A Garden of Eden in Hell

Fülszöveg

'Alice Herz-Sommer is one of the most extraordinary people you could hope to meet — indominatable in her optimism despite a life filled with more than a fair share of suffering. She is an artist who has been witness to more than a century of history and A Garden of Eden in Hell telis her story with remarkable grace and clarity'
Alan Rusbridger
Alice Herz-Sommer was born in 1903 in Prague, the Prague of the Hapsburgs and of Franz Kafka, a family friend. Her mother was an accomplished pianist and a childhood friend of Gustav Mahler. It became increasingly clear that Alice, too, was musically very gifted and at sixteen she was the youngest member of the masterclass at Prague's Germán Musical Academy. She soon became one of the best-known pianists in the city.
But little by little her comfortable, bourgeois world began to crumble around her. Even as a child she had suffered from anti-Semitic attacks, but as the Nazis swept across Europe, anti-Jewish feeling not only intensified but... Tovább

Fülszöveg

'Alice Herz-Sommer is one of the most extraordinary people you could hope to meet — indominatable in her optimism despite a life filled with more than a fair share of suffering. She is an artist who has been witness to more than a century of history and A Garden of Eden in Hell telis her story with remarkable grace and clarity'
Alan Rusbridger
Alice Herz-Sommer was born in 1903 in Prague, the Prague of the Hapsburgs and of Franz Kafka, a family friend. Her mother was an accomplished pianist and a childhood friend of Gustav Mahler. It became increasingly clear that Alice, too, was musically very gifted and at sixteen she was the youngest member of the masterclass at Prague's Germán Musical Academy. She soon became one of the best-known pianists in the city.
But little by little her comfortable, bourgeois world began to crumble around her. Even as a child she had suffered from anti-Semitic attacks, but as the Nazis swept across Europe, anti-Jewish feeling not only intensified but was legitimised. Then, in 1942, Alice's mother was deported. Desperately unhappy, she resolved to learn Chopin's 24 Etudes — the most technically demanding piano pieces she knew — and the complex but beautiful music saved her sanity.
However, a year later, she, too — together with her husband and their six-year-old son — was deported to a concentration camp. But even in Theresienstadt, even when her husband was transported to Auschwitz, music was her salvation. In the course of more than a hundred concerts she gave her fellow-prisoners strength and hope in a world of hunger, pain and death. This is her remarkable story, a story of the power of love and of music. But it is alsó the story of a mother's struggle to create a happy childhood for her beloved only son in the midst of atrocity and barbarism. Of 15,000 children sent to the camp, Raphael was one of the 130 who survived.
Today, Alice Herz-Sommer lives in London and she still plays the piano every day. Vissza