(no subject)
Oct. 28th, 2010 11:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
crivelliДля тех, кто не видел этого у riftshа.
A Life in the Day: Alice Herz-Sommer
The 104-year-old pianist survived two years in Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic. Her son, Raphael, also survived, but died in 2001. Today Alice lives alone in north London
Interview: Ria Higgins
I wake up at 8. This is also the time Magda arrives. She’s a Polish lady who comes for an hour every morning. Sometimes I get dizzy when I’m getting up, so she’s there to help me wash and dress. I have a wardrobe full of clothes, so I never need to buy anything new. Today I’m wearing a knee-length skirt and matching cardigan that my twin sister, Mizzi, knitted me. Sadly, she died 30 years ago. In the winter, I wear woollen tights and Fila black trainers. They’re warm and good when it rains.
For breakfast I have a cup of hot water and two pieces of white toast with feta cheese and some fruit — a banana, an apple or a pear. I never use butter or margarine, I haven’t drunk tea or coffee for over 40 years, and I don’t take any kind of vitamins. At 9 I go for my first walk, maybe up to our local high street or around my block. Until I was 97, I swam 20 lengths a day, but now walking is better for me. My doctor says he’s never seen such great calf muscles.
When I come back I will then sit at my piano until 1. I live in a studio flat in a small block and I know some of my neighbours will be thinking: “Ah, it’s 10 o’clock! Now Alice starts!” For the first hour I will work on a piece from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. My two index fingers bend in, so they often do what they want, not what I want. But I still play. It requires concentration and discipline. After that I rest and then play pieces from my own repertoire. Music is my religion.
I’ve been playing the piano since I was a small child. My twin sister and I were the youngest of five children and we all grew up in Prague when it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Franz Kafka was a friend, and my mother’s parents knew Gustav Mahler’s family — she played with him as a child. She’d often speak about him and, still now, when I listen to Mahler I feel my mother is sitting here next to me. We were all musical and, by the age of 10, I was playing concertos. I also went on to be taught by one of Liszt’s pupils.
I stop for lunch at 1pm. Once a week, Magda does my shopping. For years I’ve been going to the same butcher. He chops up enough chicken portions for a week, and I put them all into a big pot, followed by loads of vegetables — carrots, potatoes, onions, leeks. It is a wonderful meal and I have it every day, with some salad or fruit. I remember after the first world war there was nothing to eat. That was a terrible war. Nobody came back. Then inflation was so high that money had no value. I believe the consequence of that war was Hitler.
In the 1930s my two sisters moved to Palestine. They needed money to do that and my mother sold her house. My father had died in 1930 and I didn’t want to leave her on her own, so I stayed behind. I’d also got married, and in 1937 I gave birth to a boy, Raphael. Then, in the summer of 1942, my mother was issued with a deportation order. She was 72, and ill. I went with her to the assembly point and stayed until the very last moment. To this day I do not know where she went. It was the lowest point in my life. Nobody could help me get over that grief.
Then one day I heard an inner voice. It said the only person who could help was me. The following day I began practising Chopin’s 24 Etudes — one of the most difficult pieces ever written. I worked on it every single day. The next year the Nazis came for us, too. We were taken to Theresienstadt. Twelve months later my husband, Leopold, was sent to Auschwitz, then Dachau. I never saw him again. At the camp, the officers allowed me to play for my fellow prisoners, and surrounded by the inhumanity of man, it was this that gave me the will to live… Music was my food.
Of the 15,000 children in our camp, Raphael was one of only 130 to survive. He was seven. The Russians liberated us, but living under communism made us afraid of our friends, our neighbours, and, a year later, we emigrated to Israel — we were lucky to get out. I taught music and Raphael became a wonderful cellist. I was there for 37 years, and when he moved to London, I came here too. I was 83. He died in 2001. A beautiful painting of him hangs in the centre of my flat.
In the afternoon I go for another walk, and at 3.30 my friends visit me. I love that and I love young people. I identify with them absolutely. I’m the only one of my own siblings still alive, but I have two grandchildren, David and Ariel, and a daughter-in-law, Genevieve. In the evening I’ll have more soup and salad and maybe watch some TV. I love University Challenge and Mastermind, and all nature programmes. And on Fridays I always listen to Any Questions? — I still appreciate the idea of people being able to say whatever they want.
