Of the nearly 150,000 Jews sent to the Terezìn concentration camp in Czechoslovakia between 1940 and 1945, more than 30,000 died within its walls. The majority of those who did not perish from the conditions of Terezìn survived, only to be sent to Auschwitz. When the war ended, only 17,247 of the people who passed through Terezìn were still alive.
The brutal story of what life was like inside of Terezìn seems an unlikely choice for a work of children’s theater. But Studio East in Kirkland is giving it a try with an adaptation of the book I Never Saw Another Butterfly, which premieres Friday, Jan. 25.
“This play has been a real eye-opener for me and my hope is that it will be for the cast and audience as well,” said Lani Brockman, artistic director for Studio East.
The book on which the play is based is a collection of drawings and poems left behind by Terezìn’s child inmates. The theatrical adaptation, which was written by Celeste R. Raspanti, an American playwright, focuses on the experiences of a young Terezìn survivor named Raja Englanderova. Studio East music director Susan Bardsley has modified Raspanti’s original adaptation with the addition of five poems from the book, which she has set to song, though she was quick to point out that the Studio East version of I Never Saw Another Butterfly “certainly is not a song and dance type of thing.”
The production features over 40 cast members, almost all of whom are between the ages of 7 and 18.
Bardsley admits it has been a challenge to present material about the Holocaust to young audiences, but feels that, in the end, I Never Saw Another Butterfly is a message of survival and, therefore, is appropriate for young students. The production is geared towards kids in the 4th grade and up.
“It’s an overall message of hope that the Jewish people will survive this,” Bardsley said. “But it’s not light.”
According to Bardsley, educating her young cast about the Holocaust is, to her, the most important element of this particular production.
Along with regular rehearsals, cast members were also asked to undertake a research project on a topic of their choice related to the Holocaust. They then created a visual display of their findings and each took turns presenting their projects to the rest of the cast.
“I think this definitely helped to motivate them. The subject matter has sort of hit them right between the eyes,” Bardsley said of the projects, which ranged in topics from the different armbands each group of concentration camp prisoners had to wear to the experiences of Italian Jews during the war.
Studio East also invited two Holocaust survivors to speak to the cast to give the students a first-hand perspective. On January 3, they met Suzie Sherman, an immigrant from Czechoslovakia, who, along with her parents and sister, narrowly escaped Europe just before the rest of their extended family was sent to Terezìn.
“When you hear my story and the story of my dear family who were so brutally murdered by the Third Reich, you’re remembering them, which is important, because a lot of people have no one to remember them,” Sherman said at the start of her talk.
Sherman began by describing what life was like for her parents and relatives prior to the war. Her father had owned a car manufacturing plant and the family was fairly well off and considered themselves fully assimilated within the fabric of Czechoslovakian society. Once the war began, however, her father’s business was seized.
“This good life ended far too soon,” Sherman said.
With the help of a non-Jewish friend who had gained some clout among the Nazis in Prague, Suzie’s immediate family was able to escape to The Netherlands, where, like Anne Frank and her family, they hid in the attic of a sympathetic friend. From there, they made their way to England, and finally, near the end of the war, to Seattle.
Sherman’s extended family that remained in Prague were not so lucky, however, and all but a few were killed or died from illness in Terezìn.
In an effort to find out what had happened to those of her family who were left behind in Europe, Sherman has worked to collect whatever photos and documents that might have been left behind by her relatives, which she then shared with the cast of I Never Saw Another Butterfly following her presentation.
Later in the month, Tom Lenda, who was at Terezìn from the ages of 6-9, came to speak about his experience as a child living inside of the camp. According to Bardsley, the cast members were deeply moved by Lenda’s descriptions of how he and his friends tried to be normal kids despite their surroundings.
“They way he spoke about it, he just had so much heart. It was beautiful to listen to, but also painful,” she said.
For Brockman, it is giving her cast members the opportunity to meet these kinds of people and share in their experiences that drives her to put on shows like I Never Saw Another Butterfly.
“These kids will walk away from this and they’ll know,” she said. “That’s what drives me emotionally.
A brutal, artistic story
