The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life

On February 24th, Alice Herz-Sommer died. She was 110 years old and the oldest known Holocaust survivor. She was also an accomplished musician, who was still playing music daily at 109 years of age. She outlived her husband, her friends, and even her own beloved son and she endured and survived one of the most horrific acts of genocide this world has ever seen. I was introduced to Alice like many cineastes by the documentary The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life. Her story is extraordinary and her attitude to life is even more so. The film details her life from youth through the Holocaust and beyond.

I saw this film at a local showing of the Academy Award Short Documentary Nominees a few weeks ago and it has been rolling around in my mind for most of that time. It is by no means a complicated documentary in terms of style. A nameless narrator shares the details of key portions of Alice’s life, while we are shown archival photos documenting those events. These narrative moments are intercut with interview sessions with Alice in her apartment. Here the questions are silent and we are just allowed to hear Alice talk about her life and life in general.

And while to be sure the events of Alice’s life are remarkable and her tale would be worth being shared on that merit alone, what truly drew me in was the personality of Alice. She is good humored. She wants and ensures music is in her life. She has looked evil in the face and survived but rather than becoming jaded or distant, she maintains a surprising (to me) exuberance. This can be witnessed by her continued commitment to music, her frequent visitations by fellow Holocaust survivors and friends and even in her very voice and manner.

I can be very jaded. In fact my gut initial reaction upon seeing Alice’s story was fairly misanthropic. I thought, damn we as human beings suck. I mean really and truly we are terrible. Sure this incredibly enduring woman survived and maintained her joie de vivre, but that speaks both to how terrible we are and how resilient she is. But I started to think about the subtitle of this file: Music saved My Life. This is true for Alice because her status as a talented musician resulted in her being sent to a concentration camp that the Nazis used for propaganda. She would have to perform music and look happy and the Nazis could film this and show the world that the Jews were being treated just fine.

But music didn’t just save Alice’s life. Truth be told music can save anyone’s life. That may sound trite or silly. I’ve had dark moments where I put on some music and let it all go. And we all escape from the daily horribleness that is modern life by escaping to music, or film, or art in general. And to me, art might be the one redeeming factor of humanity. I mean we do suck. We are truly terrible collectively.

We murder, we steal, we lie, we abuse, we wage war. Yet we create, not always collectively but we share those creations collectively. Music saved Alice’s life both literally and metaphorically. Music can save your life or my life. Art endures. If every day we see in the paper (or in our online internet feed, you get my point) all the horrible things we are capable of, then every day we should escape that by exposing ourselves to art. Listen to music, enjoy a film, attend an art museum. That is what I ultimately take away from Alice’s life and the film. That makes it worth watching. That it reminds me that in the end there are elements of humanity that are worth our investment in life. To me that makes The Lady in Number 6: Music Saved My Life art and that makes it worth viewing.