The Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet troops on 27 January 1945. Anita Lasker, a Jewish teenager, managed to survive there simply because the camp orchestra needed a cello player. Now aged 99, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch is the last remaining survivor of the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz.
At the age of 19, she was interviewed by the BBC on 15 April 1945, the day of the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen death camp where she had been transferred six months earlier. Interviewed in German, the language she grew up speaking, she said: "First, I would like to say a few words about Auschwitz. The few who have survived are afraid that the world will not believe what happened there.
" Warning: This article contains graphic details of the Holocaust She continued: "A doctor and a commander stood on the ramp when the transports arrived, and sorting was done right before our eyes. This means they asked for the age and health condition of the new arrivals. The unsuspecting newcomers tended to report any ailments, thereby signing their death sentences.
They particularly targeted children and the elderly. Right, left, right, left. To the right was life; to the left, the chimney.
" When she first arrived at the Auschwitz unloading platform known as the ramp, her casual comment that she played the cello was enough to change the direction of her life. "Music was played to accompany the most terrible things," she said. The then Anita Lasker barely spoke German in publ.
