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...
Mela
Author(s): Michael Halperin
Mela finds love and courage while rescuing Jewish brothers from the Warsaw Ghetto, and commits to encouraging the rescued to remember their Jewish heritage, despite her own Catholicism.
Format: Drama
Cast Size:1F
Snapshot
Original or Prominent Production:
Jerusalem, August 2004, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Yad Vashem.
Jerusalem, August 2004, in commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Yad Vashem.
Original Source Material: Inspired by the true story of Amelia "Mela" Roslan. Michael Halperin first told the story in a screenplay that became the basis for the best-selling children’s book Jacob’s Rescue written by Halperin and Malka Drucker and published by Doubleday. The screenplay was written from the point of view of Mela’s husband, Alex. The book related the story from the rescued children’s viewpoint. Halperin felt that Mela’s heroic story had to be told. She was mother to her own children and to the children given into her care and held the family together while fending off incursions from Polish collaborators, police, and the German Gestapo.
Nationality of Author: U.S.
Original Language: English
Production Rights Holder:
Contact author’s agent: Camilla Shestopal, Peters Fraser & Dunlop, London.
See also playwright’s website.
Experience(s) Chronicled: Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism | Perpetrators, Bystanders and Collaborators | Escape | The Ghettos | Women and the Holocaust | Rescue
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.