Camp Songs

A cabaret evening based on life in the There-
zienstadt concentration camp is the surprise hit of
Vienna's theater season.

EDWARD SEROTTA SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

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DAZZLING DENIM

or Austria, 1992 was a
year of contrasts.
Vienna opened a new
Jewish Museum, while
Jorg Haider, the far right
leader of the Liberal party,
continued to gather strength
in the polls. Once President
Kurt Waldheim — an accus-
ed Nazi war criminal — was
out of office, a rally against
racism and anti-Semitism
took place in Helden Platz,
where Adolf Hitler once ad-
dressed adoring Viennese.
Some 60,000 Austrians,
mostly young, celebrated the
beginning of a post-
Waldheim era with speeches
and song. And while there
have been, per capita, far
fewer attacks against for-
eigners by rightist groups in
Austria than in neighboring
Germany, Jewish cemeteries
have been defaced and
destroyed.
Sandwiched into this
flurry of ironies and incon-
sistencies was one of the
Vienna theater season's
most remarkable cabaret
productions, Songs and

Satire from Thereziendstadt.

Fabulous
Full Figured Fashion

Sparkle in
comfortable,
casual
studded denim

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It was the surprise hit of the
season, and after receiving
excellent reviews and play-
ing to SRO crowds, the in-
itial six week run was tripl-
ed while theaters in the
former Czechoslovakia and
Germany signed up to sup-
port a tour.
During the War, There-
zienstadt — Terezin in Czech
— 40 miles north of Prague,
was turned into a concentra-
tion camp by the Nazis, serv-
ing as a collection point for
Jews before being shipped
off to the gas chambers in
German-occupied Poland.
Approximately 150,000
Jews went through the
camp, with 33,000 perishing
there from starvation and
disease.
Terezin was different from
other camps because it was
also a functioning Jewish
city, with theaters and
schools. Noted Jewish pro-
fessors clandestinely taught
children history and litera-
ture, while some of Europe's
better known Jewish theater
directors, actors, singers and
poets and artists put on

Edward Serotta lives in Berlin.

plays, wrote and painted.
And while • all this went on,
children died of disease,
composers starved to death
and artists went off to the
gas chambers.
The question is, how can
one make a cabaret evening
of such a bizarre, awful
story? The answer, ap-
parently, is turn matters
over to Alexander Waechter.
This well-known actor and
director hails from an aris-
tocratic family (his uncle,
Eberhard Waechter,
directed the Vienna State
Opera). He is not a Jew but
had long been fascinated
with the story of his great
uncle, who married a Jew. In
1938, the uncle refused to
divorce her and the couple

"Therezienstadt,
Therezienstadt,
the most modern
ghetto that the
whole world has!"

went to Terezin together. He
died there of blood poison-
ing. She was deported to
Auschwitz.
Mr. Waechter assembled
an idea; a musical evening
sketching out life in this
camp. For financial backing,
he went to Austrian
government officials, who
advanced the required
monies. He interviewed sur-
vivors of the camp, gather-
ing their poetry and songs.
He spoke with historians,
traveled to Prague and
Terezin and engaged muse-
um directors. Sergei Drez-
nin, a Russian Jewish com-
poser living in Vienna,
wrote tunes for the poems,
and Tania Golden, a noted
Jewish actress and singer,
was brought into the produc-
tion, which was staged at the
Im Rabenshof Theater.
Once the lights go out, the
two actors — Mr. Waechter
and Ms. Golden, dressed in
black and wearing yellow
stars — take to the stage,
otherwise bare except for
Mr. Dreznin at a grand
piano. The first number is
downright jaunty, delivered