One hundred miracles: a memoir of music and survival

Zuzana RÛuzicková grew up in 1930s Czechoslovakia dreaming of two things: Johann Sebastian Bach and the piano.

But her peaceful, melodic childhood was torn apart when, in 1938, the Nazis invaded.

Uprooted from her home, transported from Auschwitz to Hamburg to Bergen-Belsen, bereaved, starved, and afflicted with crippling injuries to her musician's hands, the teenage Zuzana faced a series of devastating defeats.

Yet with every truck and train ride, a small slip of paper printed with her favourite piece of Bach's music became her talisman.

Armed with this 'proof that beauty still existed', Zuzana's fierce bravery and passion ensured her survival of the greatest human atrocities of all time, and would continue to sustain her through the brutalities of post-war Communist rule.