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I Believe in the Coming of the Messiah [אני מאמין בביאת המשיח]
Author(s): Eliezer Yerushalmi
Set in a ghetto and in an extermination camp, the play asks, “Where is God?” Everyday life in the ghetto is portrayed from the women and children’s point of view. Conditions are bad, and the women seek help from the Judenrat, but there are no shelters. The kids, led by a child named Yossifun, play and build tents, solving the women’s problem of housing. A German officer offers to “help” the children, and takes them all from the ghetto. They travel by train to a camp where they are told to go to the showers, but they know these are the gas chambers. As Yossifun and his mother are heading for the showers, they hear singing about the coming of the Messiah. Yossifun’s mother manages to cheer him up, saying the Messiah is close, and they sing as they enter the gas chambers.
Format: Drama
Cast Size: 10M/8F (plus optional 20 boys)
Snapshot
Original Language: Hebrew
Publisher:
Hakibbutz HaArzi
Experience(s) Chronicled: Women and the Holocaust | Concentration and Extermination Camps | The Ghettos