Helga Pollak

The Diary of Helga Pollak

Cooperation project with the Gymnasium Heide-Ost. 2022-2023

The "Girls of Rroom 28 and Brundibár" - that was the  title of the project with the class of Dr. Matthias Duncker (history) and his colleague Erik Ulf Kukulenz (music) at the Gymnasium Heide-Ost. In January 2022, we introduced 10th graders to the story of the "Girls of Room 28" and to Helga Pollak's Theresienstadt diary. In the period that followed, the students dealt intensively with the book Mein Theresienstadtädter Tagebuch 1943-1944 (My Theresienstadt Diary 1943-1944)  and the fate of the "Girls of Room 28".  


The introductional workshop was filmed and a  short film produced that you can see here. 

In preparation for the exhibition, tjhe opening was in June 2022, the students were trained by an expert team of peer coaches to explain the story of the "Girls of Room 28" along the panels to students and other visitors. They did this, as I and some members of the Association Room 28 (photo) were able to experience, with astonishing sovereignty and a great deal of background knowledge.

Another part of the project was a performance about "The Girls of Room 28", rehearsed under the  direction of theatre-director Olek Konrad Witt.  On June 10, 2022, the students presented the performance at the opening of the exhibition  that took place in the  Erlöserkirche in Heide.  Unfortunately we don't have a photo of it. However, I am glad you can get an impression thanks to the description of the project by the director Olek K. Witt over the following link:

Ma'agal. The Girls of room 28. Olek Witt.

On 18 January 2023 the second part of the project started with a workshop to prepare for a reading with the students of Dr. Matthias Duncker (history) and Erik Ulf Kukulenz (music), supported by the retired, but always amazingly helpful teacher Udo Gittel. Topic: the Children's Opera Brundibár in the Theresienstadt ghetto. The public reading took place on 19. January 2023 in the Erlöserkirche. On March 16, 2023 a performance of the children's opera Brundibár followed and received enormous  applause. 

 

Project in Portugal on Brundibár and Handa Drori, née Pollak

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