Anita Lasker-Wallfisch

Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was born to an assimilated German Jewish family in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland), one of three musical sisters. Her mother was a violinist. Her father, a lawyer, had fought in the German Army in World War I and won the Iron Cross, but this gave the family no immunity from Nazi persecution. Her eldest sister Marianne, fled to England in 1941. In 1942, when Anita was 16 years old, her parents were deported to the East and are believed to have died at Isbica, near Lublin, Poland. She and her sister Renate were not deported as they had been conscripted to work in a paper factory. There they met French prisoners of war, and began forging papers to enable French forced laborers to cross back into France. In September 1942, the sister themselves tried to escape to France, but were arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz. Anita played the cello in the camp's 40-piece orchestra, which played marches as the prisoners left the camp each day for forced labor and when they returned; it also gave concerts for the SS. In 1944, as the Red Army approached, Auschwitz was evacuated by the SS and Anita and others were sent to Bergen-Belsen. She survived there and was liberated in 1945 by the British. Renate, who also survived and could speak English, became an interpreter with the British Army. Anita testified at war crimes trials against the camp commandant and his top officials. In 1946, she and her sister emigrated to the UK. She became a professional musician and co-founded the English Chamber Orchestra, performing both as a member and as a solo artist. In 1952, she married Peter Wallfisch, a concert pianist, with whom she had two children. In 1996 she published her memoir Inherit the Truth.