Published: 23 February, 2014
by RICHARD OSLEY

BELSIZE Park pianist Alice Herz-Sommer, the world's oldest known Holocaust surviver, has died, relatives said this evening (Sunday).

The 110-year-old was still playing her piano regularly into her second century. In 1943, Ms Herz-Sommer and her family were taken to the Theresienstadt camp by the Nazis.

Her grandson, Ariel Sommer, said: "Alice Sommer passed away peacefully this morning with her family by her bedside. Much has been written about her, but to those of us who knew her best, she was our dear 'Gigi'. She loved us, laughed with us, and cherished music with us. She was an inspiration and our world will be significantly poorer without her by our side. We mourn her loss and ask for privacy in this very difficult moment."