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WSU alumnus' memoir is a
moving account of survival
during World War 11

HILBERRY
THEATRE

2008 SEASON

www.hilberry.corn

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MASTER

BUILDER

February 22 — May 17

by Henrik Ibsen

A tragic meditation on love,
betrayal, fear and desperation.
This play tells the tale of an
aging builder's struggle to
maintain his crumbling career
while reaching out for the love
of a beautiful woman.

April 4 — May 9

When he reflects on how he
survived Auschwitz, Gilbert
Michlin directs the credit to his
father, Moshe, who perished
during the Holocaust, as did his
mother, Riwka.

camp. In early 1944, Michlin's
father ended up at Auschwitz-
Birkenau, where he died in
the gas chamber upon arrival
because he wore glasses to
correct his nearsightedness.

"Thanks to my father's insistence
on having learned a manual
profession was how I survived,
says Michlin, who recently
penned his memoirs, Of No

On the eve of Michlin's 18th
birthday, the French police
arrested him and his mother,
turning them over to the
Germans, who took them to
Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Interest to the Nation: A Jewish
Family in France, 7 925-1945
(Wayne State University Press).
"If not for my knowledge of tool
and die making, I would've died
with the masses."

•

by Jeffrey Hatcher

Having played female roles all his
life, actor Edward Kynaston finds
himself puzzled when the King
forbids male actors in female roles
on stage. This theatrical comedy
was adapted into the movie Stage
Beauty — which starred Claire
Danes and Billy Crudup.

October 3 — December 13

by Sarah Ruhl

A modern twist to a classic tragedy
of Orpheus, a man who goes on a
rescue mission when his beloved
Eurydice dies. As he ventures
into the underworld to retrieve
her, he charms the gods with his
sweet music and is eventually
granted permission to visit her
and bring her back. Can he find
and bring her back or will he lose
her forever? This moving piece
will compel audience members
to explore their own beliefs about
true love, life, and death.

October 24 — January 24

by William Shakespeare

Foul play, power struggles, and
love invade the life of a young
prince trying to deal with the death
of his father, the deception of his
mother, and the deceit of his uncle.
Standing the test of time, Hamlet
ensures an evening of shock,
entertainment, and excitement.

A Russian Jew, Moshe Michlin
came to the United States in
1923, hoping to join his brother,
Michael, a Hebrew teacher living
in Detroit. But upon arrival at
Ellis Island, Michlin's healthy
father was told he had a disease
and was deported.

"If he would've been allowed
to remain, life would have been
drastically
different," says
Gilbert Michlin.

Upon arrival, Michlin and his
mother were separated. He
never saw her again. "I was
part of another world now,"
he writes. "I had to learn to
understand it and find my
place. I had to forget everything
of my life before I arrived, at least
temporarily. I (could not) think
about my mother anymore. I had
to be alert in order to figure out
the rules that I had to play by to
avoid being beaten and to stay
clear of this constant threat of
death."

Gilbert Michlin

worse, a nonhuman."

Michlin was liberated on May
3, 1945. Having written to his
uncle in the United States, he
immigrated to America and
eventually graduated from
Wayne State with bachelor's and
master's degrees in mathematical
statistics. He has been
married to Mireille for
almost 53 years and
enjoyed a long career
with IBM, eventually
becoming director of
telecommunications
products for Europe.

"I had to make sure that
whatever I wrote was correct
from a truth point of view
true to facts — so that
Holocaust deniers could not
find a flaw in the text."

His father, a
member of the
cap-making
profession,
settled in
Paris, where
Michlin was
born in 1926.
The innocence
of childhood
ended in 1940
when Germany
occupied France.
"The only thing I
remember is that
my father disappeared from the
house, and I never knew where
he had gone," Michlin says.

He never saw his father again.
Michlin eventually learned that
when his father was no longer
able to find work as a fabric-
cutter, he became a lumberjack
in the Bordeaux region, where
he was one of 250 workers.
The Nazis learned that 22 of
the workers were Jewish and
placed them in an internment

61:thert Micktat,

Assigned to Block 11 in Birkenau,
Michlin helped build the factory
for Siemens Corp. a few miles
away in Bobrek. In his book,
he writes: "We tried to cling to
life and maintain our humanity
in this perfect system designed
to strip us of everything by
reducing us to the level of beasts,
ready to kill each other ... I
would need to remain a man,
forget nothing, and maintain my
dignity. I would have to hold on
... not become an animal or even

"Throughout my whole
life, I wanted to write
about what happened
but I never could find
the time, professionally
or otherwise," he says.
"I had to make sure that
whatever I wrote was
correct from a truth point
of view — true to facts
— so that Holocaust deniers
could not find a flaw in the text.
Whenever they find a flaw, the
whole book can't stand on its
own two feet. I wanted to make
sure all that I put in was faithful
to the truth."

This story originally appeared in Wayne
State magazine, a publication of the WSU
Alumni Association.

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