School Desk

Students and Holocaust survivors bond through theater

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“What if it’s too painful?” Inge Gutmann, 93, asks in the first scene of a performance about her and other local Holocaust survivors’ experiences.

“Inge, you’re not in this alone. We all have each other,” replies fellow survivor Evelyne Appel, 82.

“And you have us,” interjects Jessica Hecht, a junior at Salanter Akiba Riverdale (SAR) High School. “Let us help you remember.”

With that, Ms. Appel takes out a yellow cloth Star of David bearing the German word for Jew and places it on Ms. Guttman’s shirt. The startling gesture initiates a series of scenes from six survivors’ lives, performed by SAR students and narrated by the victims themselves.

Shows on April 15, Holocaust Remembrance Day, and April 16 culminated months of joint effort by the students and survivors. Starting in September, the high schoolers met once a week with the adults to interview them about their struggles before, during and after the Holocaust.

Ms. Guttman’s experience of persecution as a Jewish girl in Heidelberg, Germany, Ms. Appel’s flight from the Nazi takeover of France and Andy Simon’s torments at the concentration camp in Theresienstadt were among the stories that the students researched. Educators used interview transcripts to craft the script for the show, part of a project called Witness Theater organized by Selfhelp, a senior care provider. Selfhelp, whose services include special programs for Holocaust survivors, held Witness Theater projects at two other schools in the city this year.

Along with providing therapy for survivors, the undertaking gives students an intense new perspective on a topic usually confined to history classes.

“Instead of just learning a story, you have to put yourself into the story,” Jessica, 17, said of depicting Ms. Appel’s experiences fleeing Paris as a girl. “It makes it scarier at some points, but you get a richer understanding of what happened.”

Speaking over an informal chicken dinner in SAR High School’s auditorium before an April 13 rehearsal, the student and survivor team showed the bond that emerged over months of highly personal meetings.

SAR High School, Witness Theater, Holocuast, Inge Gutmann, Evelyne Appel, Jessica Hecht, Andy Simon, Ittai Sopher, Kennth Birnbuam, School Desk, Shant Shahrigian
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