<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Courtesy of National Public Radio at:</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://tinyurl.com/qbbejet">http://tinyurl.com/qbbejet</a></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">-----------------------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><h1 style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 15px 0px 11px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 3.2rem; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.125; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(34, 34, 34); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Oldest-Known Holocaust Survivor Dies; Pianist Was 110</h1></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There are many remarkable things to say about Alice Herz-Sommer, who until her death in London on Sunday was thought to be the world's oldest survivor of the Nazi Holocaust.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">To start with, there's her age: Herz-Sommer was 110.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Then there are the people she knew, including writer Franz Kafka — who died in 1924.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But what has particularly touched us as we've read about her this morning is her amazingly positive view of the world.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Bear in mind: In 1943, Herz-Sommer and her husband, Leopold Sommer, and their son, Raphael, were sent from Prague to a Nazi camp for Jews in the Czech city of Terezin. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/23/alice-herz-sommer-holocaust-survivor-dies" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-touch-callout: none; -webkit-user-select: none;">According to The Guardian</a>, "she never saw her husband again after he was moved to Auschwitz in 1944 and many in her extended family and most of the friends she had grown up with were also lost in the Holocaust."</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">According to the BBC, Herz-Sommer and her son "were among fewer than 20,000 people who were freed when Terezin was liberated by the Soviet army in May 1945. An estimated 140,000 Jews were sent there and 33,430 died there. About 88,000 were transported on to Auschwitz and other death camps, where most were killed.</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Still, when </span><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/dec/13/classicalmusicandopera.secondworldwar" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-touch-callout: none; -webkit-user-select: none;">the Guardian spoke with her in 2006</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">, Herz-Sommer had this to say:</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;">"Life is beautiful, extremely beautiful. And when you are old you appreciate it more. When you are older you think, you remember, you care and you appreciate. You are thankful for everything. For everything."</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Film director Malcolm Clark and producer Nick Reed — whose</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><a href="http://oscar.go.com/nominees/documentary-short-subject/the-lady-in-number-6-music-saved-my-life" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-touch-callout: none; -webkit-user-select: none;">Oscar-nominated documentary</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life</em><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">tells the story of the concerts that Herz-Sommer, a pianist, and others performed in concentration camps to lift the spirits of prisoners —</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><a href="http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/02/23/holocaust-survivor-britain-death-idINL6N0LS10N20140223" target="_blank" style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; vertical-align: baseline; text-decoration: none; -webkit-touch-callout: none; -webkit-user-select: none;">say in a statement that</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">:</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;">"Even as her energy slowly diminished, her bright spirit never faltered. Her life force was so strong, we could never imagine her not being around. We can all learn so much from this most amazing woman."</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">On the film's website, Herz-Sommer was quoted about the role music played in her life:</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;">"She speaks with great pride and passion of playing more than 100 concerts inside the concentration camp and she likens that experience, both for the performers and their imprisoned audience, as being close to the divine. Alice is unequivocal in stating that music preserved her sanity and her life — while bringing hope into the lives of countless others. To this day Alice never tires of saying 'music saved my life and music saves me still.' "</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The film's creators added that:</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;">"Despite all that has befallen her, Alice insists that she has never, ever hated the Nazis, and she never will. Some see in her tolerance and compassion a secular saint who has been blessed with the gift of forgiveness, but Alice is far more pragmatic — she has seen enough in her life to know all too well that hatred eats the soul of the hater, not the hated."</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">According to the</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Guardian</em><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">, after the war Herz-Sommer "went to Israel in 1949 with her sisters and taught music in Tel Aviv before moving to London at the prompting of her son, who had grown up to become a concert cellist but who died suddenly in 2001 while on tour."</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In the 2006 interview, she shared with the</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><em style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-variant: inherit; vertical-align: baseline;">Guardian</em><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> her secret to a long life:</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;">"My temperament. This optimism and this discipline. Punctually, at 10 a.m., I am sitting there at the piano, with everything in order around me. For 30 years, I have eaten the same — fish or chicken. Good soup, and this is all. I don't drink — not tea, not coffee, not alcohol. Hot water. I walk a lot with terrible pains, but after 20 minutes it is much better. Sitting or lying is not good."</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;">--------------------</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;">Alice Herz-Sommer in July 2010</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit;"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><img src="cid:98B6009E-2AAF-43EB-AA8B-D573E0030EA9" alt="survivor242way-cf70470997b39d8e4f7aed43d6b55ce34bc37b86-s5-c85.jpg" id="98B6009E-2AAF-43EB-AA8B-D573E0030EA9" width="728" height="545"></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">--------------------</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">"The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life" - Official trailer</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="http://youtu.be/LrXHcQyixTE">http://youtu.be/LrXHcQyixTE</a></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">-----------------------------------<br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares"</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Whether life is good or not depends on me."</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">- Alice Herz-Sommer (July 2010)</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>