By Mikaela STONE

“Never forget. Never again. Never is now!” is the rallying cry of the play “Survivors,” which adapts 10 Holocaust survivors’ stories to teach students history and empathy.

As the end of 2024 draws near, the world copes with the knowledge that almost 80 years have passed since the end of World War II and the Holocaust. The Internationally Founded Claims Conference, which fights for Holocaust survivors’ rights, estimates about 245,000 survivors are currently alive globally, averaging 86 years of age. Arts for Change uses the play to tackle a difficult question: How will the world share survivors’ testimonies when firsthand accounts are no longer possible?

On Sept. 13, John Burroughs High School opened its doors to the play “Survivors,” sharing the story of 10 Jewish men and women who were just students when the Nazis began their rise to power. As politicians, teachers and the survivors’ peers began to embrace the lie that Roma, Sinti, disabled people and especially Jews were inferior to the White Aryan race. This rise in hatred would eventually lead to the death of 6,000,000 Jewish people, 2,000,000 Polish people, roughly 500,000 Roma and Sinti people, 250,000 disabled people and about 10,000 gay men. People of these demographics and other minorities were sterilized, deported and segregated in pursuit of racial purity.

In 2017, the CenterStage Theatre in Rochester, New York commissioned playwright Wendy Kout to create a teaching play to educate students on the Holocaust. Later that year, when Kout watched tiki torch-wielding marchers parade through Charlottesville chanting “The Jews will not replace us,” a slogan found in Nazi propaganda, she knew, “I wasn’t just writing a history play. I was writing a warning play.” Kout gathered the testimonies of 10 survivors – the number of Jewish adults necessary for a minyan, a group large enough for a full prayer service. While acknowledging that every survivor deserves to have his/her story told, Kout selected from an array of varying experiences to try to capture the vast scope of millions of lives represented by just a few people. She considers the 10 she chose to be her co-writers as she imparts their wisdom.

Kurt Weinbach learned three pieces of advice to navigate chaotic times during his long trek to escape Austria. Of the 32 countries that announced opposition for Nazi Germany, none wanted to accept fleeing Jews. It was only due to one of his father’s friends landing a position as the Nazi military commander of Vienna that the Weinbach family survived at all, leading to Kurt Weinbach’s first piece of advice: “Have friends you can trust.” As antisemitic laws stacked up, Nazis forbade Jews from owning radios or cameras and attending school. Weinbach advises one to “stay aware and informed” to combat controlled information. Thanks to their family friend providing exit visas, the Weinbachs were able to flee to China, only to be stopped by Nazi aligned Japanese occupiers. Gambling that the Japanese guards could not read German, Weinbach’s mother claimed that their invitations to a Jewish social club in Tientsin, China were actually entry visas. The guards believed her. This led to Weinbach’s final piece of advice: “If all else fails, fake it!”

This advice held true for Rosemarie Marienthal, who risked everything to be reunited with her family. Reentering Germany as a Jew would result in immediate deportation to a concentration camp, so to return home to her parents she pretended to be a nun from the Swiss convent school she attended. Upon discovery, she padded her resume and acquired a work visa to London as a housekeeper and nanny. All the while she corresponded with a doctor in the Congo who offered her work with his practice to escape the London Blitz. Upon arrival, harsh immigration laws forced the young girl to either marry her penpal or be returned to Germany. Of Marienthal, now Molser, Kout wrote “children had to grow up fast.”

“Survivors” showed how children and teenagers pushed back against injustice by taking good care of their friends, provided food for their families, and dissented with actions as simple as sticking their tongues out at Nazi soldiers behind their backs. Rogue photographers with illegal cameras recorded this small act of defiance in many ghettos.

Both the play “Survivors” and Holocaust survivor Henry Slucki tried to express to the students at John Burroughs High School that their ability to stand up to hate went a long way, no matter how small an act. After the play Slucki shared his story, describing how he had escaped France to first go to Spain then finally the United States through an Eleanor Roosevelt backed aid program. He had been only 6 years old when the Nazis had invaded France. He encourages young people to “resist and respond, but before you do that, educate yourself.” Slucki points out that many current world leaders are echoing Nazi words, trying to stir up hate and fear of vulnerable people – both Jewish and otherwise. At 90 years old, Slucki represents the statement, “Never again, to anyone, anywhere.”