The Education of Hershl Grynszpan

The play takes place at the end of October 1938 on a train traveling from Krakow to Warsaw. Yiske Labushnick, a middle-aged Jewish man, sits down in a couchette and shares a ride with a young Jewish man, Hershl, traveling home after visiting his grandparents in Krakow. The older gentleman regales the younger man about his work and adventures as a klezmer musician. As Yiske reminisces, he reveals much about Jewish life in Poland on the eve of World War II. As the train nears its destination, we find out Yiske is not just any klezmer musician, but is working with the Jewish underground connected with the Hashomer Hatzair smuggling Jews out of Europe. His stories have a profound effect on Hershl, and the play ends with the announcement that Kristallnacht has begun.

Format: Drama with music

Cast Size:2M

Original or Prominent Production:
Workshopped at the San Diego Repertory Theatre, 2006; North Coast Repertory Theatre, Solana Beach, CA, 2007.

Original Language: English with some Yiddish

Production Rights Holder:

Yale Strom

Experience(s) Chronicled: Allegoric or Metaphoric Representations | Hiding | Escape | European Jewry Before the Holocaust | Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism