A Message from Arnold Mittelman After a career in not-for-profit and commercial theater spanning more than 40 years I was honored in 2007 to found the National Jewish Theater / Foundation and in 2010 to assume leadership of its Holocaust Theater International...
Coming to See Aunt Sophie
Author(s): Arthur Feinsod
The play is the true story of Jan Karski, a humble Polish-Catholic courier for the Underground during World War II who risked his life many times to get the word out about what the Nazis were doing to the Polish Jews. With the secret code phrase, “Coming to see Aunt Sophie,” he worked his way through Nazi-occupied Europe, finally ending up in the United States and giving his report in July 1943 to FDR himself. It is a remarkable story about a man who was a hero to everyone but himself and whose experiences of trying to alert the world and failing to prevent the Holocaust haunted him the rest of his life.
Format: Two-act, full-length play
Cast Size:4–6
Snapshot
Original or Prominent Production:
May 2014, world premiere in Germany at the Here and Now Festival in Mannheim. Performances in three cities in Poland to celebrate the centenary of Karski’s birth, including a performance at the Museum for the History of Polish Jews on the grounds of the old Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. In the U.S. the professional theatre company Crossroads Repertory Theatre produced nine performances in Indiana in July 2014 and two at the Chopin Theatre in downtown Chicago in September 2014. Performances at the Fig Tree Theater, Sydney, Australia, summer 2015.
May 2014, world premiere in Germany at the Here and Now Festival in Mannheim. Performances in three cities in Poland to celebrate the centenary of Karski’s birth, including a performance at the Museum for the History of Polish Jews on the grounds of the old Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. In the U.S. the professional theatre company Crossroads Repertory Theatre produced nine performances in Indiana in July 2014 and two at the Chopin Theatre in downtown Chicago in September 2014. Performances at the Fig Tree Theater, Sydney, Australia, summer 2015.
Original Source Material: The true story of Jan Karski (1914–2000), a Polish World War II resistance movement fighter and later a revered professor at Georgetown University.
Nationality of Author: U.S.
Original Language: English
Production Rights Holder:
Contact Tonda Marton of the Marton Agency, Manhattan. For contact information visit the play’s website.
Experience(s) Chronicled: Concentration and Extermination Camps | Escape | The Ghettos | Resistance | Other Victims of Nazi Persecution | Righteous Gentiles | Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism
HTC Insights
Views, reference and research of interest.
Lifetime Achievement Award
The National Jewish Theater Foundation presented its 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award to Alfred Uhry. The presentation took place as part of the Lincoln Center Library event on January 27th 2025 in commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on the 80th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz
Lifetime Achievement Award
On September 30, 2024, French playwright, Mr. Jean Claude Grumberg received the Lifetime Achievement Award. It was presented by NJTF HTII President, Arnold Mittelman with Dominique Trimbur, PhD-Manager for the History of Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, Teaching of the Holocaust of Fondation Pour La Memoir de la Shoah Project.