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Making Light in Terezin: The Show Helps Us Go On
If you have ever been touched, or had your life changed, by a song, film, book or performance, you inherently understand the transformative power of the arts. In this new book based upon interviews conducted for the documentary film, Making Light in Terezin, Richard Krevolin reveals the true story of how, in WWII’s darkest days, prisoners in the Terezin ghetto (outside of Prague) made light and found a mechanism for survival through theater, song, dance and laughter… Making Light in Terezin follows a modern day Minnesota theater group as they travel to Terezin to perform a cabaret piece originally created and enacted there during WWII. Weaving together interviews with performers, Holocaust survivors and scholars discussing Jewish humor, Jewish history and more, it tells a story not only of survival but also the triumph of a culture, artistic expression, and the human spirit. This book, Making Light in The Show Helps Us Go On, co-written with Nancy Cohen, celebrates the indomitable creative spirit that was alive—and helped save lives—in 1943.
- GenresNonfictionWorld War II
192 pages, Paperback
First published May 6, 2013
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138 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 9, 2013
For context: "Making Light in Terezin" is a documentary I watched at deadCENTER Film Festival in OKC. I was surprised to learn that deadCENTER is only the 3rd place this documentary has screened. I'm sure it will go on to be seen elsewhere. I also know a 53 min PBS version is in the works. But in the meantime, if you want to catch full interviews, than the book, "Making Light in Terezin: The Show Helps Us Go On" is your ticket.
About the subject: This book/documentary is about a group of Jewish concentration camp prisoners in Terezin (Czech Republic) who use humor and art to survive an otherwise hellish existence. They create cabarets, operas, and plays to entertain other prisoners, and in a sense use theater to transport themselves from their reality, even if only for a few hours, into a place where they can escape. After the war the survivors are reticent to talk about their time in the camps, but when an old manuscript is given new life they come around to sharing their stories of what it was like to live, work, and perform at this dark time in history.
There's also some scientific research presented that examines how chemicals, like dopamine and serotonin, in the brain help reduce the effects of constant stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Many survivors talk about how the plays and cultural events helped to take their mind of their extreme hunger. On the flip side, the Nazis did not waste the opportunity to exploit them by making propaganda. The irony being that the Nazis took it a few steps further by fully embellishing a lie that this camp was not mistreating prisoners by making a production of a "model" concentration camp to show off to a delegate of International Red Cross officers, and then later filmed a propaganda piece called "The City Hilter Gave the Jews."
Other issues brought up in this work tackle the dominate narrative of the Holocaust. Sufficed to say, it is the observation of more than one interviewee that to deny that people tried to make the best with what little was afforded to them is to deny their humanity. Or to paraphrase one interviewee: it's either they were brave and fought their oppressors or were victimized. It is a narrow perspective considering that dealing with oppression through humor and art is not just unique to the Jewish experience, one might easily look to slavery or soldiers on front lines to see a similar coping strategies in the face of horror and trauma. Still it's suggested more than once throughout this book/documentary that people think humor lessens the tragedy. It's a shame, because while you can strip everything away from a person, you can never own their thoughts if they refuse to sit there and just take it.
About the bridge between the screen and the page: Commonly interviews are edited down and strung together so as to fit an allotted run time in the documentary format. One question I often pose to filmmakers during interviews is "Can you tell me about a scene you had to cut, but really wish you could have kept?" Answers vary, but you get the sense that if given no time constraints, filmmakers could easily run on for hours showing you the many facets of their subject. Also by editing what stays and what goes, no matter how faithful a director, the editors, and other post-production assistants aim to be, it's involves altering original context.
This book functions as an unabridged transcription of entire conversations and also as a little bit of diary from the author. Essentially it's a dialogue between the interviewer and interviewee. Interspersed between paragraphs are pictures, some are stills from the documentary and others are exclusive to the book, and quotes from great artists, thinkers, and spiritual leaders on the nature of humanity, the arts, and keeping a sense of agency, no matter how small, in handling one's fate. Other parts of the book not found in the documentary are various asides from the author, insight into a way of thinking about the broader cultural perspective of the Holocaust and how uncomfortable people are with looking at it beyond armed resistance and passive victimization, along with footnotes with links to references.
Overall I thought it was a great read. I'm not Jewish, but as is mentioned more than once in the book, these things happen elsewhere in the world. I also spent my three years of my childhood living in Germany and I still have vivid memories of the places I visited and kids books I'd read about the Holocaust and the people who fought back.
Going one step further, I remember being taken on a walk during a visit with my French cousins in a rural town in France and having a mile marker where it is believed a cousin, who lived at the time and fought in the French resistance, was executed pointed out to me. They never recovered his body. And as long as we lived in Germany his brother, also in the resistance, would not visit us. I found out later he'd been tortured by the SS in Germany and vowed never to return to the country. So as a viewer and a reader, for me at least, it's a subject that wasn't hard to connect to.
