Pianist Alice Herz-Sommer, who passed away a week ago at age 110, was the world's oldest Holocaust survivor. Malcolm Clarke's film about her, The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life, won an Oscar for Best Documentary Short at the Academy Awards on Sunday night.
When Herz-Sommer and her young son were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp during World War II, she began playing with the prison camp orchestra. She gave more than 100 concerts during the years she was there. She and her son survived because the music-loving German officers who ran the camp enjoyed hearing her play.
The film describes her wartime experiences, but director Clarke ultimately decided to focus more on the person Herz-Sommer became after she was freed from the camp.
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