Holocaust Theater Web Site Launched

Issue 10, Spring 2012

G P N S T O R Y

A unique website has been launched providing a comprehensive guide to Holocaust theater.

Dozens of plays were written by Jews during the Holocaust period, with hundreds of dramas produced in ghettos and concentration camps during the tragedy. They are chronicled at English-language site The Holocaust Theater Online Collection (http://www.jewish-theatre.org/page2.html), currently still in pilot form.

The project was initiated and supervised by researcher and Jewish theater expert Moti Sandak. "The project's starting assumption is that the Nazis were unable to destroy human creative spirit," Sandak notes. "Instead of focusing on pain and trauma, we are researching cultural treasures... In the midst of such suffering, death and slaughter, theaters were established and plays were written... Plays were even put on at Auschwitz."

"All About Jewish Theatre" Web Site says: "The Holocaust Theatre Online Collection Project (HTC), is a uniquely accessible teaching tool that will educate a new generation about a little-known aspect of the Holocaust. Despite unspeakably difficult circumstances, Jewish actors, singers, musicians, dancers, film makers and other artists regularly performed in the Nazi's ghettos and concentration camps. Their remarkable creative output was a triumph of the human spirit over barbarism... As the only interdisciplinary education, research and creative project focusing on the history of Jewish theatre and performing arts in the ghettos and camps during WWII, IHTC will collect and document these marvelous stories. It will be a preeminent portal that provides a unique platform for digitally documenting and distributing works created in the ghettos and concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Europe, a Digital Heritage Content Management System."

Thirty international organizations support the Internet project, including UNESCO, Yad Vashem, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Holocaust Claims Conference.

Sources:
Aderet, Ofer (April 11, 2012). Website launched to chronicle Holocaust theater. Haaretz English Edition. http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/new-website-chronicles-unusual-history-of-jewish-holocaust-era-theater-1.423655

All About Jewish Theatre.com (Retrieved April 29, 2012). 70 years after Wannsee Conference: The Holocaust Theatre on line Collection to launch in Berlin in 2012. http://www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/article_display.aspx?articleID=3506

European Jewish Congress. New website chronicles unusual history of Jewish Holocaust-era theater
http://www.eurojewcong.org/ejc/news.php?id_article=7667. Retrieved June 21, 2012.

Tags: Holocaust education | Internet | Memory | Theatre

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