Kristallnacht—the night in November 1938 when tens of thousands of Jews in Nazi Germany and Austria were removed to concentration camps, their property and temples destroyed—will be commemorated on campus with two performances of a one-woman play about the Holocaust.
Etty Hillesum, a young Jewish woman living in occupied Amsterdam in 1941, wrestles in her diaries and letters with her love-hate world, advocating social justice, challenging prejudice and examining genocide, said Susan Stein, the author and actress of the one-woman play, Etty.
The work, which relies only on Hillesum’s words, will be shared in a free, student-only play on Monday, Nov. 9, at 4:30 p.m. in the Genesius Theater. A public performance of the play, directed by Austin Pendleton (Finding Nemo, My Cousin Vinny), will be given in the theater on Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets for this performance are $15.
“Etty Hillesum invites us to examine our own personal lives and offers us a model for living without hate,” Stein said, offering an example that Hillesum wrote on Sept. 23, 1942, that reads “Every atom of hate we add to this world makes it still more inhospitable.”
Before the public performance, the historical context of Kristallnacht and biographical information of Hillesum will be shared by Drs. Marie Baird, Daniel Burston and Matthew Schneirov, faculty members of the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts. A reception will follow.
“We at Duquesne are very grateful to be once again hosting a remembrance of Kristallnacht,” said Dr. James Swindal, dean of the McAnulty College. “The resources of art, music and theater express for us now the vast suffering of that night for so many in the Jewish community. It brings renewed hope to us all that we can live in a world with peace for all.”
The event is sponsored by the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts, the Nathan and Helen Goldrich Foundation, Duquesne’s Jewish Studies Forum and its Women’s and Gender Studies Program.