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In the theater, kids learn of Holocaust
By LORRI HELFAND, Times Staff Writer
CLEARWATER -- The story of the Holocaust opened to about 1,700 students from Pinellas and Hillsborough counties Wednesday. They came to see I Never Saw Another Butterfly presented by the Eckerd Theater Company at Ruth Eckerd Hall. The Celeste Raspanti play tells the story of children at the Terezin concentration camp in the former Czechoslovakia during World War II. Of the 15,000 children who passed through the Terezin camp, only about 100 survived. But their spirits lived on through the art and poetry they left behind. Six thousand of their drawings were hidden and later retrieved for display in Prague, Israel and at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The somber mood for the play was set with a spare stage, misty lighting and the classical music of Czech composer Bedrich Smetana. Most of the students came for a morning show, but the noon performance was for children from Clearwater Intermediate School and a couple of dozen Holocaust survivors. Many of the children seemed riveted on the performance told through the eyes of Raja Englanderova, a girl who learned to cope with life in the camp by expressing herself through art and poetry. Several Holocaust survivors were wracked with emotion. During the play, Chanda Staub, a seventh-grader at Clearwater Intermediate, held her hands together, almost in prayer, and pressed them against her lips. Philip L. Gans, 75, began to weep. Twelve-year-old Chanda was learning about the Holocaust. Gans lived it. "I learned a lot about the Holocaust and how evil (the Nazis) were and how it's good to stand up for people who can't stand up for themselves," Chanda said. Gans said it was important for children to see plays like this and understand that the Holocaust really happened. For years, Gans kept his mouth shut about the horrors he experienced at Auschwitz. More than a decade ago, he realized he couldn't be silent any more. "Already people are denying it. I have people tell me to my face," Gans said. "I'm the only survivor of 21 members of my family. I have a number on my arm for fun?" The actors heard Gans' story and visited the Florida Holocaust museum to prepare for their roles. The Eckerd Theater Company is a group of professional artists, educators and administrators begun in 1988 as PACT Theater for Children. The play is scheduled for more than 100 performances and will tour throughout the eastern United States through May under the direction of Julia Flood. After the show, the actors answered questions about the theater company and the play. The actors told them that the names of the characters are real and that their experiences are fictional representations of what happened at the camp. The actors learned more about the Holocaust from research for the play. Scott Hamilton, who portrayed both a Nazi and a child, said he found out that millions of people besides the Jews were persecuted, too. Melody Craven-Heinz, who portrayed a teacher, asked the kids to be courageous and stick up for others even when they're afraid. "We wanted to empower them with knowledge, so they would go out there and be witnesses," said Meggin Stailey, who played the lead role of Raja. The message doesn't always hit home for all of the kids, but when it does it's rewarding, said Stephen M. Ray Jr., who portrayed Raja's love interest in the play. "The best part of doing this is meeting kids after the show and seeing the ones that got it," he said.
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