Holocaust Survivor, 97, to Play Lincoln Center

A musician makes her solo debut in a Lincoln Center concert next week, but it's a safe bet you've never heard of her. As Vulture explains, the musician is 97-year-old Emily Kessler, a Holocaust survivor who now lives in New York City. Kessler usually plays in front of seniors in community homes, but the Ukraine native will strum her mandolin at the home of the New York Philharmonic and sing folk songs as part of a fundraiser for fellow Holocaust survivors. As a teenage widow, she managed to evade the Nazis with two young children in tow thanks in part to the help of strangers. But she watched her parents and her brother get shot.

“It makes you forget the bitterness of the life, the unfairness, and the cruelty of everything,” Kessler says of her pastime. “Music is not cruel. It’s always peace and love.” (More uplifting news stories.)