Alice Sommer Herz: Everything is a Present
How many have the gift of forgiveness? And how many are free of hatred? Alice Sommer Herz had both of those qualities with an extraordinary depth of perception and natural wisdom. She was imprisoned, with her six-year-old son, in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and saw unspeakable atrocities. She lost both her mother and her husband in Nazi death camps but she does not hate her persecutors. That is not because they are anything other than monstrous criminals but because she has the wisdom to know that all hatred hurts the soul of the hater, not the hated and Gigi Sommer's inspiring soul is among the things which she kept intact and unblemished through her hundred and ten years on Earth.
She was a pianist of distinction, played more than 100 concerts in the Theresienstadt camp and is in no doubt that music saved both her sanity and her life and the lives of many others in those unimaginable circumstances. She elaborates on this theme in the film.
Ask her what has made her happy and she says, "Love, nature and music, which is the most beautiful thing coming out of mankind. This is my religion”. And ask her what she has learned in her long life and she says, "To recognise the difference between what is important and what is not important” and “to be grateful for everything, because life is beautiful and everything is a present."
How many have the gift of forgiveness? And how many are free of hatred? Alice Sommer Herz had both of those qualities with an extraordinary depth of perception and natural wisdom. She was imprisoned, with her six-year-old son, in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and saw unspeakable atrocities. She lost both her mother and her husband in Nazi death camps but she does not hate her persecutors. That is not because they are anything other than monstrous criminals but because she has the wisdom to know that all hatred hurts the soul of the hater, not the hated and Gigi Sommer's inspiring soul is among the things which she kept intact and unblemished through her hundred and ten years on Earth.
She was a pianist of distinction, played more than 100 concerts in the Theresienstadt camp and is in no doubt that music saved both her sanity and her life and the lives of many others in those unimaginable circumstances. She elaborates on this theme in the film.
Ask her what has made her happy and she says, "Love, nature and music, which is the most beautiful thing coming out of mankind. This is my religion”. And ask her what she has learned in her long life and she says, "To recognise the difference between what is important and what is not important” and “to be grateful for everything, because life is beautiful and everything is a present."
How many have the gift of forgiveness? And how many are free of hatred? Alice Sommer Herz had both of those qualities with an extraordinary depth of perception and natural wisdom. She was imprisoned, with her six-year-old son, in the Theresienstadt concentration camp and saw unspeakable atrocities. She lost both her mother and her husband in Nazi death camps but she does not hate her persecutors. That is not because they are anything other than monstrous criminals but because she has the wisdom to know that all hatred hurts the soul of the hater, not the hated and Gigi Sommer's inspiring soul is among the things which she kept intact and unblemished through her hundred and ten years on Earth.
She was a pianist of distinction, played more than 100 concerts in the Theresienstadt camp and is in no doubt that music saved both her sanity and her life and the lives of many others in those unimaginable circumstances. She elaborates on this theme in the film.
Ask her what has made her happy and she says, "Love, nature and music, which is the most beautiful thing coming out of mankind. This is my religion”. And ask her what she has learned in her long life and she says, "To recognise the difference between what is important and what is not important” and “to be grateful for everything, because life is beautiful and everything is a present."
