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...
For a Look or a Touch
For a Look or a Touch, the gay-themed music drama inspired by the true love story of Manfred Lewin and Gad Beck, two young men who were doubly targeted in Nazi Germany as both Jewish and gay.
Manfred was murdered in Auschwitz, but his journal with its poetic entries about his love with Gad was preserved and now resides in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Gad survived harsh imprisonment and lived until 2012.
Format: Musical
Character breakdown:
Manfred Lewis, Gad Beck
Notes:
For A Look Or A Touch is a story about the persecution of gay men during the Holocaust. Librettist Gene Scheer based his text on true stories told in the documentary film Paragraph 175 and the journal of Manfred Lewin, from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC
Snapshot
Original Source Material: The documentary film Paragraph 175 and the journal of Manfred Lewin
Nationality of Author: U.S.
Original Language:
Experience(s) Chronicled: Survivors and Subsequent Generations | The Ghettos | Concentration and Extermination Camps | Hiding
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.