Skip to content

Girl's Auschwitz survival retold in drama

Louise Parry
BBC News, Buckinghamshire
Voices of the Holocaust Three characters stand on stage acting a scene from Kindness. Susan's character is at the front. She has long plaits and wears a pink jacket and a yellow star on the arm, saying "Jude" - German for "Jew.". The others wear the same star. A man with a beard and cap is to Susan's left and another woman to her right. There is a step ladder with a Nazi flag in the background.Voices of the Holocaust
Actors have portrayed the story of Susan Pollack to more than 30,000 people in the drama Kindness

The story of a 13-year-old girl who escaped death at Auschwitz by lying about her age is being retold as a drama.

Milton Keynes-based theatre company Voices of the Holocaust is depicting the life of Hungarian survivor Susan Pollack, who was sent to the notorious Nazi camp in 1944 in German-occupied Poland.

A prisoner on the railway platform whispered to Susan that she should pretend to be 15, which meant she was chosen for labour instead of being sent to the gas chambers.

Eighty years after Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated, artistic director of Voices, Cate Hollis, said it was "apparent that survivor testimony was the strongest approach to help young people connect".

Susan Pollack Susan Pollack pictured in black and white as a girl aged about 12 to 13. She is wearing a pale frilly top/dress, and a necklace. She has short dark hair that is bouncing out at the edges, as per the style of the 1930s.Susan Pollack
Susan Pollack was 13 when she was taken to Auschwitz, but was advised to tell guards she was older

More than 30,000 people, including thousands of school children, have watched the play - entitled Kindness - and learned about Susan's story.

On arriving at Auschwitz, she was separated from her family, with her mother being sent straight to the gas chambers.

"There were no hugs, no kisses, no embrace. My mum was just pushed away with the other women and children. The dehumanisation began immediately. I didn't cry, it was as though I'd lost all my emotions," Ms Pollack previously said.

The girl was moved to Guben in Germany to work as a slave in an armaments factory, before being freed by the British Army on 15 April 1945.

After World War Two ended, she discovered more than 50 of her relatives had been killed, with only her brother surviving.

Voices of the Holocaust The actor playing Susan stands speaking to the audience, wearing a striped nightshirt.Voices of the Holocaust
Inbal Biron plays Susan Pollack, who said "a truer version of my story could not be shown"

"The vast majority of pupils will never go to a place like Auschwitz to feel what the biggest graveyard on the planet is like, but this piece of theatre can bring that to every single young person," said Ms Hollis.

She founded Voices of the Holocaust to create "best practise theatre designed as a springboard for Holocaust education".

She said as Holocaust survivors grew older, "they're all acutely aware they don't have a great deal longer to ensure the Holocaust is learned about, and learned from".

Andrew Matthews/PA Media Harry Olmer holds up his MBE medal which is in a smart case. He wears a blue and gold chequered tie, a white shirt and navy suit jacket. He is in his 90s and has white hair and metal rimmed glasses.Andrew Matthews/PA Media
Voices of the Holocaust is fundraising to create a new production about Harry Olmer, who survived five years of forced labour

Susan's story is not the first to be retold by Voices, which has been dramatising the experiences of Holocaust survivors since 2012.

The company is working towards a new production featuring the life of Harry Olmer, 97, who survived concentration camps in Plaszow and Buchenwald.

Harry was one of 732 children taken in by the UK after the war, since most of his family had been killed.

"One thousand were permitted entry, but so few children survived that they were unable to reach the quota," said Ms Hollis.

"Harry recuperated at Windermere until going on to make a life for himself in the UK. His story is critically important and must never be forgotten."

'Kindness' is being performed at JFS Theatre in Kenton, Harrow, London on Monday at 19:30 GMT, to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.

You may also be interested in
Related internet links