Before I go to sleep, I like to read. I love biographies of the great composers, philosophers and writers. I always want to know what they thought about all the big questions in life. If you’re in a good state, old age can be the most beautiful time in your life — it’s only then that you are aware how extraordinary it all is. I’ve always been an optimist and I believe laughter is a wonderful thing. Every night, when I go to sleep, I think I’ve had another wonderful day, and tomorrow I will repeat it all over again.
riftshа.A Life in the Day: Alice Herz-Sommer
The 104-year-old pianist survived two years in Theresienstadt concentration camp in what is now the Czech Republic. Her son, Raphael, also survived, but died in 2001. Today Alice lives alone in north London
Interview: Ria Higgins
I wake up at 8. This is also the time Magda arrives. She’s a Polish lady who comes for an hour every morning. Sometimes I get dizzy when I’m getting up, so she’s there to help me wash and dress. I have a wardrobe full of clothes, so I never need to buy anything new. Today I’m wearing a knee-length skirt and matching cardigan that my twin sister, Mizzi, knitted me. Sadly, she died 30 years ago. In the winter, I wear woollen tights and Fila black trainers. They’re warm and good when it rains.
For breakfast I have a cup of hot water and two pieces of white toast with feta cheese and some fruit — a banana, an apple or a pear. I never use butter or margarine, I haven’t drunk tea or coffee for over 40 years, and I don’t take any kind of vitamins. At 9 I go for my first walk, maybe up to our local high street or around my block. Until I was 97, I swam 20 lengths a day, but now walking is better for me. My doctor says he’s never seen such great calf muscles.
When I come back I will then sit at my piano until 1. I live in a studio flat in a small block and I know some of my neighbours will be thinking: “Ah, it’s 10 o’clock! Now Alice starts!” For the first hour I will work on a piece from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. My two index fingers bend in, so they often do what they want, not what I want. But I still play. It requires concentration and discipline. After that I rest and then play pieces from my own repertoire. Music is my religion.
I’ve been playing the piano since I was a small child. My twin sister and I were the youngest of five children and we all grew up in Prague when it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Franz Kafka was a friend, and my mother’s parents knew Gustav Mahler’s family — she played with him as a child. She’d often speak about him and, still now, when I listen to Mahler I feel my mother is sitting here next to me. We were all musical and, by the age of 10, I was playing concertos. I also went on to be taught by one of Liszt’s pupils.
I stop for lunch at 1pm. Once a week, Magda does my shopping. For years I’ve been going to the same butcher. He chops up enough chicken portions for a week, and I put them all into a big pot, followed by loads of vegetables — carrots, potatoes, onions, leeks. It is a wonderful meal and I have it every day, with some salad or fruit. I remember after the first world war there was nothing to eat. That was a terrible war. Nobody came back. Then inflation was so high that money had no value. I believe the consequence of that war was Hitler.
In the 1930s my two sisters moved to Palestine. They needed money to do that and my mother sold her house. My father had died in 1930 and I didn’t want to leave her on her own, so I stayed behind. I’d also got married, and in 1937 I gave birth to a boy, Raphael. Then, in the summer of 1942, my mother was issued with a deportation order. She was 72, and ill. I went with her to the assembly point and stayed until the very last moment. To this day I do not know where she went. It was the lowest point in my life. Nobody could help me get over that grief.
Then one day I heard an inner voice. It said the only person who could help was me. The following day I began practising Chopin’s 24 Etudes — one of the most difficult pieces ever written. I worked on it every single day. The next year the Nazis came for us, too. We were taken to Theresienstadt. Twelve months later my husband, Leopold, was sent to Auschwitz, then Dachau. I never saw him again. At the camp, the officers allowed me to play for my fellow prisoners, and surrounded by the inhumanity of man, it was this that gave me the will to live… Music was my food.
Of the 15,000 children in our camp, Raphael was one of only 130 to survive. He was seven. The Russians liberated us, but living under communism made us afraid of our friends, our neighbours, and, a year later, we emigrated to Israel — we were lucky to get out. I taught music and Raphael became a wonderful cellist. I was there for 37 years, and when he moved to London, I came here too. I was 83. He died in 2001. A beautiful painting of him hangs in the centre of my flat.
In the afternoon I go for another walk, and at 3.30 my friends visit me. I love that and I love young people. I identify with them absolutely. I’m the only one of my own siblings still alive, but I have two grandchildren, David and Ariel, and a daughter-in-law, Genevieve. In the evening I’ll have more soup and salad and maybe watch some TV. I love University Challenge and Mastermind, and all nature programmes. And on Fridays I always listen to Any Questions? — I still appreciate the idea of people being able to say whatever they want.
Before I go to sleep, I like to read. I love biographies of the great composers, philosophers and writers. I always want to know what they thought about all the big questions in life. If you’re in a good state, old age can be the most beautiful time in your life — it’s only then that you are aware how extraordinary it all is. I’ve always been an optimist and I believe laughter is a wonderful thing. Every night, when I go to sleep, I think I’ve had another wonderful day, and tomorrow I will repeat it all over again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-10-29 11:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-30 04:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-30 04:47 pm (UTC)