ISTA FESTIVAL Art at the HeART
Day One March 10, 2016
I just walked down the hall from my room in the Park Hotel
in Terezin to find all of my students congregated in a common area with other
students from around the world staying in this hotel - laughing, talking, and
playing games. The life energy was in itself inspiring. In one brief instant, I
knew why we were here, why I had spent ten months planning this trip, and why I
believe travel is the best teacher. Boundaries, boarders, hatred, distrust,
fear, ignorance disappear when people form personal relationships and that is
what is happening at this very moment down the hall from my room.
Terezin is a gloomy, somewhat eerie place. I was here ten
years ago and never imagined I would be back actually staying in the town – a
former ghetto for the Jews awaiting transport to Auschwitz. The last time I was
in Terezin, I was alone. I took myself on a side trip from Prague and
experienced the power and heartache of a story that has stayed alive for one
reason – Art. Much like Anne Frank’s diary, the artwork and poetry that was
produced in this gray stoned fortress has kept the brief lives of the young
children and teenager who were held here alive in the hearts and minds of all
who have had the privilege of coming to Terezin or reading the compilation of
the stories in “I Never Saw Another Butterfly.”
Tonight, as laughter and joy echo down the hallway of this
rather grim, sparse hotel – of which we are the only guests – I imagine the
laughter of the children over seventy years ago in the midst of the horror of
the Holocaust, here in Terezin with their teachers encouraging them to draw,
paint, sing, and write their stories –
and I imagine in some way, their spirit and the spirit of the place are one with us. Past and present came together tonight through the laughter of
young people. My heart is full of
gratitude knowing that ten years ago, I was alone here. Tonight, I am here with
sixteen students passing on the lessons of Terezin. And so our journey begins
Day Two March 11, 2016
Hard to know where or how to begin to fully capture the
experiences of today. We began the day in a ballroom of the Memorial Hotel
where ISTA artists began working with
the students theatrically using aspects of life in the ghetto of Terezin as the
starting point. Under the harshest of conditions, art thrived in Terezin. In
one exercise, a student was selected as a musical conductor and the rest of the
group was divided in half. One half of the group created a chorus. The other
half waited to step in as one by one members of the chorus were tapped on the
shoulder slowly falling to the floor symbolizing the people who died or were
taken away by transport. The chorus continued with a constant flow of people
stepping in and others falling to the floor.
Then at one point, the conductor was tapped and he fell to the floor.
And the singing continued. This is an
example of how theatre can bring history to life in a way that other mediums
cannot.
Art was a form of resistance during the Holocaust. Cultural
resistance. In Terezin, the Jews created operas, musical compositions, artwork,
poetry and stories. Much of what was done was in secret, hidden from the Nazis.
While in Terezin, an underground newspaper was created by some young boys as a
means of communicating with one another. To simulate this, the school groups
were encouraged to devise a secret method of communicating while here and to
create some form of artistic work in secret.
The group then was split into ensembles to begin the process
of working together to develop a piece of theatre based on their experience in
Terezin. The students in the ensemble I
observed were blindfolded before entering the space. While trust exercises are
common in theatre, this took on a very different context in light of the
Holocaust. The students followed each other, blindly moving slowly into an unfamiliar room – many grasping for
hands of complete strangers for safety and security. It was a powerful and
visceral experience. The group then
created a series of living images or tableaux depicting life before the ghetto,
being torn apart, and triumphant defiance. Finally, the ISTA artist asked each
student to consider why they came to Terezin and to respond with three words.
A bit about the town itself –
The hotel we are staying in once housed the SS officers.
Terezin is essentially a ghost town. The ISTA students and teachers are the
only guests in the Park hotel. The town is eerily quiet. There are only 2000
residents of Terezin. The buildings are mostly vacant and the square barracks
and buildings are all the same height. The Memorial Hotel where much of our
ensemble work is being done is also empty. It was built with the hope of
bringing some tourism and conferences to the town, but it failed. Now, like the
other buildings, it is a haunting place. It feels as if we are the only people
here.
Unlike other
concentration camps or labor camps, the entire town of Terezin was taken over
by the Nazis as a ghetto for the Jews. But there is another aspect to the dark
and sad history of this place. The Nazis used Terezin as propaganda. They
“allowed” the Jews to be “self- governing.”
They even made a propaganda film depicting life in Terezin as a “spa” –
and a safe place for the Jews. The Red Cross visited the ghetto and, much like
visiting a movie set, things appeared
good on the surface when in fact, faucets had no running water, and people were
coerced to say that life was fine in Terezin. Even the musicians were used as a
propaganda tool – showing that Terezin was a cultural center for Jews.
Today, we walked over five miles across nearly every inch of
this place. Terezin’s history precedes WWII. It was built as a fortress by
Emperor Josef II and was named for his wife Maria Theresa – hence Theresenstadt
(Terezin). During WWII, the fortress was used by the Nazis as a prison for
political prisoners. There is a huge crematorium which was only built after the
Nazis ran out of space to bury the bodies of the dead. The ashes were placed in
individual urns as another way of showing that they were treating the Jews
well. But toward the end of the war, they wanted to dispose of any evidence and
had the cremains thrown into the Elbe river.
We visited the fortress, crematorium, and heard story after story of the cruel, inhumane
treatment of the Jews in Terezin. Our guide’s family was among the victims of
Terezin - as thousands died of diseases
caused by the lack of hygiene.
The students listened, respectfully and were visibly moved.
Finally, after the long, cold walk through the town, we returned to the hotel
for dinner.
The evening session brought everything together, as the
students in eight separate groups, imagined they were opening one of the boxes
of ashes before they were thrown into the Elbe. Each group then created a
series of silent, imagined scenes depicting the five most significant events of
that person’s life. It was performed by the entire group as a memorial to those
who died in Terezin.
The result, as one student stated as we circled up to
debrief, was the “single most powerful theatrical performance she had ever
seen.” We all agreed. Each of our
students then had the opportunity to process out loud the most significant take
away from the day. Each shared thoughtful and insightful responses.
I know that the experience we are having here will work in them for the
rest of their lives.
We were the last to leave the Memorial Hotel after our
reflection on the day. As we left the
large ballroom, we closed the door behind us and walked the dark, bleak streets
back to our hotel. And again, the life energy of our students filled the place
with joy. I told our students that God is found in the joy of our lives – so
while this is a heavy and sad history, they have the gift of life so celebrate
that with one another. And so, they did.
Day Three March 12,
2016
“We are so few now it
is better to learn it from someone who was there. It is necessary that I come
here.” Doris, A Survivor
Today we had an incredibly inspirational experience as the
entire ISTA group met and had the opportunity to interview a survivor of
Terezin. Now 89 years old, she was a
young girl who, as she said, spent four birthdays in Terezin from 13 years to
19 years. Her mother died in Terezin
from disease. Her father was transported to the east and perished at Auschwitz.
Her brother, five years older than she, survived Auschwitz but she didn’t know
that until after the liberation.
Terezin was liberated by the Russians. While they were in
many ways the savior of the Jews in this part of the world, they soon dominated
it through the political oppression of Communism. Czechoslovakia was officially
under Communist rule from 1948 – 1989 and the history of Terezin was suppressed.
Terezin was returned to its original function as a military garrison. Not until
the Velvet Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 did the story of
Terezin begin to emerge.
“How could the clever Germans follow this evil. I still do
not understand this,” Doris said. “But
in Terezin, everything was not bad. Especially for young people. The old died –
many of hopelessness.”
When asked if she had heard of or knew about the other
camps, she said “We didn’t know anything. It was only after the war we found
out what happened to our people.”
They were permitted to bring to Terezin 50 kg of personal
belongings in a suitcase. Her family was among the first transports to Terezin
and she does not know why they were that “lucky.”
She lived in the Hamburg barracks with her mother. Her
father and brother lived in the Sudeten barracks. The poor German Jews paid
large sums of money to come to Terezin – thinking it was a “spa.”
They had high hopes when the Red Cross visited the town. The
Nazis hid all people who were “not looking good” from the Red Cross. After the
Red Cross left, they had little hope.
It was easier for young, strong people who could work. She
tended the sheep and said the sheep saved her life. Her first love was a Gendarme. He disallowed
her from taking the train to Auschwitz with her father and intervened once to
save him by getting him off the transport. He went on the next transport and he
couldn’t do anything about it. She took
care of the sheep which provided clothing and food for the guards. Over her
life time she collected 500 sheep figurines.
When asked if she knew that the artwork was being hidden she
said, “no, it was secret. It would cost them their lives.”
Our students asked many questions including what dreams she
had after the war. She was afraid of bicycles because the guards who rode bikes
beat people. It was not easy. “It took a long while to be normal again.” She
has one son who married an Indian woman and she has two grandchildren who are
half Indian. She even made a joke about how her mixed race family defied
Hitler!
She was factual. Unemotional. Non-religious though she said
she believes in doing good deeds and has committed her life to this.
When asked after she was liberated, what she felt and what
she had missed the most she said one word: “Freedom.”
“I hope you will have a good life. I listen to the radio and
there is nothing positive.”
This is learning at its deepest level. Experiential, site
specific, historical and creative. This
is Theatre On Purpose.
Day Four March 13, 2016
Today was the day that all of the creative work and
preparation done in the ensembles and in our whole group was woven into a
complete piece of theatre. The process of devising original work begins with a
starting point. Terezin provided a site specific starting point and the
individual experiences of the students’ response to what happened here provided
a deep and rich context for exploration and development. Through a variety of
processes which included physical theatre, text, music, voice and imagery, students
worked in four separate ensemble groups led by ISTA artists from around the
world. Each night, all of the ensembles were brought together to explore some
aspect of their experience from the stories of Terezin. As one of the artists said, “Your creative
self doesn’t know where it wants to go.” The magic happens as the ensembles
collaborate and build on various ideas. Each student was asked to reflect on
what they saw, what they heard, and what they felt as they toured the ghetto
and museum filled with the drawings and poetry of the children of Terezin. From
these personal responses, the theatre storytelling begins to take shape. As a theatre educator, this is the most
exciting kind of work to produce and to experience. The layering process occurs
as each element of theatre storytelling is added to the process. I witnessed
our students doing some incredible work with respect, integrity, commitment,
and vision. Each ensemble had to identify the theme of their piece, what each
of them wanted to accomplish
individually, and what impact they hoped the piece would have on the
audience.
On this final day of development, the four ensembles worked
separately for three hours to create their piece. Then all four ensembles were
brought together and the Artistic Director, Deborah Kidd, asked each ensemble
to identify two people who knew their piece really well. To my astonishment
(but not really) our Talon Theatre students were the representatives from every
group! On the International stage, among eighty students, SM students stood
out. It was this group who determined the order of the ensemble pieces so that
the story had a cohesiveness. Keep in mind, none of the individual ensembles
had seen each other’s piece so the shaping of the entire collage happened only at
this point – one half an hour before the performance.
Deborah then anchored these four separate ensemble pieces
with two whole group performances developed during the evening sessions. The
opening set the tone by showing the five key moments in the life of one person
who perished from Terezin. The closing piece was the original musical
composition developed by the students . “Believe in Me” became the repeated
phrase. Deborah worked the group through the transitions and the audience moved
around the space to view the approximately 30 minute piece. There were moments
of hope, moments of being torn apart, moments of resistance, moments of joy,
moments of love all depicted through the lens of life in Terezin. The question posed at the end of the last
ensemble’s piece connected the past with the present – “What Happens Next?” The
echoes of the Holocaust, its lessons, the examination of power and oppression
continues to be relevant in our world. For these young teenagers, the question
of “What happens next” is real….
The final sharing was profound, moving, and powerful.
We have been in another world – in an 18th
century walled military garrison and former Jewish Ghetto, walking the halls
where Nazi SS once walked and learning about the life, art, and culture that
thrived despite horrendous conditions. The town of Terezin has some signs of
life, with 2000 residents - but mostly
it is a town of desolate streets and block after block of large, vacant,
haunting buildings where the artwork was hidden away until after WWII. Artworks are still being discovered to this
day.
This is the environment in which theatre students from
around the world have been living for four intensely emotional days. This is the place from which they will
continue to tell the story. Terezin has taught them to stand up against
persecution and oppression. Terezin has taught them the power of artistic
expression. For the children of Terezin, art was essential to survival. I believe It is essential to our own.
Terezin has taught me that art matters and I vow never to
stop fighting for its rightful and essential place in our educational
system.
Art saves lives. For anyone who doubts this truth, go to
Terezin.
Terezin. Never Forget.
