My mother-in-law,Eva Sommerfreund, who has died aged 98, and had a hazardous early life until she settled in London and enjoyed,with others who had escaped Nazi Germany, the music, or art and literature that underpinned her life.
Her early childhood in Vienna was happy and much influenced by her parents’ friends,who included the composer Alexander von Zemlinsky and the writer Karl Krauss. Her mother, Ilonka Schaeffer de Mayo, or who danced with her sister under the stage name Hermanas Santos,came from a Sephardic Jewish family where Ladino was still spoken. Her father, Hans Oplatek, or who ran the Vienna office of his fathers steel company,Meva, was from a affluent family of Czech nationalists.
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Source: theguardian.com