DCT’s y.a.r.d. BEHIND THE CURTAIN A Creative & Theatrical Resource Guide for Teachers

The HERSH FOUNDATION As part of DCT’s mission presents to integrate the arts into classroom academics, the Behind the Curtain Resource Guide is intended to provide helpful information for the teacher and student to use before and after attending a performance. The activities presented in this guide are suggested to stimulate lively responses and multi-sensory explorations of concepts in order to use the theatrical event as a vehicle for cross-cultural and language arts learning.

by JAMES STILL Please use our suggestions as springboards to lead your students into Major Support from meaningful, dynamic TACA learning; extending the The Harry W. Bass, Jr. Foundation dramatic experience Communities Foundation of Texas of the play. Rees-Jones Foundation

Additional support from Student Matinee The Stemmons Foundation Performance Series The Emery Family Foundation is made possible by Kraft Foods, Inc. the generous support of Dallas Children’s Theater BEHIND THE CURTAIN A Creative & Theatrical Resource Guide for Teachers

DCT Executive Artistic Director...... Robyn Flatt

Resource Guide Editor...... Marty Sherman Resource Guide Layout/Design...... Kim Lyle

Play...... And Then They Came For Me Remembering The World of Anne Frank by...... James Still

Director of Production...... Robyn Flatt

Cover Art by...... Kim Lyle

DALLAS CHILDREN’S THEATER, one of the top five family theaters in the nation, serves over 250,000 young people from 100 zip codes, 40 cities and 12 counties each year through its eleven main stage productions, touring, educational programming and outreach activities. Since its opening in 1984, this award-winning theater has existed to create challenging, inspiring and entertaining theater, which communicates vital messages to our youth and promotes an early appreciation for literature and the performing arts. As the only major organization in Dallas focusing on theater for youth and families, DCT produces literary classics, original scripts, folk tales, myths, fantasies and contemporary dramas that foster multicultural understanding, confront topical issues and celebrate the human spirit.

DCT is committed to the integration of creative arts into the teaching strategies of academic core curriculum and educating through the arts. Techniques utilized by DCT artist/teachers are based upon the approach developed in Making Sense with Five Senses, by Paul Baker, Ph.D.

DCT founder and Executive Artistic Director, Robyn Flatt defines the artistic mission and oversees the operations of the organization, consisting of twenty-five full time staff members and more than 200 actors, designers, theater artists and educators.

See page 12 for the TEKS that your field trip to Dallas Children’s Theater satisfies!

Permission is granted for material included in this Resource Guide to be copied for use in the classroom AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME Remembering the World of Anne Frank

Curtains Up on the Author - James Still

James Still grew up in a small town in and has gone on to become an award winning author for not only theatre, but television and film as well. He’s been nominated for five Emmy awards for his television work including the series Paz, ’s Little Bear series, and ’s Little Bill series. He wrote the Little Bear Movie and the feature film The Velocity of Gary. Mr. Still has said of this play: “I wanted to create a theatrical event that could be approached as an oral history, as multimedia, as educational. But most of all I wanted the opportunity (and challenge) of creating a work of art that invited young people to have an empathetic experience from the Holocaust.”

For further insight try the following link to a conversation with James Still: http://www.indytheatrehabit.com/2008/05/12/a-conversation-with-james-still/

GIVE IT Considering what Mr. Still noted about his goal in writing this play, use the following A TRY! activity and decide whether or not he was successful.

Step One: Define empathy. Before checking the dictionary, allow students to formulate a definition based on their understandings of the concept. Check the dictionary’s definition of empathy and compare with the student’s initial understanding. How are they similar? How do the definitions differ?

Step Two: Determine a system of measurement. Use the following questions for discussion. • Is empathy something that can be measured? • How do we know someone has or has not empathy? • In what ways could a system be used to measure empathy? • Is it possible for students today to empathize with teens that lived in Nazi during the Holocaust? • In what ways can we empathize with the victims of genocide? • In what ways is it impossible for us to truly empathize with them?

Step Three: Examine your reactions to the work. Using the questions posed at the beginning of the play; write your individual responses to the “answers” set forth by the performance. Include both intellectual (what you thought) and visceral (how you felt) responses. The questions asked were: What was it like to live through that? How did you survive? What made the Nazis so cruel? That could never happen again…could it?

Step Four: Follow up with a group discussion. Did James Still succeed in creating “a work of art that invited young people to have an empathetic experience with stories from the Holocaust”? 3 TEACHER’S To add extension to this activity, view Paper Clips with your students. This is a TIP documentary film that records a class project begun in 1998 in a small Tennessee town school and spread around the globe. Below is a summary of the film and the link to contact the school to help support the ongoing Whitwell Middle School Holocaust Project and its Paper Clips Project.

