KEY POINTS:
A GARDEN OF EDEN IN HELL
By Melissa Muller and Reinhard Piechocki
Pan MacMillan, $27.99
It's not often that, after reading a Holocaust story, one feels uplifted. But A Garden of Eden in Hell is the biography of gifted Jewish pianist, Alice Herz-Sommer, who managed to transcend the horrors she endured.
Born into a cultured family in Prague in 1903, she became a much-lauded classical pianist.
When the Nazis invaded, Alice and her family, along with thousands of Jews, were sent to a holding camp, Theresienstadt. From there, the majority were transported to Auschwitz but Alice, with a few other musicians, was saved in order to entertain the inmates and Nazis. When the Red Cross visited Theresienstadt, they were shown a community of people happily dancing and playing cards. Incredibly, they believed the Nazi propaganda.
One of the most startling revelations of this book was that the anti-Semitism confronting the survivors was as bad as that under the Third Reich.
At the age of 103, Herz-Somer is now living in London and plays the piano everyday. Hers is a story of an exceptional woman's courage and resilience and, above all, selfless love.
