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NONSURVIVOR TESTIMONY: TEREZíN GHETTO THEATRE IN THE ARCHIVE AND THE SECOND CZECH CABARET
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 April 2007
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ENDNOTES
1. Perhaps best-known in the U.S. is I Never Saw Another Butterfly: Children's Drawings and Poems from Terezín Concentration Camp, 1942–1944, ed. Anna Voláková (1978; New York: Schocken, 1993), which has been published in several editions and translated into several languages. The work of adults has been published in English and German in anthologies such as Bearing the Unbearable: Yiddish and Polish Poetry in the Ghettos and Concentration Camps, ed. Frieda W. Aaron (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990); Mitten in tiefer Nacht: Gedichte aus Konzentrationslagern und Zuchthäusern des deutschen Faschismus 1939–1945, ed. Hanna Elling (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag für Akademische Schriften, 1990); and Lyrik gegen das Vergessen: Gedichte aus den Konzentrationslagern, ed. Michael Moll and Barbara Weiler (Marburg: Schüren Presse, 1991).
2. For example, music composed in the Terezín ghetto has found an international audience. Works by Pavel Haas, Gideon Klein, Viktor Ullmann, and others have been published and performed; organizations such as the Terezín Chamber Music Foundation in Boston and Musica Reanimata in Berlin devote themselves to the preservation and performance of Terezín composers' music.
3. Such phrases, including variations such as “creative resistance” and “creative defiance,” are applied both critically and uncritically in a wide range of scholarship on art during the Holocaust. They appear in various essays in the anthologies Theatrical Performance during the Holocaust, ed. Rebecca Rovit and Alvin Goldfarb (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999) and Art, Music and Education as Strategies for Survival: Theresienstadt 1941–45, ed. Anne D. Dutlinger (New York: Herodias, 2001). Use in individual articles and essays includes Patterson, Michael, “The Final Chapter: Theatre in the Concentration Camps of Nazi Germany,” in Theatre in the Third Reich, The Prewar Years: Essays on Theater in Nazi Germany, ed. Gadberry, Glen W. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995), 157–66, at 159Google Scholar; and Krejčová, Helena, “Czechs and Jews,” in Bohemia in History, ed. Teich, Mikuláš (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 344–63, at 361Google Scholar. For the use of such phrases in program notes for performances of works from Terezín, see, e.g., Thor Steingraber, “Notes on Brundibár: Synopsis of the Opera,” program of the Chicago Opera Theater production of Brundibár, Chicago, 14 June 2003, 5.
4. Gross, and Hoffman, , “Memory, Authority, and Identity: Holocaust Studies in Light of the Wilkomirski Debate,” Biography 27.1 (Winter 2004): 25–47, at 26CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5. Alfers, , “Vergessene Verse: Untersuchungen zur deutschsprachingen Lyrik aus Theresienstadt,” Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 2004, ed. Milovotá, Jaroslava, Rathgeber, Ulf, and Wögerbauer, Michael (Prague: Sefer, 2004), 137–58, at 137Google Scholar.
6. Gilbert, , Music in the Holocaust: Confronting Life in the Nazi Ghettos and Camps (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005), 3Google Scholar.
7. Rovit and Goldfarb's Theatrical Performance includes essays, documents, and memoirs from several different ghettos and concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Ravensbrück. Elsewhere, the Czech scholar Bořivoj Srba documents the theatrical activities of Czech and Czech–Jewish prisoners in Buchenwald, Dachau, Sachsenhausen, Ravensbrück, Auschwitz, and other concentration camps as well as in several forced-labor camps and Gestapo prisons: “Divadlo za mříemi,” Divadelní revue 1 (1995): 9–23.
8. Rokem, , Performing History: Theatrical Representations of the Past in Contemporary Theatre (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2000), xiGoogle Scholar.
