Alice Herz-Sommer

Alice Herz-Sommer was born in 1903 in Prague

Alice Herz was born in Prague in 1903 to Friedrich and Sofie Herz, in an assimilated German-speaking Jewish family. She had a twin sister, Mariana. As a child she met writers such as Franz Kafka at her parents' home.

Her older sister Irma taught her piano, and Artur Schnabel encouraged her to become a musician. She studied with Václav Štěpán and at the German Academy of Music in Prague. She married Leopold Sommer in 1931, and their son Stephan, later Raphael, was born in 1937.

She stayed in Prague to care for her ill mother, who was later murdered in a camp. In 1943 she was sent to Theresienstadt with her husband and son, and she played in concerts there. Her husband died in Dachau, and she and her son survived.

After the war she returned to Prague and in 1949 moved to Israel, where she taught music at the Jerusalem Academy of Music. In 1986 she moved to London. She died there in 2014, and the film The Lady in Number 6 about her life won an Academy Award.