Survival of the Spirit showcases music and art from the Holocaust

Free and Open to the Public

Greenfield Hebrew Academy (GHA) Auditorium

5200 Northland Drive, Atlanta. For more information, go to www.amyisraelchaiatlanta.org

In February 1942, Ela Weissberger and her family were sent to Terezin concentration camp outside Prague.

Weissberger was 11. While there, she was cast in the children’s opera “Brundibar,” which composer Hans Krasa smuggled in. She sang the role of the cat for 55 performances.

Singing and performing helped Weissberger and the other children endure wretched conditions: cold, overcrowed barracks, bedbugs, a shortage of clothes and blankets, rampant sickness and disease.

Of the 15,000 children sent to Terezin, Weissberger is one of only 132 known to have survived.

Now 83 and living in New York, she travels the country and the world as a special guest and keynote speaker at Brundibar performances. She often joins in singing the victory song, hand-in-hand with the young cast members. Weissberger will be in Atlanta Sunday for “Survival of the Spirit,” organized by Am Yisrael Chai, a local Holocaust education and awareness organization. The event, which is free and open to the public, will take place on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day. It will showcase art and music of the Holocaust, including songs from Brundibar, which is about a brother and sister, who, with the help of a cat, dog, and bird, defeat an evil organ grinder named Brundibar. The opera ends with a victory song.

Weissberger will be joined by local survivor Ilse Reiner of Sandy Springs, who was featured last year in a Personal Journey.

Q: How did you get cast in Brundibar?

A: I was lucky that when I was moved to the Children's Home, my caretaker Tella was a piano teacher. She gave us music lessons. We were already singing in our room and our caretaker said, 'You, you, you, go try out for a part in an opera.' We were nervous. We just had to sing a scale and I was given the role of the cat. My costume was my sister's ski pants and my mom's black sweater … shoe polish was snuck in and a little bit was used for whiskers and I took off my wooden shoes. Cats have to be quiet. So a little shoe polish was put on the feet.

Q: Explain what it was like to be in Brundibar.

A: We forgot where we were when we were singing. We forgot hunger, we forgot our troubles. We felt like we were part of something special. We didn't have to wear the Jewish star when we performed. And one thing the world should know and never forget is that what we tried to do was to give back to other children and give them hope.

Q: You received lessons from Friedl Dicker-Brandeis, a renowned artist, who hid children’s artwork in a suitcase before being sent to Auschwitz so the artwork could be later found.

A: Friedl Dicker-Brandeis would take us on a beautiful day close to the window, and she said 'look out and see, we are surrounded by mountains and there's sun but what is important is what is behind those mountains — there is hope behind those mountains, hope that you will survive.'

At Terezin, we were forbidden to use our names. We were called by numbers. … One day Friedl said, ‘Listen to me. You are not numbers. You have a name, and you put your name on your paintings.’ She rolled them up and saved them. These children paintings — with children’s names on them — is a way to remember these children.

I had a very special connection to Friedl, and when she saw one of my last paintings, she said I have to become an illustrator. I was 12 or 13 and I had never even heard of an illustrator. (After the war), I went to art school in Prague, and in America, I became an artist of lots of things from commercial art to interior design.

Q: When you talk to about the Holocaust, you often share a story about pets. Please explain.

A: The Nazis took valuables away from us … but one thing that was very hard for children was we had to give up our pets and we couldn't understand why. I didn't have a pet but I had a good friend who survived a death march and I remember when we were living in Prague years later, she always wanted to walk to this building on a beautiful street. She told me about her pet canary and how she had to give it up. … She remembers crying, 'I don't want give up my canary! I don't want to give my canary to the Nazis!' And a woman heard her and opened up her window, and my friend said, 'Will you please take my canary?' and the woman took the canary. Years later, she always wanted to walk to that building and look up to that window where she gave the woman her canary. One day, many years later, she looked up and saw the place boarded up with plywood and she said, and she was very serious, 'I bet the woman died with the canary.' From that day on, we don't walk by that window anymore … Children understand what it feels like to lose something you really love.

Q: You have dedicated in your life in many ways to Brundibar. What is it like to see it performed across the country and around the globe?

A: When the children are singing Brundibar, it's almost like they are singing for (the children who perished) and keeping their memory alive … As long as I can speak to children and let them know what it meant to us, it will remind them that there is always hope, and we got it from singing Brundibar … and what happened, the atrocities should never happen again … Brundibar has become a memorial for all those children – and my friends. When I have watched the Red Cross video (a film used for propaganda purposes by the Nazis) with my kids, they will say, 'Ma, do you see yourself. You were 12 years old.' And I can't see myself. I only see my friends, my friends singing. I feel like I must let people know that we lost so many young people, that the world lost so many young people. We have missed out on so much. The world has missed out on so much.