And there are many times in this book, paraphrasing here, where someone mentions the phrase "Never Again" needs to be adapted "Never Again For Anyone." I also thought it was interesting that one of the rabbis interviewed, Irwin Kula, said, more or less, a) memory is an act of construction, it is not passive, so you have to be conscious about what you choose to remember, and b) exactly said "...Jews as a people take the evil that is perpetrated on them, try not to become bitter, try not to fundamentally mistrust the world, and recognize that out of bitterness has to come a deeper commitment to repair the world."
Lastly a few favorite quotes:
"Hope dies last." - Pavel Stransky, survivor
"If somebody asked if we were good or bad, which of course was a bad question, but I ask it myself, I don't know if our theater was good or bad from today's perspective. From the perspective of that time, it was brilliant. Because it fit the time and the situation. And even the smallest hopes that people had were fulfilled: art vs death." - Jan Fischer, survivor
"I think we do the prisoners a historical injustice if all we talk about is their suffering. If it makes us uncomfortable to acknowledge the fact that through their own creativity, through their own efforts, through their own desire to help each other, they experienced pleasure, then...I find this difficult to put into words: Why do we not acknowledge that? Why can we not be glad for them that they had these few moments of escape and release in the ghetto? I think it's tremendously important to acknowledge that as an accomplishment and not as something that 'we shouldn't talk about that because it might undermine the Holocaust.'
The narratives are not contradictory. These narratives co-exist. This is a part of the story that doesn't necessarily get told. But if we're going to look at the prisoners as human beings and not just symbols of a much greater event, then we need to look at what they did for themselves, not just what was done to them by their oppressors." - Dr. Lisa Peschel, who undertook the project of bringing the cabaret back to audiences.
About the subject: This book/documentary is about a group of Jewish concentration camp prisoners in Terezin (Czech Republic) who use humor and art to survive an otherwise hellish existence. They create cabarets, operas, and plays to entertain other prisoners, and in a sense use theater to transport themselves from their reality, even if only for a few hours, into a place where they can escape. After the war the survivors are reticent to talk about their time in the camps, but when an old manuscript is given new life they come around to sharing their stories of what it was like to live, work, and perform at this dark time in history.
There's also some scientific research presented that examines how chemicals, like dopamine and serotonin, in the brain help reduce the effects of constant stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Many survivors talk about how the plays and cultural events helped to take their mind of their extreme hunger. On the flip side, the Nazis did not waste the opportunity to exploit them by making propaganda. The irony being that the Nazis took it a few steps further by fully embellishing a lie that this camp was not mistreating prisoners by making a production of a "model" concentration camp to show off to a delegate of International Red Cross officers, and then later filmed a propaganda piece called "The City Hilter Gave the Jews."
Other issues brought up in this work tackle the dominate narrative of the Holocaust. Sufficed to say, it is the observation of more than one interviewee that to deny that people tried to make the best with what little was afforded to them is to deny their humanity. Or to paraphrase one interviewee: it's either they were brave and fought their oppressors or were victimized. It is a narrow perspective considering that dealing with oppression through humor and art is not just unique to the Jewish experience, one might easily look to slavery or soldiers on front lines to see a similar coping strategies in the face of horror and trauma. Still it's suggested more than once throughout this book/documentary that people think humor lessens the tragedy. It's a shame, because while you can strip everything away from a person, you can never own their thoughts if they refuse to sit there and just take it.
About the bridge between the screen and the page: Commonly interviews are edited down and strung together so as to fit an allotted run time in the documentary format. One question I often pose to filmmakers during interviews is "Can you tell me about a scene you had to cut, but really wish you could have kept?" Answers vary, but you get the sense that if given no time constraints, filmmakers could easily run on for hours showing you the many facets of their subject. Also by editing what stays and what goes, no matter how faithful a director, the editors, and other post-production assistants aim to be, it's involves altering original context.
This book functions as an unabridged transcription of entire conversations and also as a little bit of diary from the author. Essentially it's a dialogue between the interviewer and interviewee. Interspersed between paragraphs are pictures, some are stills from the documentary and others are exclusive to the book, and quotes from great artists, thinkers, and spiritual leaders on the nature of humanity, the arts, and keeping a sense of agency, no matter how small, in handling one's fate. Other parts of the book not found in the documentary are various asides from the author, insight into a way of thinking about the broader cultural perspective of the Holocaust and how uncomfortable people are with looking at it beyond armed resistance and passive victimization, along with footnotes with links to references.
Overall I thought it was a great read. I'm not Jewish, but as is mentioned more than once in the book, these things happen elsewhere in the world. I also spent my three years of my childhood living in Germany and I still have vivid memories of the places I visited and kids books I'd read about the Holocaust and the people who fought back.
