Sarah Bosmans-Benedicts

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Sara Bosmans-Benedicts (1861–1949) was a Dutch pianist and teacher. She was born in Amsterdam to Jewish parents; her father, Benedictus Benedicts, was a violinist. She studied piano with James Kwast. In 1886 she married Henri Bosmans, the principal cellist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Their daughter, composer Henriëtte Bosmans, was born in 1895, six months before Sara’s death. After being widowed, she taught at the Conservatoire of Amsterdam, and among her students were Jaap Spaanderman and her daughter Henriëtte. During World War II, her sister Esther was killed at Auschwitz, and her nephew and his wife and daughter were killed at Sobibor. In 1944 the Nazis arrested and deported her, but her daughter and others intervened to prevent further detention, and she spent the rest of the war in Amsterdam with her daughter. She died in 1949 and is buried at Zorgvlied Cemetery in Amsterdam.