24 Feb 2014

World’s ‘oldest Holocaust survivor’ dies, aged 110

Alice Herz-Sommer, the world’s oldest known Holocaust survivor, dies at her London home aged 110.

Ms Herz-Sommer, originally from Prague, spent two years of her life in the Theresienstadt concentration camp in north Germany – where 33,000 Jews, mostly of Czech origin, were killed.

She was a talented pianist, and said recently that music had “saved her life”. She was recently the subject of an Oscar nominated documentary about her-life.

She loved us, laughed with us, and cherished music with us. Ariel Sommer

The Lady In Number 6: Music Saved My Life (see documentary trailer, above), a 38-minute film , is up for best short documentary at the Academy Awards to be handed out next weekend.

Writing on the film’s website, Ms Herz-Sommer said: “Music saved my life and music saves me still.”

She is said to have spent her final days continuing to play the works of Schubert and Beethoven, from her home in central London.

Speaking on the film’s website, she said: “I am Jewish, but Beethoven is my religion. I am no longer myself. The body cannot resist as it did in the past.

“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.”

Ms Herz-Sommer’s grandson, Ariel Sommer, said on Sunday: “Alice Sommer passed away peacefully this morning with her family by her bedside.

“Much has been written about her, but to those of us who knew her best, she was our dear ‘Gigi’. She loved us, laughed with us, and cherished music with us.

“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.”