‘Every day in life is beautiful’

‘Music is in the first place of art. It brings us on an island with peace, beauty and love. Music is a dream!’

These are the words of Alice Herz Sommer, whose story is told in The Lady in No.6, and whose death was announced today. At the age of 110, she still played the piano every day, from memory, as she had throughout her life, including the two years she spent with her small son in Theresienstadt concentration camp. In the film, she says, ‘I knew that we will play; and I was thinking, when we can play, it can’t be so terrible. I felt that this is the only thing which helps me to have hope.’

Everything that need be said, Alice Herz Sommer says in the film. There’s more joy and truth in this short trailer than in whole libraries of reports about the value of the art, and the film itself is a treasure. It’s worth a few minutes of anybody’s time.

Alice Herz Sommer

Born Prague, 26 November 1903

Died London. 23 February 2014

‘Every day in life is beautiful, every day that we are here, that we can speak about everything. It’s beautiful.’