| Biography | Anita Lasker-Wallfisch (born 17 July 1925, Breslau, Germany) is a world-renowned cellist, and a surviving member of the Women's Orchestra in Auschwitz.
Lasker was born into a professional Jewish family, one of three sisters (Marianne and Renate). Her father was a lawyer; her mother a violinist. They suffered discrimination from 1933, but as their father had fought at the front in World War I, gaining an Iron Cross, the family felt some degree of immunity from Nazi persecution.
During the Belsen Trial which took place from September to November 1945 Anita testified against among others the camp commandant Josef Kramer, camp doctor Fritz Klein and deputy camp commandant Franz Hössler who were all sentenced to death and hanged that year.
In 1946 Anita and her sister Renata moved to Britain with the help of their elder sister Marianne. Anita cofounded and joined the English Chamber Orchestra, performing as both a member and as a solo artist. She toured internationally but only returned to Germany with the ECO in 1994. She is mother to two children, Raphael Wallfisch, a cellist (born 1953) and daughter Maya Jacobs-Wallfisch who is a psychotherapist.
In 1996 she published her memoir Inherit the Truth. As a witness and victim of the Nazi period, she visits many schools to tell her story and explain her experience. On this note, she promotes the work for the New Kreisau, in Poland, as well as the work of the Freya von Moltke foundation and the Kreisau Circles legacy. In 2011 Anita Lasker-Wallfisch received an Honorary degree as Doctor of Divinity from Cambridge University. |