Zdenka Fantlova
Michael Berkeley's guest is Czech-born former actress Zdenka Fantlova, who talks about her wartime experiences and how her love of music has enriched her life.
Michael Berkeley's guest on Remembrance Sunday is the Czech-born former actress Zdenka Fantlova, a survivor of several infamous Nazi concentration camps including Terezin, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, in which she lost all other members of her family. Now in her 80s, she talks movingly about her experiences in Terezin, where she was among a vibrant community of artists, writers, actors, musicians and composers, who were encouraged by Nazi propagandists to exercise their creativity in performances and artistic events. She recalls standing next to the great Czech conductor Karel Ancerl as they worked in the camp kitchens, and happily discussing music by Dvorak and Smetana. Later, after the community was deported to Auschwitz, where many of them died, she was behind Ancerl in the selection queue, and saw his wife and their baby son being sent to the 'left' - the gas chambers -, while she and Ancerl were among the luckier deportees who went to the right and had a chance to survive. She also tells how her knowledge of English (picked up from hit songs of the time like 'You Are My Lucky Star') literally saved her life when, on the point of death in Bergen-Belsen, she was able to persuade a British soldier to get her out of the barracks and to hospital in the nick of time. One of the most striking aspects of her character is her amazing will to survive, and she resolutely refuses to see herself as a victim.As she tells Michael, although her terrible experiences were man-made, rather than a natural disaster, she believes that they nevertheless enriched her life.
Her music choices include works by Czech composers Dvorak, Smetana and her fellow Terezin inmate Gideon Klein, as well as a Chopin study, a Mozart symphony and her father's favourite, Strauss's Radetzky March.
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Music Played
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Anton铆n Dvo艡谩k
Symphony No. 9 in E minor (From the New World) (1st movement)
Performers: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Karel Ancerl
- SUPRAPHON 11.
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Fr茅d茅ric Chopin - Study in C minor, Op 25 No 12
Performers: Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano)
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Gideon Klein
String Trio (1944) (2nd movement, Adagio)
Performers: Daniel Hope (violin), Philip Dukes (viola) and Paul Watkins (cello)
- NIMBUS NI 5702.
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Nacio Herb Brown
You are My Lucky Star
Performers: Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds
- PREMIER SOUNDTRACKS CD ODEON 9.
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Bedrich Smetana
The Bartered Bride (Overture)
Orchestra: Pro Arte Orchestra. Conductor: Charles Mackerras.Performers: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra/Zdenek Kosler
- SUPRAPHON 90C37-7309.
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Johann Strauss II - Radetzky March
Performers: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra /Nikolaus Harnoncourt
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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Symphony No. 40 in G minor (first movement, Molto allegro)
Performers: New York Philharmonic Orchestra/Bruno Walter
- PALLADIO PD 4198.
Broadcast
- Sun 14 Nov 2010 12:00大象传媒 Radio 3
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