final days continuing to play the works of Schubert and Beethoven, from her home in central London.
Weep not for sweet Alice, she is said to have loved life, and in the weeks before her passing had this to say:
“I think I am in my last days but it doesn’t really matter because I have had such a beautiful life, and 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.” (Huntington Post)
R.I.P. Mrs. Alice Herz-Sommer, you were a living legend and an iconic piece of American history.
(Photograph courtesy of totpi.com)
(Featured Image courtesy of Huntington Post)
