Years have gone by so quickly. I remember my first recital in Copenhagen, Denmark. I was thirteen years old. The door to the stage opened and with such confidence I walked toward the piano. The feeling was indescribable. The minute I started playing the beautiful Grand Polonaise brillante By F. Chopin, I did not feel like a refugee child anymore, I felt like a survivor of the harrowing WW ll that had destroyed Europe, I felt like climbing a mountain; on the other side I will find my new home and peace. It was a windy night, it had snowed for many hours. I felt cold again, as I had been so many times during the plight to freedom. At that moment a very particular night in Germany came to my mind. The night before we had to leave the refugee camp. I was permitted to practice the piano on the loft of a military hospital, it was always empty and cold. I must have played for many hours and not noticed that the sun had gone down, yet I did not want to leave, I did not want to go back to the barracks, nobody was waiting for me, nobody wanted me, I was hungry, there was no food. It was getting darker by the minute, I had to leave the loft, and slowly went toward the door. At the door sat a lone soldier on a chair, the floor boards creaked and seemed a bit uneven, I tripped trying to reach the door. The soldier must have listened to my playing. It was dark, very dark by now, I was not afraid, I could never afford to be afraid, I had to survive. As I came closer to the door, the soldier was not sitting on the chair now, he was lying lifeless on the floor. There was a small window near the piano, I went back to look at the star-lit night. Somewhere a child would be looking at the stars and wishing that her father would come home. It was one of the many sad things I had seen, I couldn’t even cry anymore, I had no tears left. Many, many years have passed since that day and many like them, yet the scars are there for ever and ever. Today was another performance, far away, so very far away from the one on the loft. There have been many performances between then and now, the feelings have been as different as the flowers in my garden. Today I felt like having joined on a pilgrimage. The audience was sitting in their wheelchairs, some crying, some watching the rays of the setting sun through the enormous windows, some trying to sing along in the tune they could manage. The afternoon was so peaceful and heavenly, like a pilgrimage to peace and harmony. The music echoed through the enormous building,soothing and reaching out to all with its healing power.
