I could never accept that I should be killed for what I happened to be born as, and decided to give the Germans a better reason for killing me.
― Anita Lasker
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch (born July 17, 1925) is a Holocaust survivor and witness in the Belsen trial who was formerly a member of the Auschwitz Women's Orchestra.
Biography[]
Anita Lasker was born in what is now Wroclaw, Poland. Her father, Alfons, was the brother of the celebrated chess player Edward Lasker.
In April 1942, Anita's parents were arrested by the Nazis for being Jewish, and are believed to have died in custody. As Anita and her sister Renate were working in a paper factory, they escaped deportation and began forging papers for French labourers to escape back to France. In September 1942, they tried to escape Germany but were arrested by the Gestapo.
Anita and Renate were sent to Auschwitz in December 1943. Anita was able to survive by becoming a cello player in the Women's Orchestra, as cello players were hard to replace. After the Red Army forced the evacuation of Auschwitz, she was transferred to Bergen-Belsen where she survived on starvation rations for six months. After the British army freed her, Anita was able to testify in the Belsen trial, leading to commandant Josef Kramer, camp doctor Fritz Klein and deputy commandant Franz Hossler being convicted over their parts in the Holocaust.
In 1946, Anita and Renate moved to Great Britain with the help of their sister Marianne. Anita married the pianist Peter Wallfisch and is mother to two children; her son is the cellist Raphael Wallfisch, and her daughter, Maya Jacobs-Wallfisch, is a psychotherapist. Wallfisch co-founded the English Chamber Orchestra (ECO), performing as both a member and as a solo artist, and toured internationally. Her grandson is the composer Benjamin Wallfisch.