The Cat with the Yellow Star: Coming of Age in a Holocaust Ghetto

Ela Stein was eleven years old when she was deported to the Terezin concentration camp with her mother, sister, grandmother, and uncle.  Only a few hundred of the 15,000 children who passed through Terezin, a collecting point for Jews who were later transported to other camps (usually Auschwitz) were alive at the end of WWII; Ela and her sister were among the children who survived. While at Terezin, Ela performed one of the leading roles ("Cat") in Hans Krasa's children's opera, Brundibar.  As this opera and the history of Terezin has become known in recent years, Ela (Stein) Weissberger has traveled both throughout the United States and abroad to recount to audiences her experiences as a child during the Holocaust.

Ela will be the honored guest speaker at the Wichita Holocaust Commemoration service on Thursday, May 2; the service begins at 7:00 p.m. and will be held in the Dugan-Gorges Conference Center at Newman University (3100 McCormick St.).  Works by composers who were also interned at Terezin will be performed by members of the Wichita Symphony.  Musical compositions included in the service are:
the duo for violin and cello by Gideon Klein (1919-1945); String trio (Dance) by Hans Krasa (1899-1944); and Wiegala (Lullaby) by Ilse Weber (1903-1944).

Terezin was both a unique concentration camp/ghetto and yet it was not.  Those deported there suffered deprivation, extremely poor hygienic conditions, hunger and even starvation, infestation by lice and bedbugs, disease and exhaustion.  Although not a death camp but a collecting point (later called a ghetto) for Jews to be transported on to other camps, many inmates died in Terezin.  Indeed, former Terezin prisoner Ivan Klima writes in "A Childhood in Terezin" (Granta, vol. 44, p. 203):

Hunger, and an enforced sojourn in an enclosed and closely guarded space, certainly made my childhood different from the childhood of my contemporaries, but what distinguished it most of all was the constant presence of death.  People died in the room in which I lived. They died by the dozen.

Yet, Terezin was unique in that it had a vibrant cultural life.  Many of these cultural events--plays, recitations, concerts, lectures--were secretly performed in the attics of barracks. Later, the Nazis permitted these activities and even allowed the Jews to operate an organization, the Leisure Time Activity Organization, to oversee cultural performances.  Additionally, the care and education of children was of high priority for the Jewish community.  Although traditional education was forbidden (yet children were taught in secret),  children were permitted to learn arts, crafts and music.  In a phone interview (April 22, 2013), Ela related how the young (and handsome) composer Gideon Klein often came to Room 28, the room in which Ela and other girls her age were housed, to teach them music and Hebrew songs.

By 1943, numerous chamber concerts, solo recitals, operas and other musical events were being held in Terezin.  It was during this summer that rehearsals began for Hans Krasa's children's opera, Brundibar (The Bumblebee).  Krasa wrote the opera in 1938; it was first performed in a Jewish boys' orphanage in Prague (again, in secret as Jews were subjected to numerous restrictions by that time).  The original director, much of the original cast and Krasa were now in Terezin.  Ela and many other children had the opportunity to forget about the horrors of ghetto life during the evening rehearsals.  As Ela stated, they did not have to wear the yellow star during performances.  The children could experience a sense of freedom as they performed a story in which good overcomes evil.  Melissa Mueller explains in her book A Garden of Eden in Hell (pp. 158-159) about the pianist Alice Herz Sommer, also a Terezin survivor, that

It was a story pregnant with symbolism, and the infectious enthusiasm of children singing and dancing, and the alluring playing of the orchestra, were balm to the souls of thousands of prisoners. The final chorus became a sort of secret hymn.  

Come let's beat the drum/Victory is ours.../Because we will not let them defeat us,/Because they will not, cannot frighten us.

As questions were being raised by the international community, in particular the International Red Cross, regarding the treatment of Jews and the existance of concentration camps, the Nazis saw an opportunity to use Terezin to their advantage.  They began a project of beautification of the ghetto, painting building facades, planting flowers and gardens, building a gazebo in the town square; in short, creating what former prisoner Zedenka Fantlova in her book, The Tin Ring: How I Cheated Death called the Potemkin village facade (p. 120). Yet it was the Jews who were required to create this propaganda tool.  In his diary written at Terezin before he died in Auschwitz in 1944, Philipp Manes wrote

Is the town beautification being done for us, is so much beauty being created for Jews? Is Theresienstadt being planted, dug, and built as though we are to have a beloved home here--forever? . . .After it is all completed, will we have to vacate Theresienstadt . . .?We discuss these questions passionately in the evenings, and none of us know any answers.

(from As if it were Life: A WWII Diary from the Theresienstadt Ghetto, p. 154)

When all was ready, representatives from the Danish Red Cross and the International Red Cross visited the ghetto.  In addition to a strictly guided tour, the visitors were entertained by concerts, including a performance of Brundibar.  After the delegation's visit and satisfactory report, filming began for a propaganda movie that also included a performance of Krasa's opera.  In fact, the photo included in a previous post on this blog is a still taken from the film Hitler's Gift to the Jews (segments of this film can be viewed on YouTube).

Brundibar was performed 55 times.  Unfortunately, many of the children perished during the Holocaust.  Krasa himself died just after his arrival at Auschwitz in October 1944.  The story of music creating beauty and happiness, if only for a short time, for children who were suffering harsh imprisonment has resonated with many people, as several recent performances of Brundibar demonstrate.  Yet we cannot forget the unimaginable torment endured by those children and all the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.  The real lesson of Terezin, the lesson Holocaust survivors speak of, is that it must never happen again.  We must be vigilant, we must speak up when we see injustice, we must not tolerate intolerance.  Ivan Klima wrote in "A Childhood in Terezin" (p. 207)

The only hope for the salvation of the world in our time is tolerance. . . Tolerance must never mean tolerance of intolerance, tolerance of those who are prepared to limit the freedom or even the right to life, of anyone else, . . 

The Wichita Yom HaShoah is sponsored by the Mid-Kansas Jewish Federation, Newman University, Wichita State University, Inter-Faith Ministries, Congregation Emanu-El, and Ahavath Achim Hebrew Congregation.