This morning, Alice Herz Sommer passed away in London. Not long ago, she celebrated her 110th birthday. Sommer had lived through most of the significant events of the 20th century: World War I, the Great Depression, World War II, the Holocaust, the end of Nazism, Communism, migration from Europe to Israel and, later, to England. Alice Herz Sommer was a great artist for whom music had not only shaped her life - it had helped her survive the Holocaust, to remain optimistic and of good spirits, depite having lost her husband, her only son and much of her family. Alice Herz Sommer was born in Prague and she married in Germany. She lived and worked in Israel, teaching piano for 37 years at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. To her dying day, Alice Herz Sommer, who had guided generations of pianists, was respected as a distinguished and esteemed teacher.
Esther Marom, a former pupil and an Academy graduate, has written the following about Aliza:
Aliza (Alice) Herz-Sommer was born in Prague in November 1903, one of five children from a highly cultured, German-speaking Jewish home. Her mother, a pianist, had been a childhood friend of Mahler. Franz Kafka and Max Brod were frequent visitors to their home. Aliza began piano lessons at age 5. When she was 23, she met her husband-to-be, the violinist Leopold Sommer (who, later, changed his profession). In Prague, she performed recitals and soloed with orchestras; a brilliant future as a concert pianist was predicted for her.
In 1937, her son Stephan was born and life looked rosier than ever. However, in 1939, Hitler entered Prague and in 1943, Aliza, her husband and their son were taken to the Therezin Camp. (Later on, she and her son were separated from her husband, who was taken to Auschwitz, where he perished along with other family members.) Thanks to her musical talents, Aliza was regularly ordered to give concerts in the concentration camp;, her son, also, who sang in the children’s opera, later became a “page turner”. This is what kept her optimistic and strong. After being freed in 1945, Aliza managed to rebuild her life in Prague and returned to performing concerts, but the political situation there became dire and she decided that she and her son should join some of their relations in Israel, relations who had discovered, to their great surprise, that she was alive.
Aliza Herz Sommer began teaching at the Jerusalem Academy of Music. Her son Stephan changed his name to Raphael (Sommer) and, in time, because of his marriage, Raphael moved to London. And so, around 1985, Aliza decided to move to London in order to be close to her two grandchildren.
“Aliza Herz-Sommer, a Teacher for Life” – a documentary shown on Channel 10:
See also “Alice Dancing under the Gallows” for another documentary on Alice Herz