The cast: Otto Herczeg, Rebecca Bloom, Rene Lichtman, Melissa Berlin, Fred Lessing, Phillip McMurray, Manya Feldman, Erica Schulman, Rose Bohm, Shira Starr, Ann Eisenberg. Zoe Lis is not pictured. Vet Witness Theater, Teens and survivors team to tell I each other's personal stories. Vivian Henoch Special to the Jewish News T hey were young: children and teens, driven out their homes and villages, brutally separated from mothers and fathers, sisters and broth- ers. They endured hunger, bitter cold and constant fear. They hid. They fled. They fought and survived. They remember, and their stories will not be forgotten. On Monday, April 8, at 6:30 pm, in com- memoration of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), six Holocaust sur- vivors will be joined by six high school students for an extraordinary one-time theatrical event to be staged at the Jewish Community Center's Berman Center for the Performing Arts in West Bloomfield. The program, entitled We Are Here: The Journey from Harmony to Horror to Hope, is a production of the Witness Theater, an innovative project where Holocaust survivors and high school students partici- pate in a series of intensive workshops to explore their collective stories and to col- laborate on a single public performance. With the generous support of the Nora and Guy Barron Jewish Life Millennium Fund, the project is brought to the com- munity by the Jewish Federation's Alliance for Jewish Education in partnership with Jewish Senior Life. Conceived as an opportunity to link two generations on a journey of mutual dis- covery, the Witness Theater was initiated by Eshel, an Israeli elder-services agency under the auspices of the American-based Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). Now implemented as part of the high school curriculum in Israeli schools, the program was first adopted in the U.S. by the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach in 2007. Replicating the Eshel model, the Detroit Witness Theater program will be the 14 March 28 • 2013 fourth such production in the U.S. "When Nora Barron brought the Witness Theater Project to our attention, we knew immediately that we had to find a way to make it happen in Detroit" said Jeff Lasday, Alliance for Jewish Education director. As a member of the board of the JDC, Nora was familiar with the program in Israel and saw the opportunity to show- case some of the work being done there as well as to connect generations in a mean- ingful way here in our own community" Barron added, "My generation lived through the Holocaust, we know the his- tory. And we personally know survivors. Younger people have no such experience. What better and more profound experi- ence can we provide than helping to pass the baton of our memories on to a new audience?" Clinical psychologist Dr. Charles Silow is a consultant to the Witness Theater Project and director of the Program for Holocaust Survivors and Families at Jewish Senior Life. "Survivors of the Holocaust hold a unique position as storytellers in the Jewish community:' he says. The son of survivors, Silow attests that despite the traumas of living through the Holocaust, "survivors have inspiring messages of hope, peace and tolerance to deliver" With an estimated 750 survivors in Michigan today, more than 400 of their stories recently have been archived in www.portraitsofhonotorg, an interactive exhibit at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Farmington Hills and a companion database online, both of which Silow helped to develop. The Creative Process The goal is not to produce a polished play. A group dynamic and collaboration in every sense, the Witness Theater Project emphasizes therapeutic insights gained through learning, understanding and com- passion, rather than the finished results of a live stage performance. The eight-month program represents a significant commitment of time, energy, intellect and emotion as the group Corinne meets every Thursday Stavish afternoon in carefully orchestrated sessions designed to create an atmosphere of trust and confidence under the creative direction of Corinne Stavish. A professional storyteller, communica- tions specialist and professor of speech and literature at Lawrence Technological University, Stavish explains, "We're in this together as equal partners. The tone of our meetings is one of respect. That means everyone has a voice and everyone is heard. We engage and we listen as each person in the group speaks. "We make a point to turn off our phones. We try not to let the outside world enter our space. We listen and learn and retell one another's stories. And we laugh a lot— more than we cry — which might seem strange, but survivors enjoy a unique, crusty gallows humor that we have all come to share" Rachel Taubman, Witness Theater Project manager, says, "It is remarkable just how attached members of the group have become" An associate in Federation's Israel and Overseas Department respon- sible for teen missions to Israel, Rachel brings to the project her considerable skills in planning and team-building. The students are asked to maintain a weekly journal to submit before each ses- sion. Their "assignment" involves answer- ing prompted questions as well as tran- scribing the recordings from interviews. "This has been a life-changing experi- ence for all of us:' Taubman says, "but the teens have taken their responsibility for the work very seriously. Three of the students are enrolled in Corinne's speech class for dual credit at Lawrence Tech" They are not actors. Nor is We Are Here at the Berman the final act. As the artistic director, writer and master storyteller for the staging of the production, Stavish has a vision for what will be on stage and what might be carried forth once the Witness Theater Project has concluded. Noting that there's an unmistakable cadence to each survivor's tale, Stavish has written a script that she describes as a kaleidoscope of lines recalled and recorded from the stu- dents' journals. "I want the torch passed, but I don't want to lose those voices we are still blessed to have with us" she says, "because there will come a day when we won't have those voices, and then the teens can use theirs:' The Cast • Otto Herczeg, child survivor, born January 1931; Sajoszentpeter, Hungary; concentration camps: Auschwitz-Birkenau, Buchenwald, IG Farben, Zeitz. • Rebecca Bloom, 15, sophomore at Andover High School; enjoys writing; the clarinet player in the production, We Are Here. • Rene Lichtman, child survivor, born December 1937; Paris, France; in hiding near Paris in Le Vert-Galant with a French Christian family. • Melissa Berlin, 15, sophomore at North Farmington High School; grand- daughter of a Holocaust survivor. • Fred Lessing, child survivor, born May 1936; The Hague, Netherlands; in hid- ing as a Christian in Amsterdam, Utrecht Tilburg, Voorthuizen. • Phillip McMurray, 18, senior at De La Salle Collegiate High School in Warren; honored to participate, brings love and cookies to Thursday sessions.