Remember

A major portion of my education on the Holocaust came from performing in a play called "Who Will Carry the Word" by Charlotte Delbo when I was a freshman in high school.  A lot of research went into preparing for the roles in the play, a play with an all female cast set in an Auschwitz barracks.  The reason why I use the word 'major' in describing the education is because I find that actively learning about something by going to talks and museums and doing research is a way to gain a greater knowledge about pretty much anything.  Rather than only sitting in a classroom.

I bring this heavy topic up because of a show that I recently saw as part of the Toy Theater festival at St. Ann's Warehouse.  It was a full length puppet show called "Kamp" about Auschwitz, built and performed by Hotel Modern.  It's a very strong and quiet piece showing some intense scenes that may have happened in the day-to-day life and death at the concentration camp.  Using thousands of 3" handmade puppets and a whole replica of Auschwitz - buildings, railways and streets.

It was a stunning visual from the way-back of a 307 seat house, seeing the whole concentration camp fill the entire stage.  Individual scenes were projected on the back wall of the stage by miniture cameras that the 3 performers/puppeteers, who were operating the whole death camp, held.

I was able to see the show twice in the hot June heat at St. Ann's Warehouse with hundreds of other people and in those 2 nights only a handful of people total left either from the heat or the subject matter or maybe a combination of the two.  But as a whole the audience of people seemed to be engrossed at the success of this horrifying piece of art.  So was I.

It was clear that a lot of work (manual & mental) went into creating this piece of puppet theater and I'm just glad I got to see it.  This event in history can and will not ever be forgotten.