Anita Lasker-Wallfisch

Survivors of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp eloquently and movingly tell of their experiences of deportation, family destruction, and their own survival, together with the history of its place in the Nazi death camp system and its liberation by the British army in April 1945.

The struggles of the world’s Jewish people over the course of several centuries are expressed and explored through the music they inspired in this documentary from the BBC and Opus Arte. We Want the Light brings together harrowing tales from Holocaust survivors with performances of music by such legendary composers as Mahler, Bach, Mendelssohn, and Brahms. Interviews with: Alice Sommer Herz, Jacques Stroumsa, Evgeny Kissin, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Zubin Mehta, Itzhak Perlman, Pinchas Zukerman, Toby Perlman, Michael Haas, Elyakim Ha’etzni, Norman Lebrecht, Margaret Brearley, Paul Lawrence Rose, Daniel Barenboim, Yirmiyahu Yovel, Uri Toeplitz & Anita Lasker-Wallfisch. Featuring: Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Cologne Cathedral Children’s Choir & Cologne Opera Chorus.

While Hans Jurgen Höss enjoyed a happy childhood in the family villa at Auschwitz, Jewish prisoner Anita Lasker-Wallfisch was trying to survive the notorious concentration camp. At the heart of this film is the historic and inspiring moment – eight decades later – when the two come face-to-face. This is the first time the descendant of a major war criminal meets a survivor in such a private and intimate setting, Anita’s London living room. Together with their children, Kai Höss and Maya Lasker-Wallfisch, the four protagonists explore their very different hereditary burdens.

Music is not "just" music. It can have immense power in good or evil. This documentary by Maria Stodtmeier and Isa Willinger highlights interesting and very current themes about the links between music and politics.

Actor Warwick Davis presents the story of the Owicz family and their ordeal during WWII. From a successful musical act to being tortuously experimented on by Josef Mengele in a concentration camp, this story might have been lost to history if it weren't for the family's diminutive size, which made them both a novelty as well as an inspiration.

The story of Alice Herz-Sommer, a German-speaking Jewish pianist from Prague who was, at her death, the world's oldest Holocaust survivor. She discusses the importance of music, laughter, and how to have an optimistic outlook on life.

Yo-Yo Ma narrates a documentary about the remarkable cellist Jacqueline du Pré, whose life and career were cut short by multiple sclerosis.

The stories of Jewish cellist Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who survived Auschwitz, and of star conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, who worked with the Nazis, provide insight. The film centers around two people who represent musical culture during the Third Reich - albeit in very different ways. Wilhelm Furtwängler was a star conductor; Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, the cellist of the infamous Women’s Orchestra of Auschwitz. Both shared a love for the classical German music.

Documentary compiling the testimonies of the last remaining Holocaust survivors living in Britain, all of whom were children at the time, and following them over the course of a year as they embark upon personal and profound journeys.

Tells the extraordinary story of Anita Lasker-Wallfisch who, along with other victims of Auschwitz, played and created music amidst the terrors of the Holocaust.

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