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...
The Obligation
Author(s): Roger Grunwald
Brief synopsis: Schmuel Berkowicz, an Auschwitz survivor is speaking to students in a college auditorium. As his testimony unfolds, different people he encounters, before, during and after the war, come to life including: a German half-Jew who was a First Lieutenant in the Wehrmacht; a Groucho Marx-esque American-Jewish comedian (The Chorus) who leavens the drama with acerbic commentary, probing the boundary between the absurd and the horrific; and an SS General who reminds the audience how quickly and alarmingly our contemporary world is erasing and sanctioning the dark history that produced him.
Format: Full Length One Person Play
Cast Size:1M
Character breakdown:
Schmuel Berkowicz
Snapshot
Original or Prominent Production:
Potrero Stage, San Francisco (2017. 2018)
Potrero Stage, San Francisco (2017. 2018)
Nationality of Author: U.S.
Original Language: English
Production Rights Holder:
Roger Grunwald
Experience(s) Chronicled: European Jewry Before the Holocaust | Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism | Perpetrators, Bystanders and Collaborators | The Ghettos | Resistance | Women and the Holocaust
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.