Everything is a Present The Wonder Grace of Alice Sommer Herz

How many people remain in good shape, both mentally and physically, at the age of 106? The answer, of course, is very few but, as I write this on her 106th birthday, Alice Sommer Herz is among those exceptional few. And how many have the gift of forgiveness? And how many are free of hatred? Gigi Sommer has both of those qualities. I have never met anyone else with her 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 has kept intact and unblemished through her hundred and six years. 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. -- Christopher Nupen