Clara Schumann Wieck learned to compose, and from childhood to middle age she produced a good body of work. Clara wrote that "composing gives me great pleasure... there is nothing that surpasses the joy of creation, if only because through it one wins hours of self-forgetfulness, when one lives in a world of sound". At age fourteen she wrote her piano concerto, with some help from Robert Schumann, and performed it at age sixteen at the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Mendelssohn conducting. As she grew older, however, she became more preoccupied with other responsibilities in life and found it hard to compose regularly,
Michael Wieck the building and used it until the few remaining Königsberg synagogues were banned. The Wiecks experienced the pain of parting with emigrating Jewish relatives and friends – most acutely when the Nazi regime in October 1941 began systematic deportations of German Jews to ghettos and concentration camps. However, because Wieck's parents were a mixed marriage – Kurt Wieck had no known recent Jewish ancestors – they were spared deportation and ultimately genocide, unlike most members of Königsberg's Jewish community, which dated back four centuries. Although the Wiecks experienced isolated acts of kindness from a few non-Jewish neighbors, they were tormented