Background
Natalia Karp was born in Krakow, Poland, and began learning piano at the age of four. At the age of thirteen she moved to Berlin, and by eighteen she made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic. However, she returned to Poland almost immediately due to the death of her mother, and married lawyer Julius Hubler, who disapproved of her performing.
Career
She chose to play Chopin"s Nocturne in C-sharp minor, and would in later years be known for her interpretations of his pieces. Her grandson, Mark Lowen, a British Broadcasting Corporation journalist (and current British Broadcasting Corporation Turkey Correspondent), wrote her story in 2011. He talks of Natalia and ties the story to Jamila Kolonomos of Republic of Macedonia, which lost 98% of its Jewish population.
Jamila also survived the war by hiding and then joining Tito"s partisan resistance.
18 of her relatives were murdered. After claiming political asylum in London, she went on to give birth to two daughters.
Upon dropping the "f" from her professional name, Karp went on to perform with the Krakow Philharmonic, performed for Oskar Schindler who saved many of the Jews in the Krakow-Płaszów concentration camp, made nine tours of Germany, and continued to perform into her nineties. She would often play with a pink handkerchief on the piano, a handkerchief that she had bought shortly after the war as a symbol of the femininity she felt she had lost during her time in the concentration camps.