In a powerful, hard hitting and moving performance, 6 actual survivors of the Holocaust given voice by professional actors come together to bear witness. They show us an example of true courage, living meaningful lives after enduring unimaginable cruelty perpetrated on them and their families by their neighbours and compatriots. Saying yes to life despite of everything. German speakers should not miss the upcoming performances in Vienna (April, May 2015) or Salzburg (October 2015). English speakers can only hope that tentative intentions for an English performance can be realised.
Burgtheater in Vienna, 24 March 2015. Marko Feingold walks
to the front of the stage: “While in the concentration camp I had to endure an
incredible amount of beatings and was constantly afraid to be beaten to death.
I had three siblings of whom I do not know how they died. I only hope that they
did not have to endure the beatings that left me alive.” Marco Feingold, lucid
articulate, 102 years old, is part of a theatre piece devised by Doron
Rabinovici and Matthias Hartmann. Hartmann is the German former Head of the
Burgtheater, who left this post under the cloud of a financial mismanagement
scandal; Rabinovici, author and historian, is the son of Suzanne –Lucienne
Rabinovici, another survivor of the Shoah, also appearing in his piece.
Rabinovici’s study of the Judenrat (Jewish Council) in wartime Vienna, Eichmann’s Jews, has appeared in
English. So has his prizewinning satirical novel “Elsewhere”. The importance
and problem of memory is a recurring theme in his work.
Based on books published by 7 survivors of the Shoah, (Ari Rath, Marko Feingold, Rudolf Gelbard,
Suzanne-Lucienne Rabinovici, Ceija Stojka, Vilma Neuwirth and Lucia Heilmann), the
words of The Last Witnesses recount the events of the period February 1938,
just before Hitler Germany annexed Austria, to 1946, one year after Hitler
Germany’s defeat by the allied powers. They are read by professional actors. The
faces of the actual survivors as they sit at the back of the stage listening to
the actors detailing some of the most terrible events of their lives, are
projected onto a screen by video.
With enormous courage they submit themselves to this ordeal,
every time the piece is performed. No way that they will sleep well. Most
likely they won’t sleep at all after a performance. 77 years after the
beginning of the events they recount, the last witnesses are physically frail:
two of the original group of eight have died before the premiere in 2013. On 23
March, one of the remaining protagonists was absent due to illness.
What their words have in common is an understated tone, a
desire to be accurate, not to exaggerate (as if that were possible). Remarkably
they wish to detail every instance, as rare as it was, where an Austrian neighbour, a
German soldier behaved humanely. Sometimes this occurred for an instance, sometimes for the
whole period of the persecution and murder, but when it happened it saved a life and gave hope. Of course, they
also recount the much more widespread instances of neighbours and longstanding friends behaving abominably towards them.
Verba Volant, scripta manent – spoken words fly away,
written words remain - and so the projection of a hand holding a fountain pen
writing down the testimony the audience is listening to reminds us of the
importance not to forget.
The second part of the evening consists of moderated discussions
with the protagonists and interaction through questions and answers with the
audience in the foyers and rehearsal rooms of the theatre.
Together with the survivors, Rabinovici and Hartmann have combined
the means of theatre and the methods of oral and written history together into
a new and powerful form. They have been able to do it thanks to the courage and
the determination of the actual protagonists willing to endure what must be an
ordeal. Yet they are here for the memory of those who were murdered and for the
benefit of children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of those against
whom all these crimes were committed. They are here for those who resisted and
for their successors; but they are here also for the benefit of the children, grand
children and great grand children of those who committed these crimes and of
the silent majority, who sat on the fence. After many years of the official
Austria ducking and weaving the reality of the country’s responsibility
for the crimes of the holocaust - Hitler, Eichmann, Kaltenbrunner, Seyss-Inquart
lead the ignominious list of the disproportionately high number of Austrian war
criminals responsible for German Nazi crimes - official Austria, under considerable
outside pressure is showing some signs of facing up to the many crimes against human beings and against humanity which many Austrians committed during World War II.
Their courage and forbearance is rewarded by a packed mainly
young audience, deeply moved and showing a lively interest during the question and
answer sessions.
One can only hope that an English version of will be created,
so that after Vienna and Berlin, young people in London, New York and other
important English-speaking cities may get an opportunity to experience these
last witnesses of events that shaped the consciousness if not the conscience of
the world we live in.
