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Theater of Despair: Performance Art and the Holocaust
Jessica Lynn Salmans
Florida State University
June 2008
Most of us are artists in some way. Whether you’ve ever kept a journal or sketched
comics in your notebook during Algebra class. Consider your hobbies. Building and
painting model cars, perfecting the swing of your bat or golf club, writing poetry, listening to
and writing music…
In a very broad sense, ART can be defined as any creative expression embraced by any
individual.
There are many examples throughout time of art born through strife. Think about great
love songs written from broken hearts, for example. Consider Anne Frank’s Diary. Think
about poets and authors who die only to have the world discover boxes and bags full of
amazing writing hidden away in closets or under beds. HUMANITY DESIRES, AT THE
ROOT OF ALL THINGS, TO CONNECT—TO SHARE EXPERIENCES AND FEEL
THAT WE ARE NOT ALONE. My field of study is Theatre. I chose it because I love the
way that theatre is the one place where all of the other Fine Arts collide: dance, music,
language, paint, fashion…
In a circumstance like the Holocaust, or any tragedy, the thing that will set Theatre apart
from the more private arts (like sketching and journal keeping) is the fact that for theatre to
take place, there MUST be an audience. The inclusion of an audience immediately creates a
sense of community. Performing in a place like a concentration camp not only brings
together the performers as a team but also says to the audience ‘we’re here, too. We
understand and you are not in this alone.’ It’s a powerful thing when a community comes
together and finds the courage to laugh while their world is crashing down around them.
The following is a case study of ONE particular camp—Dutch camp Westerbork.
A SUMMARY OF THE SLIDES AND COMMENTARY:
 CAMP HISTORY
 Camp Westerbork, in the Dutch province of Drente, was actually constructed by the
Dutch authorities to house German Jews who were escaping into Dutch lands. The idea
was to provide a shelter for the refugees while keeping them from disrupting the towns
and villages of the province.
 In May of 1940 when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, the camp and its residents were
easy prey. It was officially turned in to a temporary internment and transit camp for
Jews, political prisoners, Gypsies, and all other ‘enemies of the Aryan Race.’
 Camp Westerbork was not a ‘death camp.’ In fact, Westerbork was set up to appear quite
humane. It featured a school for orphans, a first-aid center, a hairdresser, and a restaurant
of sorts. It was designed to subdue its prisoners by featuring just enough normalcy to
give them hope and calm. It was so convincingly benign that the SS used it as
propaganda to fool the International Red Cross. Some of the footage of these films on
the so-called ‘resettlement of the Jews’ remains today, often used by anti-Semitics who
claim the Holocaust never happened.
 Comedian, actor, director and author, Max Erlich was a Jew at the top of his career in
1933. He had been involved in over 40 film projects and was widely known and loved
across Europe. He was famous for his quick wit and accurate impressions. He published
a book called “From Adalbert to Zilzer” in which he wrote many humerous stories and
anecdotes about his colleagues.
 1933-National Socialists bring a halt to Jews in the arts.
 Ehrlich leaves for Vienna, where he is soon banished again to cries of “Jews get out of
Vienna” while he is on stage.
 Moves around Holland and Switzerland for a while before returning to Germany in 1935.
 Jewish entertainers have been allowed to resume performance within the framework of
the Jewish Cultural Union provided that they perform for exclusively Jewish audiences.
 Ehrlich named Director of Bund’s Light Theatre Department.
 Finally heartsick at what had become of his craft, he leaves Germany definitively in
1939. His fans send him off with a full house and cries of affection and encouragement.
 Ehrlich returns to Holland and joins the Theatre of Celebrities where he remains even
during the Nazi Occupation
 1943-along with many of his colleagues, Ehrlich is arrested and imprisoned in
Westerbork concentration camp.
 There was already a small orchestra in place at the camp—a legacy of pre-Nazi
Westerbork.
 Building on this idea, Ehrlich and his fellow imprisoned entertainers formed Theatre
Group Westerbork—a Cabaret troupe that staged six major productions inside of the
concentration camp walls during the year and a half that it existed.
 After their first performance, the group got permission to increase the number of people
in the company. Many of the new additions were technical support crew members. The
Troupe filled as many positions as possible. Since the SS seemed taken with the Troupe,
everyone realized that membership was a way to stay out of the trains transporting
prisoners to the extermination camps in the east.
 The Troupe prepared to stage a full scale professional performance on their newly rebuilt
stage. Incidentally, the lumber used for the remodeling project was from a nearby
Jewish temple that the Nazi’s had demolished.
 The second cabaret Production boasted 18 scenes complete with sets and costumes and a
full orchestra.
 Yellow stars were still worn, even on the costumes, to act as a grim
reminder.
Contemporary Observers claim that the “Best Cabaret in Europe” is inside the walls of
Westerbork.
 The SS, aside from being entertained by these performances, used them as a control
device to numb the prisoners.
 Trains to the death camps of the east left every Tuesday morning. The performances
were ordered to be done Tuesday evenings.
 Troupe Members were given special considerations causing jealousy and animosity
 Not all inmates enjoyed the Cabaret
 “The show was a mixture of antiquated sketches and mild ridicule of the
conditions and circumstances prevailing at the camp. Not a single sharp word,
not a single harsh word, but a little gentle irony in the passing, avoiding the main
issues. A compromise…all of us here are sitting up to our necks in dirt and yet we
go on chirping…Light music beside an open grave.” --Phillip Mechanicus, in
his diary
 The majority seemed to be in favor of any distraction at all.
 As Jean Clair writes in his biography of Zoran Music (Dachau, 1944)
 “He who kept within himself a trace of the cultivated world could hope to resist
death.”
 Arts was a means of escape and survival in every camp of the occupation. Some photos,
diaries, drawings, and paintings survive from this time period and are displayed in
various museams.
 Music was also widely used in the camps. Many songs survive and even a children’s
opera, Brundibar, or ‘The Bumblebee,’ written in Prague in 1941 and performed over50
times at Theresienstadt.
 Summer 1944 –in the last transport to leave Westerbork, Max Ehrlich is number 151 on
the passenger list (Anne Frank is number 309)
 Witnesses say that when his train arrived at Auschwitz, Ehrlich was recognized by a Nazi
and brought before a group of SS. He was forced to tell jokes at gunpoint.
MAX DIES: Gassed at Auschwitz in 1944
 Late in 1944, Allies Liberated Westerbork.
 Of the over 103,000 prisoners of the camp, only 900 remain. The rest were executed at
Auschwitz.
 None of the buildings stand anymore.
 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
 Max Ehrlich was such an amazing artist before the war, is it wrong to remember him
most for Westerbork?
 Consider the legacy of art born through strife. How lasting is it? What impacts does it
have on the contemporary world?
“A culture is as great as its dreams, and its
dreams are dreamed by artists.