Going one step further, I remember being taken on a walk during a visit with my French cousins in a rural town in France and having a mile marker where it is believed a cousin, who lived at the time and fought in the French resistance, was executed pointed out to me. They never recovered his body. And as long as we lived in Germany his brother, also in the resistance, would not visit us. I found out later he'd been tortured by the SS in Germany and vowed never to return to the country. So as a viewer and a reader, for me at least, it's a subject that wasn't hard to connect to.
And there are many times in this book, paraphrasing here, where someone mentions the phrase "Never Again" needs to be adapted "Never Again For Anyone." I also thought it was interesting that one of the rabbis interviewed, Irwin Kula, said, more or less, a) memory is an act of construction, it is not passive, so you have to be conscious about what you choose to remember, and b) exactly said "...Jews as a people take the evil that is perpetrated on them, try not to become bitter, try not to fundamentally mistrust the world, and recognize that out of bitterness has to come a deeper commitment to repair the world."
Lastly a few favorite quotes:
"Hope dies last." - Pavel Stransky, survivor
"If somebody asked if we were good or bad, which of course was a bad question, but I ask it myself, I don't know if our theater was good or bad from today's perspective. From the perspective of that time, it was brilliant. Because it fit the time and the situation. And even the smallest hopes that people had were fulfilled: art vs death." - Jan Fischer, survivor
"I think we do the prisoners a historical injustice if all we talk about is their suffering. If it makes us uncomfortable to acknowledge the fact that through their own creativity, through their own efforts, through their own desire to help each other, they experienced pleasure, then...I find this difficult to put into words: Why do we not acknowledge that? Why can we not be glad for them that they had these few moments of escape and release in the ghetto? I think it's tremendously important to acknowledge that as an accomplishment and not as something that 'we shouldn't talk about that because it might undermine the Holocaust.'
The narratives are not contradictory. These narratives co-exist. This is a part of the story that doesn't necessarily get told. But if we're going to look at the prisoners as human beings and not just symbols of a much greater event, then we need to look at what they did for themselves, not just what was done to them by their oppressors." - Dr. Lisa Peschel, who undertook the project of bringing the cabaret back to audiences.
October 3, 2013
"And the imagination in the end is the one thing that simply cannot be taken away. In the midst of everything."
I gave this book 3.5 stars. There were some aspects of this book that I really enjoyed. I really wish that I had access to the documentary to get a fuller picture. This book is the accompaniment to the documentary. It contained interviews with survivors and other experts on subjects covered in the documentary.
This book/documentary is not just a collection of survivor stories. It focuses specifically on the Terezin ghetto and the arts/culture/humor that existed. In previous books, I have read I have heard about the culture that existed in the Terezin ghetto. This has always fascinated me. This book was a greater introduction to this topic.
The book theorizes that putting on productions/cultural events was a coping method of member of this ghetto, a way to escape some of the horror and hunger. In the beginning, these show were done in secret. After a while, the Nazis used these events to try and prove to the world how well the "residents" of Terezin were faring.
The author really tried to focus on the humor in some of these performances. It is sometimes uncomfortable to think about humor and the Holocaust, but it was an interesting read.
I also really enjoyed some of the interviews that delved into Jewish history. I was surprised how much I did not know and how many of the themes used by the Nazi's had been used in centuries past. I hope to learn more about this past and the Terezin ghetto.
I gave this book 3.5 stars. There were some aspects of this book that I really enjoyed. I really wish that I had access to the documentary to get a fuller picture. This book is the accompaniment to the documentary. It contained interviews with survivors and other experts on subjects covered in the documentary.
This book/documentary is not just a collection of survivor stories. It focuses specifically on the Terezin ghetto and the arts/culture/humor that existed. In previous books, I have read I have heard about the culture that existed in the Terezin ghetto. This has always fascinated me. This book was a greater introduction to this topic.
The book theorizes that putting on productions/cultural events was a coping method of member of this ghetto, a way to escape some of the horror and hunger. In the beginning, these show were done in secret. After a while, the Nazis used these events to try and prove to the world how well the "residents" of Terezin were faring.
The author really tried to focus on the humor in some of these performances. It is sometimes uncomfortable to think about humor and the Holocaust, but it was an interesting read.
I also really enjoyed some of the interviews that delved into Jewish history. I was surprised how much I did not know and how many of the themes used by the Nazi's had been used in centuries past. I hope to learn more about this past and the Terezin ghetto.
Want to read
July 19, 2013kindle cloud
August 28, 2013
It was very interesting. It appeared to have many "editing" errors which was very distracting. This could have been a kindle problem
September 6, 2013
Thought provoking. What the Jews endured and made themselves entertain to ease their life for just awhile.
February 4, 2014
It's a transcript of the documentary the author made.
August 31, 2014
so very slow reading and repetitive. great concept
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews