The great cello survivor turns 90
mainOn Friday, surrounded by family and music, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch will celebrate her 90th birthday.
Anita survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. She came to London in 1946 and became a focal member of the musical community, a co-founder of the English Chamber Orchestra, a moral presence wherever music was made.
In this new interview for the Royal College of Music archive, Anita talks about her childhood in Breslau (Wroclaw), studying in Nazi Germany with Leo Rostal, making music in Auschwitz with Mahler’s niece, Alma Rosé… and so much more. Of survival she says: ‘It was arbitrary…. I was lucky.’
Watch.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANITA and many more !
Anita Lasker wrote an autobiography Inherit the Truth, originally published in 1996. Watch the video interview Norman recommends, and then read her book.
An even longer video interview (2 hours and 10 minutes), recorded by the USC Shoah Foundation, can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ibZyQA0HUo
Anita was also interviewed in the film “The Lady in Number Six: Music Saved My Life,” the story about Alice Herz Sommer
What a wonderful lady – and a wonderful ‘antidote’ on a day when a 94 year old ex-guard at the camp was sentenced to prison in Lüneburg for his crimes!
+1
There are those whose goodness, inner strength and calm enables them to rise above tyranny, oppression and the general lot of mankind. They are to be treasured, for they are what we should be.
I was fascinated by this video from beginning to end. Thank you, Norman!