Czech pianist, harpsichordist and music teacher, Zuzana Ruzickova was born in 1927 in Pilsen.
She started learning the piano at the age of nine. She was considered an exceptionally gifted child with unique talent but all plans for her to study abroad were thwarted by occupation and anti-Jewish laws. Zuzana survived the Terezin ghetto, the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp and the Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps. She returned with undermined health and contused hands but continued her education with extraordinary diligence and perseverance.
From the mid-fifties, she began to establish herself throughout Europe as a performer of compositions for harpsichord, especially those by Johann Sebastian Bach. She was called the "First Lady of the Harpsichord". In 1952, she married composer, editor and musicologist Viktor Kalabis. Their marriage was happy until Kalabis' death in 2006. Zuzana Ruzickova died on 27 September 2017. In January 2019, a ceremony of unveiling a memorial plaque on today's building of the Pilsen Conservatory, in which Zuzana Ruzickova began her long artistic career, took place.
The interview was recorded on 4 February 1996 in Prague.
Rita Münzerova, née Bejkovska, was born on 16 June 1927 in Pilsen, in the family of an important local merchant, Ervin Bejkovsky.
In 1940, her father was arrested by the Gestapo for his resistance activities, was imprisoned at Bory, in the Small Fortress in Terezin and, in 1942, he was murdered in the Mauthausen concentration camp. In January 1942, Rita and her mother were deported to the Terezin ghetto, both of them lived to see the end of the war there. The remaining members of the extended family were murdered in extermination camps.
After returning to Pilsen, both women demanded the return of their family property for a long time and in a complicated way. Without success. Rita married a Pilsen Jew who fought in the British army and, after the communists came to power, they went to Israel together. Rita became a widow there, her only son died in consequence of his injuries in the Six Day War.
The interview was recorded on 4 July 1996 in Tel Aviv, Israel.