Monique Andrée Serf (9 June 1930 – 24 November 1997)[1] was a French singer. She took her stage name, Barbara, from her grandmother, Varvara Brodsky, a native of Odessa, Russian Empire (now Ukraine). Her song “L’Aigle noir” sold 1 million copies in twelve hours.[2]
Born in Paris to a Jewish family, Barbara was ten years old when she had to go into hiding during the German occupation of France in World War II. After the war ended, a neighborhood professor of music heard her sing and took an interest in helping her develop her talents. She was given vocal lessons and taught to play the piano, and eventually she enrolled at the Ecole Supérieure de Musique. Money was a problem and she gave up her musical studies to sing at “La Fontaine des Quatre Saisons,” a popular cabaret in Paris.
She was deeply scarred by the war and her family’s plight. The feelings of emptiness experienced during childhood showed in her songs, particularly “Mon Enfance”. She said in her uncompleted autobiography, Il était un piano noir (assembled from notes found after her death), that her father sexually abused her when she was ten and she hated him for that. He later abandoned the family.
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