Whitwell Middle School Linda M. Hooper, Principal 1130 Main Street Whitwell, TN 37397 Phone: 423-658-5635 Fax: 423-658-6949 E-mail: [email protected]

PAPER CLIPS is the moving and inspiring documentary film that captures how these students responded to lessons about the Holocaust-with a promise to honor every lost soul by collecting one paper clip for each individual exterminated by the Nazis. Despite the fact that they had previously been unaware of and unfamiliar with the Holocaust, their dedication was absolute. Their plan was simple but profound. The amazing result, a memorial railcar filled with 11 million paper clips (representing 6 million Jews and 5 million gypsies, homosexuals and other victims of the Holocaust) which stands permanently in their schoolyard, is an unforgettable lesson of how a committed group of children and educators can change the world one classroom at a time.

Curtains Up on ART “I wanted to create a theatrical event that could be approached as oral history, as multimedia, as educational.” -James Still referring to “And Then They Came For Me”

Create Your Own Multimedia Project James Still’s use of video as well as live action and the written word make this performance a multimedia work. Create a multimedia presentation of your own which expresses your reaction to the performance and its portrayal of the Holocaust.

Consider using at least three of the following media: • Photographs or video • Music • Writing • Painting • Collage • Sculpture • Dramatic Interpretation • Dance • Journalism

4 Curtains Up on HISTORY

Create a Timeline of Remembrance

Divide the class into groups and assign each a portion of the following timeline of events. Encourage each group to research the events and create a collage of pictures, news headlines, personal testimony, or any other images they can collect. Hang the collages in chronological order along a hallway as a memorial to Holocaust victims and survivors.

1933 -Adolph Hitler becomes chancellor of Germany. -The Law for Protection of German Blood and German Honor was applied to the following groups: -Jews, Romani (gypsies), and Black-mulattos. They were considered of alien blood and genetically criminal. -The Gestapo is established. -Dachau was opened for political prisoners. -A law was passed to remove non-Aryans from teaching positions.

1934 -All those who suffered disease or handicap that was considered hereditary were sterilized. (Over 300,000- 400,000 people)

1935 -The Nuremberg Laws excluded Aryan intermarriages with non-Aryans. -Gypsy were excluded from public schools and places.

1937 -Homosexuals were arrested, sentenced and incarcerated in regular prisons. They were required to wear a pink triangle and treated miserably.

1938 -Gypsy children were sterilized.

1939 -Gypsy were registered and forbidden to leave their homes. -Hitler issued a decree for physicians to grant “mercy death” to patients considered incurable. -Operation T-4 bused handicapped people whose medical forms were marked as such by physicians to Germany and Austria to disguised showers. 70,273 deaths were recorded. -Poland was defeated and all Polish property was seized without payment. -Polish priests were hounded by the Gestapo and over 3,000 were killed-2,000 perished in concentration camps. -The Nazi goal was to keep the education at the 4th Grade level and imprisoned professors, priests, and intellectuals. -Jews in Poland were required to wear a yellow star with the word Jew written in the center.

1940 -The Germans invade Norway, Denmark, Luxembourg, France, The , and Belgium. -The SS expelled and deported Poles and plundered their property. From 1940-1945 150,000 Poles were brought to Auschwitz and 100,000 were deported to Majdanek. -Gas chambers were built in concentration camps in Poland.

1944 -430,000 Hungarian Jews were killed. Aug. 4 -The residents of the “Secret Annex”-Otto Frank’s family were betrayed and arrested. Mar. -Eva Geiringer was arrested in and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

1945 Jan. -Edith Frank dies at Auschwitz-Birkenau-Otto Frank is liberated by the Russian army Feb. or Mar. -Anne and Margot Frank die within days of each other. Apr. 30 -Adolph Hitler commits suicide

Encourage students to add events they find in addition to these.

5 Curtains Up on WRITING

The title of this play is taken from a poem written about the Holocaust and attributed to Martin Niomoeller. Niomoeller was a German clergyman who initially supported Hitler and the Nazi party. Once Hitler became chancellor in 1933, Mr. Niomoeller protested against the injustices and goals of the Nazi party. He was imprisoned in Auschwitz for seven years. Mr. Niomoeller’s poem is said to be in response to a student’s question to him, “How could this have happened?”

And Then They Came For Me They came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew.

The they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist.

Then they came for Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant.

Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

TEACHER’S Use the following questions to hold a discussion with your class: TIP Why do you think the title of this poem was chosen for the play? Can you remember a time that you may have witnessed some kind of oppression? What, if anything, did you do? What conditions make it hard to stand up? What conditions can give you courage to interrupt oppression?

• Use the poem as a basic structure for writing your own poem about oppression or repression in the modern world. Research areas in the world today in which genocide GIVE IT still is occurring or other oppressive conditions exist for citizens of a society. Are there A TRY! any examples within our own society that you could include? • Consider the following quotes and write your responses to them in journal form, as an editorial for a news outlet, or as a letter to leaders, the oppressed, or future generations.

