Alice Herz-Sommer, the oldest known Holocaust survivor and a concert pianist, died here at the age of 110. It was optimism and discipline that helped her survive two years in Germany's concentration camp, she had revealed, the Guardian reported.
Born into a German-speaking Jewish family in Prague at a time when it was part of the Austrian-Hungarian empire, she endured the city's ghetto following the Nazi invasion of the then Czechoslovakia. She then spent two years in Theresienstadt (Terezín) concentration camp, where nearly 35,000 prisoners perished.
According to her family, Alice died in a hospital Sunday morning after being admitted Friday. "Alice Sommer passed away peacefully this morning with her family by her bedside."
Of her concentration camp ordeal, Alice once said: "People ask, 'How could you make music?' We were so weak. But music was special, like a spell, I would say. I gave more than 150 concerts there. There were excellent musicians there, really excellent. Violinists, cellists, singers, conductors and composers."
