The Holocaust is what we are taught in history but new theatre company Voices of the Holocaust highlights the real people behind Hitler’s plan for Jewish extermination.
The production opens with Fragile Fire, a play based on the 1942 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Archive footage shows pre-war Jewish life – families enjoying a stroll in the park, people on their way to work, public transport – a prosperous normality. The lights go up on a simple set, a chair and table with a wireless radio, a white-draped backdrop and a cart in which the actors lie, as though dead.
The performers come to life as activists from the underground Jewish Combat Organization. Leaders Zivia Lubetkin (the only woman in the high command of the resistance group), Mordechai Anielewicz, his girlfriend Mira Fuchrer and their friend Tova (Tosia) Altman. The final cast member plays Adam Czerniaków a member of the Jewish council, who committed suicide when mass extermination was announced. The others chose to fight.
The love affair between Mordechai and Mira, the friendship and endurance of those in the ghetto is interspersed with news bulletins outlining the restrictions imposed upon it.
Marriage between Jews and non Jews is made illegal. Professional Jews must resign from their posts. Jewish people are no longer allowed in public places such as parks, cinemas and theatres. Jews are allocated only 184 calories per day. There are 900 deaths per week.
Those are the facts but the message is about the strength with which each supports the other when they are about to give up and how against all these odds, there is still hope.
After the interval, storyteller Shonaleigh Cumbers, standing barefoot on the undressed stage, takes up this thread of hope and with it weaves a story that transports us to far flung kingdoms. Some of the people she speak of may never leave the ghetto but, like us, their imaginations were able to take flight through the power of the spoken word.
In Fool of The Warsaw Ghetto, Shonaleigh demonstrates the depth and richness of the Jewish culture with each syllable and setting. She keens, her eyes sparkle, she whispers, she cries. Mordechai Anielewicz she tells us was known as the Fool and to many was seen as an old man but when he died he was only 23. The audience is moved beyond speech. Enraptured.
When looking at the programme after the show, I noted there had been a cast change since it was printed. The company tells me one of the performers, Benjamin Dotan (who was playing Holocaust survivor Marek Edelman) had been rushed into hospital and is now recovering from surgery. Choreographer Ana Diego stepped in to play Zivia, a role researched and realised in just 24 hours.
Courage, endurance and spirit is what these powerful pieces convey, all qualities this innovative company has in abundance.
The group will now be taking the work into schools before heading off to Brussels for Holocaust Memorial Day in January. There will be further public performances next year.
Details: www.voicesoftheholocaust.co.uk