A Student's Family Ties Play Out Onstage

Staff photo by Courtenay Nearburg A Holocaust survivor's great-great-grandson, Thurston Middle School's E.J. Kramer, portrays a character in "I Never Saw a Butterfly Again," a story from the Czech ghetto where his own relatives lived. Performances are at 7 p.m. tonight and Saturday at the school.

The Holocaust that resulted in the deaths of over six million Jews during the Nazi era is a tough subject to teach children. But Thurston Middle School's Park Avenue Players have embraced the topic in a play about Jewish children living in a Czech ghetto, many of whom die in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

For one student, eighth-grader Elan (E.J.) Kramer, who portrays the character Pavel in "I Never Saw a Butterfly Again," the story arc resonates personally. Kramer's relatives were residents of the Thereisenstadt ghetto, which is the setting of the play that opened Wednesday at Thurston's Black Box Theatre.

The play is based on the true story of a child named Raja Englanderova, who survived the ghetto. Raja's memories of a horrific life there and the eventual extermination of her friends and family provide the narrative of "I Never Saw a Butterfly Again," which also features poetry written by the children of Terezin.

Staff photo by Courtenay Nearburg The Junior Park Avenue Players tackle a tough subject in "I Never Saw a Butterfly Again," a play about the Holocaust, showing tonight and Saturday at the Black Box Theatre at Thurston Middle School.

Members of E.J.'s grandmother's family lived in Terezin, a ghetto for musicians, artists and writers near Prague. His great-great-grandmother, Hulda Cassel, survived and wrote about the ghetto, just like the main character, Raja.

E.J.'s great-grandmother's sister, Frieda Fischler, and her two children, Hanus, 7, and Anna, 5, were not so fortunate. But their father, David, did survive Auschwitz, against incredible odds. E.J.'s mother, Leonie, visited Thurston last Thursday to tell the actors about her relatives' experiences in Terezin and at Auschwitz.

"I feel a strong connection to what my family went through," E.J. said at the dress rehearsal Tuesday evening. "It proves that it happened. I feel like it's my obligation to do this play and that it's everyone's obligation to educate people about the Holocaust." E.J. has also studied the Holocaust at a class through his synagogue.

The play's subject mirrors some of the material taught as part of the eighth-grade language arts curriculum, where required reading includes "The Diary of Anne Frank."

Scores of other Southern California junior high and high school students enrich their understanding of the subject through poetry, art, and prose inspired by the Holocaust, submitting their art and writing to an annual contest hosted by the Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education at Orange's Chapman University.

Rodgers director Marilyn Harran said the most effective response to people who deny the Holocaust took place is "education of the head and heart."

Students who engage with survivor's stories like "I Never Saw a Butterfly Again," "are making survivors' stories their own in a time when we have fewer and fewer survivors and when Holocaust denial is still present," said Harran, who mentioned that Orange County is home to the Institute for Historical Review, an organization actively refuting the Holocaust today.

Mark Dressler, Thurston's theatre teacher, who is directing "I Never Saw a Butterfly Again" for the first time at the middle school, said the production isn't sad despite its sober topic. "It should be spiritually uplifting because the characters are successful in their mission of getting the stories out."

The play centers on Raja's relationship with a teacher at Terezin who worked hard to maintain hope and optimism among her students, encouraging them to draw and journal their ghetto experiences. She then saved the students' work, which was passed to Raja to preserve.

"It's a very technical play, because it's a memory play," said Dressler, describing the challenge of young actors portraying emotional subject matter. For that reason, Dressler chose to present a cabaret-style medley of student-directed scenes, musical theatre numbers and student-produced films before moving into the heavier dramatic piece in the second act of the show.

"I had so many good actors, I wanted to give them something to work on and something more upbeat since the second part is so much drama," Dressler said.

"I Never Saw a Butterfly Again" opened Wednesday evening at the Black Box at Thurston Middle School and continues Friday and Saturday, June 6 and 7 at 7 p.m. Adult tickets are $15; children and seniors $10. Material is not appropriate for children under fourth-grade.

For more information about the Rodgers Center, please visit www.chapman.edu/ holocausteducation.