9. The Terezín daily orders (Tagesbefehl) from 28 December 1941 grant permission for “friendship evenings,” gatherings where the prisoners performed songs and sketches for one another, to be conducted on the condition that the program be submitted in advance for approval. In February 1942 the so-called Jewish Self-Government established a division called the Freizeitgestaltung (Office of Leisure Time Activities), which was officially recognized by the Nazis in August or September of 1942. See Šormová, Eva, Divadlo v Terezíně 1941–45 (Ústí nad Labem: Severočeské Nakladatelství, 1973), 22Google Scholar; and Rabbi Erich Weiner, “Freizeitgestaltung in Theresienstadt,” in Theatrical Performance, 209–30, at 210 and 221.
10. For example, prisoner Karel Herrmann (after the war, Heřman) was able to amass a large collection of such materials because of his administrative position as head of records in so-called Area II of the ghetto. See Štefaníková, Jana, “Karel Herrmanns Tätigkeit in Theresienstadt in den Jahren 1941–1944: Die Heřman-Sammlung und ihr Schicksal,” in Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente 2004, ed. Milovotá, Jaroslava, Rathgeber, Ulf, and Wögerbauer, Michael (Prague: Sefer, 2004), 73–135, esp. 76Google Scholar.
11. Although these three groups formed the overwhelming majority, Jews from the Netherlands, Slovakia, Denmark, and Hungary were also imprisoned in Terezín. See Chládková, Ludmila, The Terezín Ghetto (Terezín: Terezín Memorial, 2005), 8–9Google Scholar.
12. Information about the department (in Czech only) is available at www.nm.cz/historicke-muzeum/divadelni-oddeleni.php. The Zelenka designs are located in the scenographic collection, cabinet number S-XIX, letters A through D.
13. See, e.g., illustrations in the chapter by Šormová, Eva, “Theater in the Terezín Ghetto,” in Art against Death: Permanent Exhibitions of the Terezín Memorial in the Former Magdeburg Barracks, ed. Blodig, Vojtěch (Prague: Oswald, for the Terezín Museum, Terezín, 2002), 219–45, at 226, 236, 239Google Scholar; and in Rebecca Rovit, “A Carousel of Theatrical Performances in Theresienstadt,” in Art, Music and Education, 122–43, at 127, 133, 136–43.
14. General information about the Terezín Memorial is available at www.pamatnik-terezin.cz. The Heřman collection is housed in the Collections Department, inventory numbers PT 3763–PT 4311.
15. See, e.g., illustrations in Šormová, “Theater,” at 224–5, 228–32, 240–4. For a publication devoted exclusively to German-language materials in the Heřman collection, see Kunst und Kultur in Theresienstadt: Eine Dokumentation in Bildern, ed. Rudolf M. Wlaschek (Gerlingen: Bleicher, 2001).
16. See Und die Musik spielt dazu: Chansons und Satiren aus dem KZ Theresienstadt, ed. Ulrike Migdal (Munich: Piper, 1986); and Chansons und Satiren aus Theresienstadt, ed. Tania Golden, Alexander Waechter, and Sergei Dreznin (Vienna: Rabenhof, 1982).
17. See, e.g., Šormová, Divadlo, 45–6, 48, 51, 62–5, 105–7; and the appendix in Vrkočová, Ludmila, Rekviem Sami Sobě (Prague: Arkýř, and Artforum, 1993Google Scholar).
18. General information about Yad Vashem is available at www.yadvashem.org. The Theresienstadt Collection housed within their archives includes several “artists' files” (inventory numbers O.64/67–81) that contain original works by Terezín theatre artists.
19. General information about Beit Terezín is available at www.bterezin.org.il. Materials relating to Terezín theatre are found in file number 602, items 1–84.
20. Information on this division of the museum's collections can be found at www.jewishmuseum.cz/en/aarchivho.htm. Performance texts are located in the Terezín collection (T), inventory number 318.
21. Scholars were aware of the existence of the cabaret based on two sources: souvenir posters and other documents preserved in the Heřman collection, and notes for an article on Terezín cabaret written by a prisoner. See Taussig, Josef, “O terezínských kabaretech,” in Terezínské Studie a Dokumenty 2001, ed. Kárný, Miroslav, Milotová, Jaroslova, and Lorencová, Eva (Prague: Academia, 2001), 310–46, at 331–4Google Scholar.
