"When Ms. Ruzickova was 15, the family received what the Germans called 'an invitation' to Terezin, which the Nazis considered a model concentration camp for the cultural elite."

"Her grandparents and father died of disease there. Within six months, she and her mother were shipped to Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland, where she survived the gas chamber twice — first after lying about her age, and then when the camp’s routine was upset by the Allied invasion on D-Day. She and her mother were then transferred to bomb-ravaged Hamburg, where she repaired oil pipelines, worked in a cement factory and dug tank traps. Early in 1945 they were shipped again, this time to Bergen-Belsen, a German concentration camp, where tens of thousands died from malnutrition and disease. She weighed 70 pounds and had malaria when the camp was liberated that April. With her hands badly damaged during the war, Ms. Ruzickova practiced 12 hours a day to catch up after it was over. She attended the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague from 1947 to 1951, when she gave her first harpsichord recital."

From "Zuzana Ruzickova, Leading Harpsichordist and War Survivor, Dies at 90" (NYT).