Women, Theatre, and the Holocaust THIRD RESOURCE HANDBOOK / EDITION A project of in cooperation with the National Jewish Theater Foundation and All About Jewish Theatre Remember the Women Institute, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation founded in 1997 and based in New York City, conducts and encourages research and cultural activities that contribute to including women in history. Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel is the founder and executive director. Special emphasis is on women in the context of the Holocaust and its aftermath. Through research and related activities, including this project, the stories of women—from the point of view of women—are made available to be integrated into history and collective memory. This handbook is intended to provide readers with resources for using theatre to memorialize the experiences of women during the Holocaust. Women, Theatre, and the Holocaust THIRD RESOURCE HANDBOOK / EDITION A Project of Remember the Women Institute in cooperation with the National Jewish Theater Foundation and All About Jewish Theatre By Rochelle G. Saidel and Karen Shulman This resource handbook is dedicated to the women whose Holocaust-related stories are known and unknown, told and untold—to those who perished and those who survived. ©2017 Remember the Women Institute First digital edition: April 2015 Second digital edition: May 2016 Third digital edition: April 2017 Remember the Women Institute 11 Riverside Drive Suite 3RE New York,NY 10023 rememberwomen.org Cover design: Bonnie Greenfield Contents Introduction / Rochelle G. Saidel ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������4 1. Annotated Bibliographies Rochelle G. Saidel and Karen Shulman ���������������������������������������������������������������������14 1.1. Plays about Women during the Holocaust ������������������������������������������������������14 1.2. Plays about the Holocaust Written by Women �����������������������������������������������51 1.3. Books about Women, Theatre, and the Holocaust �����������������������������������������83 2. Personal Essays about Creating and Staging Plays.............................................85 2.1. Directing Performances of Germaine Tillion’s In the Underworld Meghan Brodie.....................................................................................................85 2.2. The Woman Who Said “No”: Writing a Play about Anti-Nazi Resisters Cynthia L. Cooper ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������88 2.3. Writing a Play Based on Charlotte Delbo’s Auschwitz and After Patrick Henry �������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������91 2.4. Bringing Courage Untold to the Stage Susan B. Katz ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������95 2.5. Bringing Refidim Junction to the Stage Alice Shalvi ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������99 3. Examining Women in the Holocaust Through Theatre Karen Shulman ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������104 Introduction to the Third Edition By Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel Founder and Director, Remember the Women Institute This is the 2017 third edition of Remember the Women Institute’s Women, Theatre, and the Holocaust Resource Handbook, created as a service to educators and others who want to know more about dramatizations by women, as well as those that include women’s Holocaust experiences. The material here is also intended to be incorporated into two larger projects: the Holocaust Theater Catalog of the National Jewish Theater Foundation, and a virtual Holocaust Theatre Online Collection (currently only in Hebrew) for All About Jewish Theatre. We are pleased to be part of both of these larger projects, the former based in the United States and the latter, in Israel. We launched the first edition of this resource handbook in April 2015, at a Yom HaShoah commemoration co-sponsored by Remember the Women Institute, American Jewish Historical Society, and All About Jewish Theatre, and held at the Center for Jewish History, New York. The event coincided with the Remembrance Readings Day of National Jewish Theater Foundation, which encourages using theatre to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive. The 2015 program included three short dramatic presentations by professional actors and musicians: Gretel Bergmann, written and directed by Cynthia L. Cooper, performed by Stacey Linnartz; excerpts from In the Underworld, originally written in French by Germaine Tillion, 1944, in Ravensbrück, directed by Meghan Brodie, performed by actors Stacey Linnartz and Lynn N. Silver, and singer Lily Davis; and “Wild Wind