Auschwitz orchestra survivor speaks of Holocaust ordeal
Trudy Gold, executive director of education and Holocaust studies at the London Jewish Cultural Centre, with Maya Jacobs-Wallfisch and Anita Lasker Wallfisch. Picture: Polly Hancock - Credit: Polly Hancock
A surviving member of the Women’s Orchestra in Auschwitz shared her experience in the concentration camp as a gifted cellist.
Imprisoned with her sister in the camp in 1943, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch told an audience at the London Jewish Cultural Centre (LJCC) of her time in the 40-piece orchestra that played marches as other prisoners left the camp every day to carry out forced labour.
During her time in the camp she had to use her musical talent in private concerts for SS officers, an ordeal that is thought to have saved her from being one of the 1.1million murdered there.
The orchestra was created under the instruction of the SS.
During the final stages of the Holocaust the group had to play while Jewish prisoners were sent to the gas chambers to put their minds at rest.
Anita, 88, discussed her traumatic experiences and the effect it has had on her relationships alongside her daughter, Maya Jacobs-Wallfisch, at the LJCC in North End Road, Golders Green, last Thursday.
Maya, a psychotherapist, specialises in helping those affected by the Holocaust and spoke of its importance and the impact it has had on their lives.
Most Read
- 1 Police called to 'youth with knife trying to climb school gates'
- 2 Unarmed man shot by police during prison break was ‘lawfully killed’
- 3 Covid: North London hospital admissions rising amid national surge
- 4 Alexandra Palace: 2 hospitalised in Red Bull's Soapbox Race
- 5 Jailed: 9 north London offenders put behind bars in June
- 6 Elvis Presley songwriter and former Ham&High columnist dies aged 82
- 7 Night-time fishing suspended at Vale of Health following 'antisocial behaviour'
- 8 Father's fear autistic son will 'dive through' window of unsafe West Hampstead home
- 9 'Hostility for LGBT+ people': Mike Freer resigns from Boris Johnson's government
- 10 George Michael’s Highgate piano sells for £200,000
Audience members found it an intimate and personal evening that was said to have “brought mother and daughter even closer together”.
