She Played The Accordion

 For Yvette Maria Assael-Lennon of Plainview, music and the learning and teaching of it was not only a lifelong passion, but it also literally saved her from certain death in the horror of Auschwitz.

 

She Appeared In The Movie  'Shoah'

Parts of her experiences have been depicted in at least one book and on screen in several cinematic and television productions including "Playing for Time," Steven Spielberg's "Shoah," and HBO's "Bach in Auschwitz," which detailed the plight of the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz, Clores said.
 

Nazi Were Sick Of The Accordion And Decided To Gas Her

Assael-Lennon became a candidate for extermination when the orchestra no longer needed an accordionist, Clores said. Assael-Lennon was 15 at the time, and played accordion and piano.

Her sister, Lily Assael, also a musician in the 40-member orchestra, convinced Nazi authorities that Yvette Assael could play double bass, a massive instrument for the petite adolescent who had only an elementary grasp of the largest of string instruments.
 

She Played As Her Own Parents Walked To The Gas Chambers

She was forced to play in a women's orchestra as her own parents were marched into a gas chamber, said Assael-Lennon's daughter, Peggy Clores, of Huntington.

 

She Becomes A Cabaret Singer

Clores said Assael-Lennon's life was saved, literally through the might of the Allied forces who vanquished the Nazis, but figuratively by James Lennon, an Irishman who fought in the British Army and helped resettle Greek Jews like Assael-Lennon into their hometown of Salonika, Greece.

There, in 1946 after the war, Lennon, the soldier on assignment, met Yvette Assael as she performed in a local nightclub for the Allied soldiers.

The couple married in Salonika in 1947.  

Her Sister Played The Tuba

Her sister, Lily Assael, also a musician in the 40-member orchestra, played the tuba.