A 99 -year -old Holocaust survivor has reflected on his life as the last living member of the female orchestra in Auschwitz. The story of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch is not only about survival, but also about the power of music in an unimaginable horror. She was taken to Auschwitz when she was a teenager in 1943 after being arrested for trying to escape from Nazi Germany.
She recalled: “When I arrived at the camp, they asked me if I touched any instrument. An mention of the opportunity to play the cello saved my life.” He joined one of the fourteen orchestras of the camp, where music became his refuge and his prison.
In BBC Documentary of two Auschwitz’s last musicianMrs. Lasker-Wallfisch shares her unique experience of playing music in a place full of the pain of losing their loved ones and not knowing if you had an opportunity against the Nazis.
The music played to accompany the most terrible things, including the moments that the children entered the gas cameras, he said. The orchestra was forced to act for notorious figures such as Dr. Josef Mengele, known as the “Angel of Death”, who conducted cruel medical experiments, especially in twins and people with disabilities, which leads to suffering, mutilation and severe death. For Mrs. Lasker-Wallfisch, playing under coercion was not just an artistic act; It was a desperate means of survival.
Its connection with music extends beyond its role in the orchestra. Growing up in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), her family encouraged her to look for music as an escape from the growing anti -Semitic violence. Despite the growing Nazi threat, he recalled: “We were the typical German assimilated family-Jewing. We went to a small private school and suddenly I heard:” I did not give Jewish the sponge “, and I thought:” What this? ‘
The war changed his life when, in 1942, he separated from his parents, who were deported. He remembered the terror he felt when he was sent to a concentration camp in Auschwitz, “you had no idea where you were. Heart with dogs, people shouted, a horrible smell … You had reached hell, really.”
Upon arriving in Auschwitz, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was tattooed and shaved by other prisoners, who were anxious for any news about the war. She recalled: “I said: ‘Look, I can’t tell you too much because I’ve been in prison for a long time’, and I casually mentioned that I played the cello.” The girl who listened to this replied: “Oh, that’s very good. They may save you.”
Mrs. Lasker-Wallfisch, bald, naked and with a number tattooed on her arm, found himself in this strange conversation. The camp orchestra needed a cellist, and was chosen to join. It became part of the female orchestra, directed by Alma Rose, a violinist connected to the renowned composer Gustav Mahler. “[Alma] He managed to get so worried about what we were going to play and if we were playing well that we temporarily worry about what was going to happen to us, “Mrs. Laker-Wallfisch recalled.
The orchestra, which played military music for soldiers and camp workers, was a double -edged sword. For Mrs. Lasker-Wallfisch, it was a survival mechanism.
He also talked about the role of Mrs. Rose, whose leadership saved many lives in the orchestra. “We owe our lives to Alma. He had a dignity that won even the Germans,” he explained. “Even the Germans treated her as if she were a member of the human race.”
The orchestra was a temporary escape from the horrors that surrounded them, but ended when the women were transferred to the Belsen camp in 1944, where the conditions worsened.
The last chapter of the war trip of Mrs. Lasker-Wallfisch came with the liberation of Belsen in April 1945, when the British troops arrived just in time to save their life. “I think another week and we would probably not achieved it because there was no food or water,” he recalled.
After the war, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch rebuilt her life, initially establishing himself in Britain. He later married and became a founding member of the English Chamber Orchestra.
She had never promised to step on the German floor, fearing that someone could have been “the person who murdered my parents.” But over time, his perspective changed. In 2018, she spoke with the German politicians in the Bundestag, saying: “As you can see, I broke my oath, many years ago, and I do not regret it. It is quite simple: hate is poison and, ultimately, you I get on yourself.