Childhood Memories Of The Holocaust – A Cantata

Sunday, January 20 at 3:00 p.m. Grace Church and the Music at Grace Concert Series will host Childhood Memories of the Holocaust – A Cantata: We Will Not Be Bullied Again. This powerful musical offering will be presented by teens and adults from the Baltimore area. This production commemorates the anniversary of the tragic events of Nov. 9, 1938 known to history as Kristallnacht or “the night of broken glass” – “the Nazi regime’s first act of widespread, planned violence against the European Jewish community”. The cantata tells the story of a child who brings a book to her grandfather: It’s his brother’s Holocaust-era diary. The grandfather reads passages aloud, and the child asks questions about the Holocaust. A black-clad choir, comprised of children and adults, then joins the two on stage to dramatize the diary’s words. Each passage introduces the next song, allowing the choir to lead the audience down the dark path to genocide. The songs describe the experience of living and dying through the pogrom, the forced labor, the separation of families and the camps. The mood vacillates between hopeful and hopeless, with lyrics such as “the streets are paved with black despair” counter-balanced with the mothers’ lament: “I believe people are good.” The grandfather’s closing line punctuates the cantata’s directive of remembrance: “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”  Written & used with the permission of Stephen Freedman; production assistance by Stephanie Gurwitz Zurier; adapted and directed by Toby Orenstein; musical direction by Ira Singer & Doris Sugar. There is a suggested donation of $10; but all will be welcome regardless of financial ability.