Tags: Vilna

Adam [אדם]

The second in Sobol’s Vilna trilogy. An old Jewish women named Nadia remembers the events of the play. Adam Rolnik (based on the real head of the Resistance, Yitzhak Wittenberg) is the head of the Resistance in Vilna ghetto. The Nazis demand his extradition or they will finish the entire ghetto. Jacob Gens, chief of the Jewish police, is forced to make the decision, with the unpredictable SS commander Kittel, breathing down his neck.

Bird of the Ghetto [Der foygl fun geto]

Yitzhak Wittenberg is the leader of the Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye, a resistance group in the Vilna Ghetto. He is working hard to build a fighting force. He is captured in 1943, but his friends manage to rescue him, so the Germans set an ultimatum: if Wittenberg won't turn himself in, in 24 hours, they will destroy the entire ghetto. Wittenberg gave himself up.

Dead-end Street [רחוב ללא מוצא]

A play about the Vilna Ghetto.

Ghetto [גטו]

A glimpse into ghetto life. The play unfolds as a memory of a former artistic director of the Wilna ghetto theater and explores the life and death decisions of Mr. Gens, head of ghetto; the mixed emotions of Chaja, an actress in the troupe; and the questionable ethics of Weiskopf, a tailor. At times Ghetto is a play within a play. It contains songs that were actually sung in the ghettos.

The Underground [במחתרת]

The third play in the Ghetto Vilna trilogy. During the Gulf war, an old man who was hit from the Iraqi attack arrives at a hospital. The young doctor who treats him finds a personal diary of a doctor who worked in Ghetto Vilna. The play is a flashback, and we see the underground secret hospital in the ghetto, with all the dilemmas that arise in such extreme circumstances: Who should get treatment? How to heal with very little supplies? What to do when an epidemic breaks out? And so on.