Playing cello saved my life in Nazi death camp
A TALENTED musician, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was sent by her parents to Berlin at the age of 12 to continue her cello lessons with the only remaining Jewish teacher in the city.
Following Kristallnacht in 1938, when Nazis torched Jewish homes and businesses, she was forced to leave and conscripted to a paper factory.
In 1942 her parents – a lawyer and a violinist – were murdered in Izbica, a Nazi ghetto in occupied Poland. Defiant Anita continued to work in the factory and began forging paperwork for French prisoners of war.
She realised the Nazis had been watching her, so forged papers for herself and attempted to escape – but she was quickly caught and imprisoned.
She later said: ‘I could never accept that I should be killed for what I happened to be born as, and decided to give the Germans a better reason for killing me.’
After a year, Anita was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where her life was saved after they realised her musical talent.
She joined the camp band – known as the Auschwitz Girls Orchestra – who played by the gates as prisoners left for work. Their music could also be heard by new arrivals taken to the gas chamber – it was believed it would calm the prisoners and stop them panicking. Sickeningly, the orchestra was also expected to play whenever a member of the SS wanted music. Apparently cello players were particularly difficult to replace.
At 19, she was sent to Bergen-Belsen and was eventually liberated in 1945 by British troops.
Mrs Lasker-Wallfisch, now 96, settled in the UK, married pianist Peter Wallfisch and achieved fame as co-founder and member of the English Chamber Orchestra. The mother of two, who was awarded an MBE, was painted by Peter Kuhfeld.