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\n\u201cThe Lady in Number 6\u201d will be released in some 100 theaters across the United States on Feb. 21 and subsequently in other countries<\/em>.<\/p>\n
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By TOM TUGEND<\/p>\n
LOS ANGELES (JTA) — In her 110 years, Alice Herz-Sommer has been an accomplished concert pianist and teacher, a wife and mother — and a prisoner in Theresienstadt.<\/p>\n
Now she is the star of an Oscar-nominated documentary showing her indomitable optimism, cheerfulness and vitality despite all the upheavals and horrors she faced in the 20th century.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life,\u201d a 38-minute film up for best short documentary at the Academy Awards to be handed out next month, begins in her native Prague. Alice — everyone from presidents on down calls her Alice — was born on Nov. 26, 1903 into an upper-class Jewish family steeped in literature and classical music.<\/p>\n
A friend and frequent visitor was \u201cUncle Franz,\u201d surname Kafka, along with composer Gustav Mahler and other luminaries.<\/p>\n
Trained as a pianist from childhood, Alice made her concert debut as a teenager, married, had a son and seemed destined for the pleasant, cultured life of a prosperous Middle European. But everything changed in 1939 when Hitler, casually tearing up the Munich accord of a year earlier, marched his troops into Prague and brought with him his anti-Semitic edicts.<\/p>\n
Her public concert career was over, yet the family managed to hang on in an increasingly restrictive existence in the Czech capital.<\/p>\n
In 1943, however, Alice and her husband, their 6-year old son Raphael (Rafi), and Alice’s mother were loaded on the transport to Theresienstadt. The fortress town some 30 miles from Prague was touted by Nazi propaganda as the model ghetto — \u201cThe Fuhrer\u2019s gift to the Jews,\u201d with its own orchestra, theater group and even soccer teams.<\/p>\n
With the full extent of the Holocaust still largely unknown, Alice took her deportation with relative equanimity, as was typical for many European Jews.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they have an orchestra in Terezin, how bad can it be?\u201d she recalled asking, using the Czech name of the town.<\/p>\n
Alice soon found out, as her mother and husband perished there. Alice was saved by her musical gifts; she became a member of the camp orchestra and gave more than 100 recitals.<\/p>\n
But her main focus was on Rafi, trying to make his life bearable, to escape the constant hunger and infuse him with her own hopefulness.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat she did reminded me of Roberto Benigni in the Italian film \u2018Life is Beautiful,’ ” said Malcolm Clarke, director of \u201cThe Lady in Number 6.” “He plays an Italian Jew who pretends to his young son that life in the camp is some kind of elaborate game for the boy\u2019s special amusement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liberated in 1945, Alice and Rafi returned to Prague but four years later left for Israel. There she taught at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and performed in concerts frequently attended by Golda Meir, while Rafi became a concert cellist.<\/p>\n
Alice said she loved her 37 years living in Israel, but when Rafi, her only child, decided to move to London, she went with him. A few years later Rafi died at 65, but the mother remained in her small flat, No. 6, in a North London apartment house.<\/p>\n
Nearly all of the film was shot over a two-year period inside the flat dominated by an old Steinway piano on which Alice played four hours each day, to the enjoyment of her neighbors.<\/p>\n
Originally the filmmakers considered \u201cDancing Under the Gallows\u201d as the film\u2019s title before going with \u201cThe Lady in Number 6.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was a wise decision, for the film is anything but a grim Holocaust documentary with Alice\u2019s unfailing affirmation of life, usually accompanied by gusts of laughter.<\/p>\n
Her health and speech have declined in recent months, and she no longer does interviews. But in a brief phone conversation, conducted mainly in German, Alice attributed her outlook partially to having been born with optimistic genes and a positive attitude.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know there is bad in the world, but I look for the good,\u201d she said, and \u201cmusic is my life, music is God.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 104, she took up the study of philosophy and likes to quote German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who said \u201cWithout music, life would be a mistake.\u201d<\/p>\n
The film is peppered with such observations, which coming from anyone else might be considered a sign of Candide-like naivete.<\/p>\n
A sampling of her sayings: \u201cWherever you look, there is beauty everywhere”; \u201cAfter a century on the keyboard, I still look for perfection”; \u201cI\u2019m so old because I use my brain constantly. The brain is the body\u2019s best medicine”; and \u201cA sense of humor keeps us balanced in all circumstances, even death.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many of the observations are recorded by Caroline Stoessinger in her book \u201cA Century of Wisdom: Lessons from the Life of Alice Herz-Sommer, the World\u2019s Oldest Living Holocaust Survivor,\u201d which forms the basis for the film and her on-screen interviews.<\/p>\n
Stoessinger, a New York concert pianist, interviewed Alice and her friends over a period of 15 years and became an ardent admirer of her subject.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlice doesn\u2019t complain, she doesn\u2019t look back, she has no anxieties,\u201d Stoessinger said. \u201cEven in Theresienstadt, she never doubted that she would survive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stoessinger also convinced Clarke to direct the film. He won an Oscar in 1989 for his short documentary \u201cYou Don\u2019t Have to Die,\u201d and an Oscar nomination for \u201cPrisoner of Paradise,\u201d which also focused on life and death in Theresienstadt.<\/p>\n
The film\u2019s producer, Nick Reed, like Clarke, was reluctant to take on the new assignment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe asked ourselves, who is going to watch another Holocaust documentary with a really old lady? Fred Bohbot, our executive producer, Malcolm and I have really been stunned by the enthusiastic reaction to the film,\u201d Reed said.<\/p>\n
Clarke and Reed are British-born Canadians. Neither is Jewish, but as Reed put it, \u201cI am not a Jew, but I\u2019m Jewish.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked about the film\u2019s budget, Reed responded, \u201cAbout 35 cents, a bus token and bits of old chewing gum.\u201d
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\n\u201cThe Lady in Number 6\u201d will be released in some 100 theaters across the United States on Feb. 21 and subsequently in other countries<\/em>.<\/p>\n