Torn Apart by War

The drama takes place during World War II against the backdrop of the Greek island of Rhodes and the Holocaust of the Greek Jews. It recounts the true story of two people whose lives were turned upside down by war and misunderstanding: The playwright's father thought his fiancée had been murdered at Auschwitz; she thought he too had perished. In 1938, a year before World War II erupted, anti-Semitic decrees were passed in many parts of Europe banishing Jews from civil society. There were approximately 4,000 Jews living on Rhodes at the time and approximately half of them left for places such as the United States and South Africa. Vic Alhadeff’s father, Salvatore, left Rhodes and went to Zimbabwe, then known as Rhodesia, with the aim of bringing out his parents, his teenage sisters, and his fiancé Becky. When war broke out, he was unable to save them. German forces arrived on the island and his family and fiancé were taken to Auschwitz. He believed only his sisters had survived, but approximately 40 years later, Salvatore was on holiday in Cape Town, South Africa, when he overheard his fiancé’s name in a restaurant.

Format: Drama

Original or Prominent Production:
ARA Darling Quarter Theatre, Sydney, Australia; March 17–19, 2022. Randwick Ritz, Randwick, Australia; March 20 and April 3, 2022.

Original Language: English

Experience(s) Chronicled: Germany, Hitler and the Growth of Nazism | Survivors and Subsequent Generations | Escape | European Jewry Before the Holocaust