Artists Of Terezin: An Evening of
Remembrance at the Dowdell Library
Press Release 7/15/19
SOUTH AMBOY — On Tuesday, August 13 at 6:30pm, the Dowdell Library is honored to host the Artistic Remembrance Project’s “Voices of the Holocaust—Artists of Terezin,” a live music, poetry reading, and discussion presented by Collegium Musicum. The program includes an exhibition dedicated to the children’s opera Brundibar, staged at the Teresienstadt (Terezin) Concentration Camp in 1944; the exhibit was originally prepared for and exposed at Berkeley University as part of their Culture Against Destruction Project. It has been provided to Collegium Music to be used as part of “Voices of the Holocaust—Artists of Terezin” Remembrance Project by Elena Makarova Initiatives Group, Haifa, Israel.
According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), Theresienstadt operated from November 24, 1941 to May 9, 1945. During this time, it served as a settlement, assembly camp, and concentration camp. “In its function as a tool of deception,” the USHMM states, “Theresienstadt was unique . . . [because] the Nazis used the Theresienstadt ghetto to hide the nature” of mass deportations. Though Nazi propaganda depicted the camp as a resettlement community with a lively cosmopolitan vibe, “the ghetto was in reality a collection center for deportations to ghettos and killing centers in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe.”
More from the USHMM: “Despite the terrible living conditions and the constant threat of deportation, Theresienstadt had a highly developed cultural life. Outstanding Jewish artists, mainly from Czechoslovakia, Austria, and Germany, created drawings and paintings, some of them clandestine depictions of the ghetto’s harsh reality. Writers, professors, musicians, and actors gave lectures, concerts, and theater performances. The ghetto maintained a lending library of 60,000 volumes.
“Fifteen thousand children passed through Theresienstadt. Although forbidden to do so, they attended school. They painted pictures, wrote poetry, and otherwise tried to maintain a vestige of normalcy. Approximately 90 percent of these children perished in killing centers.”
You can learn more about Theresienstadt at the Voices of the Holocaust—Artists of Terezin program, through the Dowdell Library, and online, including the valuable information available via the USHMM at https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/theresienstadt.
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Comments, queries, compliments? Please visit www.dowdell.org, or contact the Library at 732-721-6060 or comments@dowdell.org. The library is located off John O’Leary Blvd, adjacent to South Amboy Middle High School. Summer hours are Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday from 10am to 8pm; and Wednesday and Friday from 10am to 5pm.
