Through voices of children

LEISAH NAMM
Assistant Editor

Georg Stangelberger, left, artistic director of the Phoenix Boys Choir, rehearses with the Tour Choir for their performance of "The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Child."

Photo courtesy of the Phoenix Boys Choir

Words of children from the Terezin concentration camp will be heard through the voices of the Phoenix Boys Choir during performances April 12-14 commemorating Yom HaShoah - Holocaust Memorial Day.

"The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Child" program combines "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" - poetry written by the children of Terezin and set to music - and "Brundibar," an opera written for the same children and performed in the Czechoslovakian camp during World War II.

Phoenix Boys Choir Artistic Director Georg Stangelberger chose to include the performance in the choir's season after being asked to perform "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" last year. "I didn't know the piece at that point and when I got to know it, I found it was too beautiful and the message was too powerful to be done for one concert," he says.

He combined it with "Brundibar" - which he had previously performed in Vienna - to provide an educational project for Valley audiences. Originally, the Nazis used the opera as a propaganda project to show the International Red Cross "how 'great' life in Terezin was," Stangelberger says.

"In the front it was like a garden of paradise with flowers," says Holocaust survivor Helen Handler. "So when the Red Cross came, they thought the Jews were in a summer camp, but behind these walls of the front, children and grown-ups starved and died. Very few survived." Those who didn't die were sent to Auschwitz.

Terezin, also called Theresienstadt, was known for its music; Nazi leaders visited the camp for performances, Handler says. Children performed the opera while adults played in the orchestra; casts changed when its members were sent to Auschwitz.

Austrian-born Stangel-berger says he told the boys during rehearsals that "the main thing is to not forget what has happened there because it is still happening all around the world, and it will always continue to happen if people are not aware."

In preparation for the performance, Holocaust survivors spoke to the mostly non-Jewish children, ages 8-14, and their parents about the wartime experiences.

"It was quite amazing because they were very young and their questions were quite adult questions," says Holocaust survivor Betty Schimmel, who spoke to the children with her husband Otto.

The Schimmels often speak throughout the Valley about their experiences, but usually to adults or high school students. Because of the boys' ages, they omitted some details. "Neither my wife nor myself went into certain horrible stories," Otto Schimmel says.

"I was practically that old when I went into Auschwitz," Handler says. "I was 15 years old so these kids are about more or less the age I was when I went through these things."

Choir members kept journals about this experience - taking notes when the survivors spoke and writing their impressions during rehearsals as they learned about the piece.

"The important thing for me is that they remember years down the road ... what their personal impressions were about this whole process," says Stangelberger. "It's very important that that not be just (a) momentary experience."

Choir member Josten Vander Wal, 11, says before he worked on this program he knew a little about the Holocaust and now is "glad to be sharing with the world about the Holocaust."

Justin Bauer, 12, says he studied the Holocaust at Temple Solel's Hebrew school and remarks one of the things that he will remember the most "is the black numbers etched in a lady's skin. It was like a millstone around her neck and something that she can't let go of."

Susan Bauer, Justin's mom, says the program was especially meaningful to their family because they have relatives who are Holocaust survivors, and hearing from other survivors "was something I know will touch (Justin's) life and that he will really remember."

Eleven-year-old Aaron Gonsher, a member of Beth El Congregation, says he never liked to think too much about the Holocaust "because it is scary. But this experience taught me that Jews need to be aware and educated and speak out."

He also says that he "learned from the survivors to never let others forget so that it will not happen again."

What he'll remember most is when one survivor pulled up her sleeve and showed her number tattoo. "That made me realize for certain that they didn't think of Jews as people," he says. "I was upset and angry and confused all at once."

Willard Applefeld, 13, feels "pride in representing the people who died in the Holocaust and how their voices may sing out through us."

The children and members of the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors' Association will share a meal on April 7. They expect 100-120 survivors and 80-90 boys, says David Kader, president of the association. The boys will give a short recital.

"Through the Eyes of a Child" is a collaboration between the Phoenix Boys Choir, Childsplay, Arizona State University, the Phoenix Holocaust Survivors' Association and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

Jon Gentry of the local children's theater group Childsplay is staging the opera for the boys' choir.

Besides the April 12 performance of both pieces at the Orpheum Theatre and the April 13 performance of "Brundibar" at Temple Beth Israel, the choir will also sing "I Never Saw Another Butterfly" at the April 14 Phoenix Holocaust Survivors' Association Yom HaShoah commemoration at Temple Chai.

The gathering typically draws 300-600 people, but this year the association expects up to 800, says Kader.

What makes this significant is that the boys in the choir "bring their parents with them (and) their family to watch them sing," Kader says. "I think what's going to be unique about April 14... we're not just going to have 100 survivors with their immediate family sitting there."

The communitywide event will also include remarks by Rabbi William Berk and the presentation of the Shofar Zackhor (Horn of Remembrance) award - given to those in the greater community who have played an important part in Holocaust education.

"To have these young boys singing these words written by similarly aged kids from a different continent and a different religion and a different place, it's going to be something," Kader says. "I think it's going to be special."

Handler says that through performances like this, the music of those killed in the Holocaust lives on. "These young people are keeping it alive... their music will stay alive as long as people are playing it."

Details

What: "The Holocaust Through the Eyes of a Child"
Who: The Phoenix Boys Choir
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 12
Where: The Orpheum Theatre, 200 W. Washington St., Phoenix
Cost: $25 preferred seating, $8 general
Call: 602-264-5328 or visit www.tickets.com
What: "Brundibar"
Who: The Phoenix Boys Choir
When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 13
Where: Temple Beth Israel, 10460 N. 56th St., Scottsdale
Cost: $25 preferred seating, $8 general
Call: 602-264-5328 or visit www.tickets.com
What: Yom HaShoah commemoration
Who: Phoenix Holocaust Survivors' Association
When: 3 p.m. Sunday, April 14
Where: Temple Chai, 4645 E. Marilyn Road, Phoenix
Cost: Free
Call: 602-788-7003

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