Art for Educating and Healing
A Play for Holocaust Remembrance Day
For the past three years I have been mentoring student directors and moderating a talkback after the annual Holocaust Remembrance play at Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Georgia, where I was the Chair of Theatre and Dance. These plays promote education and healing.
Theatre has the unique ability to personalize important events. Whereas 6 million deaths are overwhelming and almost incomprehensible, stories of a single individual or small group as witnessed through the individual character’s eyes can sometimes have a more personal impact. The audience members can identify with and empathize with the live actors through what neuroscientists have discovered are “mirror neurons.”
The production of this year’s play, Rosa & Leo by Adam Szudrich is directed by talented undergraduate student director Kyle Krug and dedicated to his grandmother who escaped the Nazis. He and his actors hoped to promote education, healing, and empathy. The talkback provides a safe space for both audience and actors to freely express their thoughts and feelings about the play and its relation to current events.
The production of the play was part of a program in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The Holocaust Remembrance Day Play Readings are sponsored by the National Jewish Theatre Foundation (NJTF).
Arnold Mittelman, founder and is President of NJTF has an inspiring essay “Holocaust Theater: Representation or Misrepresentation” in the Appendix of my book Stories of the Holocaust: Art for Healing and Renewal Volume I.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day honors the 6 million Jews (two-thirds of Europe’s Jewish population) and others, including LGBTQ individuals, Roma, and the disabled who died in the Holocaust. January 27 (the date of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp) was the day designated by the United Nations General Assembly.
On this designated day of remembrance, we are called to honor those who suffered and died at the hands of a fascist regime, those who resisted, and those who fought. We must never forget — Never Again.