22. Felix Porges (after the war, Prokeš), b. 1 February 1913, d. 15 January 1982, was transported from Prague to Terezín on 4 December 1941. He and his fellow cabaret performer, Elly Bernsteinová (b. 7 September 1917, d. 29 January 1975), met in Terezín and were married there on 26 December 1943. Both survived in the ghetto until it was liberated by the Russian Army on 8 May 1945. They are survived by three sons. (Zdeněk Prokeš, interview by Lisa Peschel, 11 August 2005, Prague.)
23. Vítěslav Horpatzky (sometimes written Horpaczký or Horpatsky), b. 11 February 1904, was transported from Prague to Terezín on 4 December 1941. He was transported from Terezín to Auschwitz on 28 October 1944. He did not survive the war (Taussig, “O terezínských kabaretech,” 341 n. 4).
24. Pavel Weisskopf, b. 7 June 1906, was transported from Prague to Terezín on 4 December 1941. He was transported from Terezín to Auschwitz on 28 September 1944. He did not survive the war. See Terezínská pametní kniha: Zidovské obeti nacistických deportací z Cech a Moravy 1941–1945, ed. Miroslav Kárný (Prague: Melantrich, 1995), 199.
25. Pavel Stránský (b. 20 February 1921) was transported from Prague to Terezín on 4 December 1941 and from Terezín to Auschwitz on 18 December 1943, but he is still named in the spring 1944 scripts as coauthor of the song lyrics. Stránský survived and now lives in Prague; he has two sons and four grandchildren. (Interview by Lisa Peschel, 18 May 2006, Prague.)
26. The most famous Czech-language work performed in the Terezín ghetto, the children's opera Brundibár, was not written there. Composer Hans Krása and librettist Adolf Hoffmeister completed the opera in 1938, and it premiered at a Jewish orphanage in Prague in the winter of 1942–3, just months before the children were transported to Terezín. See Karas, Joa, Music in Terezín, 1941–1945 (Stuyvesant, NY: Pendragon, 1985), 93–102Google Scholar. During the preparation of this essay, however, I have located other complete Czech-language scripts from Terezín in additional archives and private collections. The Second Czech Cabaret, which includes sheet music for the original songs, remains the only known cabaret text from Terezín to be preserved intact.
27. Many of the Czech Jews who survived the Holocaust, including Felix Porges, legally changed their too-Jewish or too-German surnames after the war. Negotiations are under way for copies of the Prokeš collection, which also contains other valuable theatrical materials from Terezín, to be donated to the Jewish Museum in Prague.
28. Lojínová, interview by Lisa Peschel, 15 August 2005, Prague.
29. For example, the first scene in the Prokeš manuscript includes an April Fools' Day joke. In the Ledererová manuscript that joke has been removed, and a new sketch has been added where Horpatzky refers to the “illustrated news agency” of Terezín by the name Mitteilungen. On 15 April 1944, the title of the bulletin issued to inform the ghetto inhabitants of new rules, prohibitions, and important events was changed from Tagesbefehl (Daily Orders) to Mitteilungen der Jüdischen Selbstverwaltung (Announcements from the Jewish Self-Government). This change was apparently made in anticipation of a visit from the International Red Cross, which took place on 23 June 1944. See Acta Theresiania, sv. 1: Denní rozkazy Rady starších a Sdělení idovské samosprávy Terezín 1941–1945, ed. Anna Hyndráková, Raisa Machatková, and Jaroslava Milotová (Prague: Sefer, 2003), 40–2.
30. Titles of works have been clarified with quotation marks (e.g., songs) or italics (e.g., operas). For clarity in this journal, the stage directions too have been italicized, though of course italics were not available on the typewriters used.
31. Chládková, 51, 35.
32. Three cast members (Porges, Bernsteinová, and Ledererová) remained in Terezín until the end of the war; the rest were deported to Auschwitz. Of the deportees, only Karel Bermann and Hanka Krauskopfová survived.