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...
Golgotha [גולגולתא]
Author(s): Shmuel Refael
"Golgotha," the name of the site of Jesus' crucifixion, has become a Ladino word for suffering. Albert Salvado, a Ladino-speaking Jew and Holocaust survivor from Thessaloniki, Greece, is asked to light a beacon on Holocaust Memorial Day at Yad Vashem. The invitation stirs up his memories and guilt—he not only questions his right to light the torch, but also his identity as a Sephardic Jew. During the Holocaust, he worked in the crematorium at Auschwitz. His job was to walk the victims into the gas chambers, take out the bodies, and move them to the ovens. During that time his only wish was to see his wife just once more. And indeed, he saw her again when she came to the gas chambers; he had to put her inside and later burn her body. He also lost his two daughters in the camp. His own survival is, he feels, more a punishment than a blessing—searing guilt is the price he must pay for failing his family.
Format: Monodrama
Cast Size:1M
Snapshot
Original or Prominent Production:
Tzavta Theater, 2008. An English language adaptation by Haim Idissis, performed by Victor Attar, at La MaMa, New York, 2005 and January 2017 to coincide with U.N. World Holocaust Day.
Tzavta Theater, 2008. An English language adaptation by Haim Idissis, performed by Victor Attar, at La MaMa, New York, 2005 and January 2017 to coincide with U.N. World Holocaust Day.
Nationality of Author: Israeli
Original Language: Hebrew
Publisher:
Experience(s) Chronicled: Concentration and Extermination Camps | Survivors and Subsequent Generations
HTC Insights
Views, reference and research of interest.
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.
Many Questions and a Few Answers
by Robert Skloot 2022 NJTF HTII Lifetime Achievement Award AHO Winter Conference, Miami, FL I’d like to begin my remarks by asking the question that all of us have been asked often: “Why do you do the work you do?” There are, of course, many answers, but I’d imagine...