Now that we’ve allowed a suitable period of mourning to elapse after the unfortunate demise of some New Year’s resolutions, it’s time to look forward. The year is still a pup and the opportunities are endless. You still have time to enrol in an underwater hockey class or sign up to that diploma in aura and chakra anatomy.
I, rather rashly, began learning Japanese online last year and quickly realised that my wheelhouse of skills may not include language learning. No one mentioned that there are three different writing systems – kanji, hiragana and katakana – and it wouldn’t surprise me if a few more are introduced, just to keep us on our toes. But while I was contemplating throwing in the towel, or the tenugui as we Japanophiles like to call it, I discovered Saul Dreier. Aged 99 and three-quarters, he is proof that you are never too old to try something new. He formed a band when he was 88 and has a work schedule that would exhaust anyone half his age.
When we spoke earlier this month, he had just performed in Miami and was preparing for three concerts on the west coast the following week. That’s remarkable enough until you hear the rest of his story. A Polish-born Holocaust survivor, he lost his parents and some 25 members of his extended family in concentration camps.
He was taken to the Plaszów camp when he was 16 years old and was later moved to the Schindler factory at Zablocie where he repaired radiators for German aeroplanes.
It was here where he began to play a form of improvised music. Some of the prisoners sang and chanted traditional Jewish songs while lying in their bunks. He began beating spoons together to create a beat, and his drumming career began.
He says music kept him alive as he was sent to two Austrian concentration camps – Mauthausen and the nearby Linz camp – before being liberated in 1945. It was in a displaced persons camp in Italy where he finally got a chance to use a real drum kit but once he began his new life in the US, he put away the drum sticks for more than six decades.
He worked in construction, married his wife Clara and became a father before the family relocated to Florida in 1980. “Coming to America changed my life. The United States was the best country for me,” he says, over the phone.
Then in 2014, he read that another Holocaust survivor, renowned concert pianist Alice Herz-Sommer, had died aged 110. He decided to start the Holocaust Survivor Band to honour her, despite everyone telling him he was crazy. Ruby Sosnowicz joined him on accordion and keyboard and together they gathered a group of musicians for their first performance at a local temple. The band got a standing ovation and there was no stopping them from then on. Well, until Ruby retired, that is. As for Saul, he still soldiers on, undaunted, performing and giving talks worldwide.
A cancer survivor on top of everything else, he likes to say that death called him several times but he always said an adamant “no”.
“I am very happy when I play,” he explains. “Music is life.” And he is certainly making the most of his life. He has performed all over the US and in Canada, Poland, Germany, Israel, Brazil and Auschwitz – a camp he thought he was being sent to before he ended up in Mauthausen.
He has not made it to Ireland yet but with no immediate plans to retire, who knows what might happen? “I am very busy this year but you have to understand I am a little handicapped now,” he says, apologetically.
“I am still trying the best I can but I am getting tired. You have to understand I am not a youngster anymore.”
Indeed he is not, and he also has the small matter of a 100th birthday to celebrate in April. “I think we are having a surprise party but that is all I know,” he says.
Has he anything left on the bucket list to tick off?
“Nothing. I will keep doing what I am doing and I don’t want to change that,” he says.
So if you ever have a creeping doubt that you are too late to try something new, remember Saul Drier and his determination to wring every last drop of joy from his days.
I wondered if he had a parting message to the people of Ireland.
“Enjoy yourself and please spread my words all around,” he asks.
And who could refuse a request like that?