Blows” from Silence Not, A Love Story by Cynthia L. Cooper, performed by Stacey Linnartz. Musical direction and accompaniment were by Jonathan Marro. The event closed with a panel discussion on women, theatre, and the Holocaust with Rachel Lithgow, Executive Director, American Jewish Historical Society; Dr. Meghan Brodie, then Assistant Professor of Theatre, University of Southern Maine, Director, In the Underworld; Cynthia L. Cooper, playwright of Gretel Bergmann and Silence Not, A Love Story; Dr. Rochelle G. Saidel, founder and Executive Director, Remember the Women Institute; and Dr. Sonja M. Hedgepeth, Professor, Holocaust Studies, Women’s Studies, Language and Literature, Middle Tennessee State University. The second edition of the resource handbook was also released in conjunction with Remembrance Readings Day, on May 2, 2016, with a program of readings at the 4 Center for Jewish History in New York, in cooperation with the American Jewish Historical Society. Like the 2015 event, the program was a reflection of the goals of this resource handbook: providing information on and encouraging the production of plays and dramatic presentations about the Holocaust that are written by women and/or about the experiences of women during the Holocaust. The 2016 event included a play written by a survivor of Ravensbrück and Auschwitz, an original contemporary short play, and a personal history set to music. Excerpts of Charlotte Delbo’s classic play, Who Will Carry the Word? were performed by Angela Bey, Mya Flood, Indira Joell, and Allison Rohr—Dr. Meghan Brodie‘s students in the Ursinus College Department of Theater and Dance, directed by Dr. Brodie. The Spoken and the Unspoken, the premiere of a short play written by Cynthia L. Cooper especially for this occasion, focused on researching and uncovering stories of sexual violence. The play, based on the work of Remember the Women Institute and the resistance we have faced in bringing this subject into the open, featured two professional actors, Stacey Linnartz and Jessica Litwak. Cantor Shira Ginsburg performed excerpts from her acclaimed Bubby’s Kitchen, a musical reminiscence of growing up with grandparents who were heroes of the Resistance in Belarus. Following the performances, there was a panel discussion with Dr. Saidel, Dr. Brodie, playwright Cooper, Cantor Ginsburg, and Arnold Mittelman, President of National Jewish Theater Foundation. This third 2017 edition is again being launched at a program at the Center for Jewish History, on April 26, in cooperation with the American Jewish Historical Society. The readings focus on women and resistance and include: We Will Not Be Silent, an excerpt from a play about Sophie Scholl, a leader of the White Rose resistance group, written by David Meyers, directed by Aliza Shane, and performed by Cait Johnston and Nick Giedris; At the Train Station in Munich by Cynthia L. Cooper, directed by Ludovica Villar-Hauser and performed by Sarah Baskin and Abby Royle; In Her Words: Stories of Survival and Resistance by Virginia D’Albert-Lake, Geneviève de Gaulle Anthonioz, Gemma La Guardia Gluck, and Isabella Leitner, adapted and directed by Dr. Meghan Brodie and performed by her Ursinus College students, Mya Flood, Indira Joell, Maddie Kuklentz, and Allison Rohr; and Terezin Cabaret: Ilse Weber’s Letters and Songs, performed by Jenny Lee Mitchell and accompanied by Maria Dessena, Untitled Theater Company #61 and Mad Jenny Theatre. Theatre has the power to make history more alive for viewers, whether it is strictly factual or evokes the spirit of what actually transpired. This third edition of the resource handbook with annotated bibliographies about Women, Theatre, and the Holocaust, with plays by and about women that were written and presented from the time of the Holocaust until today, helps us to better understand the experiences that women suffered as women. This will always be a work in progress and is by no means complete. We have added new plays to this third edition (indicated in color), and we will continue to add other plays and books as we become aware of them through scholarly 5 research, reader suggestions, and announcements in the media. We welcome suggested additions, which can be sent to [email protected]. While we are focusing here on plays that were written in English or have English translations, we have included some plays in other languages, especially Hebrew. We look forward to receiving suggestions for additional entries in English and other languages, so that we can add them in the future. It is remarkable that seventy-two years after the end of the Holocaust, new plays continue to emerge. Section 1 is an annotated bibliography that has three