Today (July 17th ) Anita Lasker-Wallfisch turned 99 years old.
Anita was born in 1925 in Breslau,
Germany (today Wroclaw, Poland.)
Her Father, Alfons, was a Lawyer who
was awarded the Iron Cross during World War 1 and her Mother, Edith, was a Violinist.
Her Uncle was Edward Lasker (an
International Chess Master and the Inventor of the Mechanical Breast pump,
which saved many premature infants' lives.)
In 1939 Anita’s Parents were able
to send their Daughter, Marianne, to the UK on the Kindertransport.
In 1942 her Parents were deported
by the Nazis and murdered near Lublin, German-Occupied Poland.
In September 1942 Anita and her
Sister, Renate, tried to flee Nazi Germany for France and were arrested at the Breslau
Train Station.
Coming from a Regular German
Prison the Sisters were sent to the Auschwitz Death Camp in German-Occupied
Poland by Regular Train and not the usual Cattle Cars in December 1943 (on
different Trains.
Anita received the Tattoo Number
of 69388 on her arm upon arrival.
Anita, being a Cello Player, was
chosen for the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz (German: Mädchenorchester von
Auschwitz.)
The Orchestra played marches as
the Slave Laborers left the Camp for each day's work and when they returned.
They played for the Men, Women
and Children whom the Germans selected to be killed in the Gas Chambers.
They also gave forced Concerts
for the SS.
In October 1944 Anita was moved
to the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany where she survived 6 Months
with Starvation Rations and Disease until being liberated by the British on
April 15, 1945.
During the Belsen Trial, which
took place from September to November 1945, Anita testified against the Camp Commandant
Josef Kramer, Camp Doctor Fritz Klein, and Deputy Camp Commandant Franz
Hössler, who were all sentenced to Death and hanged that year.
In 1946 Anita and Renate moved to
the United Kingdom with the help of their Sister, Marianne.
Anita Co-Founded the English
Chamber Orchestra (ECO) in 1948.
Anita married Peter Wallfisch (a
Pianist also from Breslau, Germany who immigrated to British Palestine -Present-Day
Israel- in 1938 before immigrating to the
UK in 1951) in 1952.
They have 2 Children: her Son is
the Cellist Raphael Wallfisch, and her Daughter, Maya Jacobs-Wallfisch, is a Psychotherapist.
Peter Wallfisch died in 1993.
Since 1994 Anita has visited
German and Austrian Schools to talk about and explain her experiences during
the Holocaust.
In 1996 she published her Memoir “Inherit
the Truth.”
In 2018, she gave a Commemorative
Speech in the German Bundestag to mark the 73rd anniversary of the Liberation
of Auschwitz.
In December 2020 Lasker was
awarded the Officer’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of
Germany, which was conferred by the Federal President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Today, at 99 years old, Anita
Lasker-Wallfisch lives in London.
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