See moreThe remarkable memoir of Zuzana Ruzicková, Holocaust survivor and world-famous harpsichordist.
'Extraordinary' Sunday Times
'Compelling' Daily Telegraph
Zuzana
Ruzicková grew up in 1930s Czechoslovakia dreaming of two things:
Johann Sebastian Bach and the piano. But her peaceful, melodic childhood
was torn apart when, in 1939, the Nazis invaded. Uprooted from her
home, transported from Auschwitz to Hamburg to Bergen-Belsen, bereaved,
starved, and afflicted with crippling injuries to her musician's hands,
the teenage Zuzana faced a series of devastating losses. Yet with every
truck and train ride, a small slip of paper printed with her favourite
piece of Bach's music became her talisman.
Armed with this 'proof that beauty still existed', Zuzana's fierce bravery and passion ensured her survival of the greatest human atrocities of all time, and would continue to sustain her through the brutalities of post-war Communist rule. Harnessing her talent and dedication, and fortified by the love of her husband, the Czech composer Viktor Kalabis, Zuzana went on to become one of the twentieth century's most renowned musicians and the first harpsichordist to record the entirety of Bach's keyboard works.
Zuzana's story, told here in her own words before her death in 2017, is a profound and powerful testimony of the horrors of the Holocaust, and a testament in itself to the importance of amplifying the voices of its survivors today. It is also a joyful celebration of art and resistance that defined the life of the 'first lady of the harpsichord'- a woman who spent her life being ceaselessly reborn through her music.