Synopsis
The pianist Alice Sommer lived up to a hundred ten years of age in London.
In this documentaryfilm Alice recalls her long life, many events of high importance of the last century appear:
World War First, The Inflation, World War Second, the Holocaust, the Liberation, Communism, Emigration, and the Construction of the State of Israel – life stations of a 20th century witness and cosmopolit.
The documentary film “From Hell to Paradise - Chopin saved me”, director Michael Teutsch discovers what made this little old lady so special, and how the spirit of music had shaped and inspired the life of Mrs. Sommer.
How the music helped her to survive the ghetto of the Terezín (Theresienstadt) and recover mentally and physically from the loss of her husband and of allmost her entire family.
The biography of Mrs. Sommer also is a story of multi culture:
Brought up near the city of Prague, Czechoslovakia, educated in German culture; thirtyseven years of life and work in Israel; for more than twenty years she lived in London;
She spoke and wrote fluently Czech, German, English, French and Hebrew.
Mrs. Sommer never had stopped to take part in life – the film treats this subject with special care.
