My father, Otto Grunfeld, who has died aged 90, was a survivor of the Holocaust, in which his entire family were killed. Born in rural Czechoslovakia, where his parents, Moritz and Hilda (nee Lobovics), had a smallholding and soda factory, he was the younger of two sons. His older brother, Paul, was a great influence on him: Paul played the violin and Otto began the piano.

As the Nazis’ influence grew, the parents tried in vain to send their two children to Israel, and then in 1942 came the forced movement of Jews from Prague to Theresienstadt ghetto. Otto worked in the bakery and Paul in the gardens, smuggling food to others. The brothers heard there of the murder of their parents, and Otto suffered a severe mental collapse.

In 1944 the brothers were transported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Paul was directed one way and Otto instinctively followed. Paul, with dark hair and wearing glasses, was being sent straight to the gas chambers. A guard screamed at the blond, blue-eyed Otto to go the other way. He was transported to Kaufering, where he was put on a night shift, carrying sacks of cement from trains for the construction of underground bunkers in which aeroplanes were built. No one, in their extremely weakened condition, was expected to survive more than one shift of this crippling work. Otto’s life was probably saved by the failure of a train to arrive on his second night, after an allied bombing raid.

As American troops were close, the Nazis hurried to clear evidence of their activities and Otto, aged 19, had to carry dying victims of typhoid and the dead, whose bodies were piled up in sheds.

After the liberation, Otto came to Britain and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. Here he met Rosemary, who was studying the piano, and they married in 1958. Otto gave concerts in Oxford and London, at venues including the Wigmore Hall, but he found public recitals a strain and he did not enjoy the limelight. He went on to work as an examiner for the Associated Board, and also taught the piano.

His passion was Bach, whose works he analysed and practised endlessly. Otto stopped playing a year or two before he died, but nearly every night he listened to his first and greatest love, Beethoven – usually the chamber works.

Otto also practised woodwork and wrote, recording his war experiences as part of his extensive involvement in counselling and self-development. Never bitter, he nevertheless felt a sense of unworthiness about his own survival after the loss of his brother.

He is survived by Rosemary; five children – Nicholas, Theresa, Sebastian, Ambrose and me; and four grandchildren.