As the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre’s production of “Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project” nears its local premiere this weekend at the Byham Theatre, it has been en-“Light”-ening to sample some of the other events that were associated with the project.
There are those, like me, who aren’t Jewish and have viewed the Holocaust, we thought, from a distance. It was always, admittedly, easy to sympathize. But we could secretly harbor the feeling of relief that it wasn’t about “us.”
Well, it is.
In collaboration with The Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh has “Tempted, Mislead, Slaughtered. The Short Life of Hitler Youth Paul B” on view until Dec. 31. “Light” choreographer Stephen Mills recently remarked that the Holocaust was too big a topic to wrap your arms around it. But if it is personalized?
This exhibit consists of about a series of large placards affixed to the wall of a large, open seating area. It relays the nazification of Germany through the youth movement. That began as early as 1920 with outdoor camps, but was formally established in 1926.
The exhibit has a face and that is Paul Bayer. Some photos of his personal memorabilia are on display, including a tiny postcard reading “Heil Hitler! Your thankful Little Paul.” Hitler Youth administrators cleverly presented war as an adventure, capitalizing on boys’ fascination with guns and Paul was a victim.
But the major point of the exhibit is the final placard, noting that there are 300,000 boys worldwide presently fighting, some toting guns, others used as mine detectors or participants in suicide missions.
There is also Heinz History Center, which has a small, but important display connecting the Holocaust to Pittsburgh. Curator Susan Melnick identified various memorabilia from the Rauh Jewish Archives that related to the Holocaust. Visitors to the sixth floor can see real-time reporting of Kristallnacht, dated Nov. 18, 1937 or photos of an unnamed family that went into hiding for four years in a basement.
Then Congressman Henry Ellenbogen helped Jewish immigrants by signing the essential “Affidavit of Support” for them. And there’s a copy of “Escape and Return,” written by Fritz Ottenheimer, who came to Pittsburgh in 1939 and went back to the war effort as a translator.
In the rotating Jewish collection, visitors can be find a mezuzah from a home in Germany as well as a table, a family heirloom that one family had to leave behind. That family left the table with a neighbor. Only recently they went back to find that the neighbor had kept the table all those years. Now it is part of the Rauh collection.
The two exhibits share one thing, that the Holocaust touches all of us, whether it be the latest dictator, a young boy fighting a man’s war or the six degrees of separation that connect all of us to a survivor.
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