“Fundamentalism means the thinker is absolutely sure he is right. You don’t want to learn new facts, because they might disturb your previous opinions. You become convinced that your truths have come from God and anyone who disagrees with you is wrong, and the next step is that they’re inferior, and the ultimate case is, they’re subhuman. That leads to a lot of persecution in the world”. –former President Jimmy Carter

6 “Forgiveness is a personal matter. You have the right to forgive what has been done to you personally. You do not have the right to forgive what has been done to others.” –Simon Wiesenthal

“History has a way of becoming history.” –Ed Silverberg

“After the war people said it would never happen again, and people didn’t want to talk about it- it was something that happened, let’s forget about it, now we live a different life. What’s happening now in Bosnia and what’s happening in many other places-but Bosnia I say because it’s -we’re still doing the same thing and again the world just looks on.” –Eva Schloss

Curtains Up on “HANDS ON ACTIVITIES” Try the following activities with your students either before or after attending the performance to help them gain a sense of the conditions Anne Frank and her friends had to endure during the Holocaust.

• Experience what it feels like to be completely cast out. Wear a badge similar to the yellow star around school for a day. (Make certain other students understand the “rules” before beginning the activity.) Follow up with a discussion about how it felt to be stared at, ignored, and singled out. Then discuss some of the “invisible” yellow stars people wear around school and what you can do to avoid and discourage “oppressive” behavior toward them.

Here is a list of the measures Nazis took against the Jewish populations in areas they controlled. These rules applied to all persons who had at least one grandparent who was Jewish. -Jews are not allowed to go outside after 8:00 at night or before 6:00 in the morning. -Jews may not shop in certain shops: only in Jewish shops and only between the hours of 3 and 5 p.m. -Jews are forbidden to attend theaters or the movies. -They may not have radios. -They are not allowed to have boats. -They are forbidden to take part in any athletic activity in public. -Jews are forbidden to visit Christians in their homes. -Christians are not allowed to teach Jews. The Jewish students must attend Jewish schools only. -Jews were forbidden from public transit. They could not ride buses, trains, and were required to hand over their bicycles. -Every outside piece of clothing has to show the 6 point yellow star. It must be sewn on in an exact spot on the left hand side of the garment. -Jews could not hold government jobs. -Non-Jewish citizens were not allowed to go to Jewish doctors or hire Jewish lawyers. -Jewish teachers were fired and Jewish residents had no political rights. -Jews who owned stores and to mark them with “Jew” and later had to sell them to non-Jews. -Marriage between Jews and non-Jews was forbidden.

7 Curtains Up on “HANDS ON ACTIVITIES” (continued)

• Try living as Eva, Anne, and Ed had to live without any entertainment but the radio. Then later, the radio was taken away. Give up your ipods, tvs, computers, gaming instruments, cell phones, and movies for a specified time. What can you come up with to entertain yourself? What if your things were suddenly removed and labeled criminal activity?

• Try living in silence. We all know the “quiet game” but Anne, Margot, Ed, and Eva had to be quiet for over TWO YEARS and their very lives were at stake. Try playing a board game, chess, puzzles, hide and seek cards or collections of some kind. Try drawing in the dark, card toss, sewing, or writing in a journal. How about celebrating your birthday in quiet?

• Visit the Holocaust museum in Dallas or create one of your own for your classroom.

8 T.E.K.S. satisfied by AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME

* 117.19 - Theatre, Grade 5. o 5.5 - Response/evaluation. The student responds to and evaluates theatre and theatrical performances. + A - Analyze and apply appropriate audience behavior at a variety of performances. + D - Analyze and compare theatre artists and their contributions. * 117.34 - Theatre, Grade 6. o 6.5 - Response/evaluation. The student responds to and evaluates theatre and theatrical performances. + A - Analyze and apply audience behavior at all performances. + D - Compare selected occupations in theatre. * 117.37 - Theatre, Grade 7. o 7.5 - Response/evaluation. The student responds to and evaluates theatre and theatrical performances. + A - Identify and demonstrate appropriate audience behavior at various types of performances. + D - Compare career and avocational opportunities in theatre. * 117.40 - Theatre, Grade 8. o 8.5 - Response/evaluation. The student responds to and evaluates theatre and theatrical performances. + A - Analyze and practice appropriate audience behavior at various types of live performances. + D - Compare career and avocational opportunities in theatre. * 117.64 - Theatre, Level I. o 5 - Response/evaluation. The student responds to and evaluates theatre and theatrical performances. + A - Analyze and apply appropriate behavior at various types of live performances. + D - Select career and avocational opportunities in theatre and describe the training, skills, self- discipline, and artistic discipline needed to pursue them. * 117.65 - Theatre, Level II. o 5 - Response/evaluation. The student responds to and evaluates theatre and theatrical performances. + A - Judge and apply appropriate audience behavior at various types of performances. + D - Select career and avocational opportunities in theatre and film and explore the training, skills, self- discipline, and artistic discipline needed to pursue them.

9