Theatrical Performance during the Holocaust : Texts, Documents, Memoirs

by Rovit, Rebecca; Goldfarb, Alvin

• ISBN13: 9780801861673
• ISBN10: 0801861675
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1999-12-01
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr

Summary

Theatrical Performance during the Holocaust collects for the first time critical essays, memoirs, and primary source materials -- many never before available in English -- relating to the surprising history of Jewish drama, cabaret, music, and opera under the Third Reich. These documents offer the remarkable account of a phenomenon that existed across Nazi Europe -- in German cities, in Eastern European ghettos, and in concentration camps.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xi
Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	1	(10)
Rebecca Rovit
I Identification: Jewish Theatrical Performance in Nazi Germany	11	(80)
Essays
Hans Hinkel and German Jewry, 1933--1941	15	(13)
Alan E. Steinweis
An Artistic Mission in Nazi Berlin: The Jewish Kulturbund Theater as Sanctuary	28	(12)
Rebecca Rovit
``We've Enough Tsoris'': Laughter at the Edge of the Abyss	40	(21)
Volker Kuhn
Documents and Memoirs
Interview with Mascha Benya-Matz	61	(6)
Rebecca Rovit
Interview with Kurt Michaelis	67	(5)
Rebecca Rovit
Correspondence	72	(4)
Julius Bab
Fritz Wisten
``Protocols'', Nazi Propaganda Ministry	76	(5)
Kulturbund Dramaturg Dr. Leo Hirsch	81	(3)
Letter from Actor Kurt Suessmann to Martin Brandt	84	(3)
Letter from Fritz Wisten to Max Ehrlich	87	(4)
II Containment: Performance in Ghettos and in Concentration Camps	91	(76)
``It's Burning,''	93	(4)
Mordechai Gebirtig
Essays
Theatrical Activities in the Polish Ghettos during the Years 1939--1942	97	(16)
Moshe Fass
Latvia and Auschwitz	113	(4)
Yonas Turkov
Theatrical Activities in the Nazi Concentration Camps	117	(8)
Alvin Goldfarb
Singing in the Face of Death: A Study of Jewish Cabaret and Opera during the Holocaust	125	(10)
Samuel M. Edelman
Documents and Memoirs
Cultural Activities in the Vilna Ghetto, March 1942	135	(5)
Selections from Surviving the Holocaust: The Kovno Ghetto Diary	140	(3)
Avraham Tory
``Invitation''	143	(2)
Leo Strauss
Drama Behind Barbed Wire	145	(5)
David Wolff
``The Freest Theater in the Reich'': In the German Concentration Camps	150	(6)
Curt Daniel
The Yiddish Theater of Belsen	156	(3)
Samy Feder
``Voices''	159	(1)
Selections from Letters from Westerbork	159	(1)
Etty Hillesum
Selections from Year of Fear	160	(3)
Philip Mechanicus
Selection from The Scum of the Earth	163	(2)
Arthur Koestler
Selection from If This Is a Man	165	(1)
Primo Levi
Selection from Ravensbruck: The Women's Death Camp	165	(2)
Denise Dufournier
III ``The Model Ghetto'': Theatrical Performance at Terezin	167	(126)
Theresienstadt	169	(10)
Rebecca Rovit
Essays
Creation in a Death Camp	179	(11)
Aaron Kramer
Operatic Performance in Terezin: Krasa's Brundibar	190	(13)
Joza Karas
Documents and Memoirs
Theresienstadt Questions	203	(5)
Leo Strauss
Letter from Theresienstadt	208	(1)
Kurt Singer
Freizeitgestaltung in Theresienstadt	209	(22)
Rabbi Erich Weiner
The Czech Theater in Terezin	231	(19)
Zdenka Ehrlich
The Emperor of Atlantis [Der Kaiser von Atlantis] Music	250	(15)
Viktor Ullmann
Peter Kien
Memories of Theresienstadt	265	(28)
Mirko Tuma
Epilogue: Lost, Stolen, and Strayed: The Archival Heritage of Modern German-Jewish History	274	(19)
Sybil H. Milton
Notes	293	(34)
Selected Bibliography	327	(6)
List of Contributors	333	(4)
Credits	337	(2)
Index	339