Musician. She was director of the Women's Orchestra at Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi death camp, and helped save the lives of over 40 mostly Jewish musicians during World War II. Born into an assimilated Jewish family with the original surnamed of Rosenblum, she was predestined for a musical career as she was the daughter of Arnold Rosé, longtime Concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic and State Opera orchestras, and founder of the world-famous Rosé String Quartet, and her uncle was composer-conductor Gustav Mahler. In 1926 she made her debut as a violinist in Bach's Double Concerto in D minor, accompanied by her father. From 1930 to 1935 she was married to Czech violinist Vasa Prihoda. She received recognition as founder of "The Waltzing Girls of Vienna", a female classical pops orchestra, which she led as conductor-soloist in concert tours throughout Europe. They disbanded when Nazi Germany annexed Austria in 1938. At first, she and her father escaped to London, avoiding the Nazi Forces with their antisemitic agenda. For financial reasons, they returned to the Netherlands but with the invasion of Nazi Forces in May of 1940, they became trapped. She attempted to escape to France via underground routes but in Switzerland, she was betrayed to the Gestapo and was interned at Drancy Internment Camp for Jews near Paris. On July 18, 1943 she was deported inhumanly in packed cattle railroad cars to the Auschwitz II women's camp at Birkenau in Poland. She was originally held in the dreaded Block 10, the medical experiments unit. After being recognized as a famous violinist, she was made a Kapo, a prisoner assigned to supervise, and put in charge of the Women's Orchestra. The orchestra would perform at the main gate for prisoners marching to and from work, giving weekend concerts, and supplying background music for certain SS functions. Except for a few, the orchestra, which was eventually expanded to 45 members, was a collection of amateur musicians. The musicians living conditions improved considerably. They were exempted from manual labor, given better food rations and even medical treatment. Her strict discipline resulted in a rapid and dramatic improvement in the orchestra's quality, thus securing the musicians' lives. During the ten months as conductor, none of her musicians were gassed or died from other causes, which is an almost miraculous feat in that hellish environment. All but two of her musicians lived to see the end of the war, yet she did not. Her final concert was at a private SS party on April 2, 1944. She became ill after attending a birthday party for a fellow prisoner, dying two days later from dehydration of food poisoning. The Women's Orchestra continued to receive relatively preferential treatment until September of 1944, when they were evacuated to the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany. She was portrayed as an arrogant, abusive control freak who befriended the SS guards to gain personal privileges in Fania Fenelon's 1975 autobiographical novel "The Musicians of Auschwitz". The book was adapted by Arthur Miller into the 1980 CBS made-for-television movie, "Playing for Time," which received five Primetime Emmy Awards, the Peabody Award for Excellence to CBS, and nominated for Best Television Film for a Golden Globe Award. Other Auschwitz survivors publicly disagreed with Fenelon's assessments. It was not until the publication of Richard Newman's 2000 biography "Alma Rosé: Vienna to Auschwitz" that further light was shed on the complex story of this enigmatic woman. She was buried at Auschwitz but has a cenotaph in Friedhof Grinzing in Vienna.