The daughter of a distinguished lawyer, Lasker-Wallfisch opens her memoir with chatty family letters and her father\u2019s painful, futile efforts to arrange emigration from Germany in the 1930s. As the persecution of Jews grew, her parents were deported in 1942; her grandmother was also taken away. \u201cThe destination was unknown; they were never heard of again,\u201d the late British historian Martin Gilbert writes in the book\u2019s preface. Still adolescents, Lasker-Wallfisch and her sister, Renate, planned to escape by train to France but were arrested. Released from prison in 1943, the author was sent to Auschwitz, where she escaped the ovens by knowing how to play a musical instrument. \u201cI would like to remind whoever may read this that I had not seen, let alone touched, a cello for nearly two years at the moment I am describing,\u201d she writes. \u201cI seem to remember that I played\u2014or tried to play\u2014the slow movement of the Boccherini Concerto. When I had finished, I sat down and joined the camp orchestra. There was no real danger of my not passing the audition, for up to the moment of my arrival the orchestra had not had a single bass instrument.\u201d In 1944, as the Red Army neared, she was transferred to Bergen-Belsen. \u201cHere people were starving,\u201d she writes. \u201cHere was typhus. Here was dirt, lice, no hygiene, no ambulance, no medicines. For fourteen days we stayed without bread. Rations were beets with water without salt.\u201d Liberation arrived in 1945\u2014\u201cthe liberation we had hoped for for three years.\u201d Initially denied entry to Britain, Lasker-Wallfisch eventually succeeded. She went on to enjoy a long, successful career in music. \u201cI have never regretted for one moment that I came to England to start my new life,\u201d she writes. \u201cI have made my home here, and I have a great deal to be thankful for.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The daughter of a distinguished lawyer, Lasker-Wallfisch opens her memoir with chatty family letters and her father\u2019s painful, futile efforts to arrange emigration from Germany in the 1930s. As the persecution of Jews grew, her parents were deported in 1942; her grandmother was also taken away. \u201cThe destination was unknown; they were never heard of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7136"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}