Terezin: Children of the Holocaust

Terezin: Children of the Holocaust, the recipient of the 1984 Children’s Television Drama Award, is a play that provides a vast historical context within which to examine the critically important issues of hatred and discrimination unchecked. Playwright and director Anna Smulowitz, the daughter of Auschwitz survivors, wrote this play to sustain and preserve the memory of the six million Jews who lost their lives during the Holocaust, including many among her immediate family.

Terezin depicts two days within a cell at Theresienstadt, or Terezin, a concentration camp outside of Prague that imprisoned hundreds of thousands of Jews from across Europe, including over 15,000 children. The play is the story of six of these children and chronicles two days of their lives at the Terezin concentration camp before being deported to Auschwitz.  The drama takes place during the International Red Cross inspection of the Terezin concentration camp on June 23, 1944.  Each of the six characters signifies one of the six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust.

While the play suggests the grim reality of what lies ahead for the children of the camp, it is also a portrait of the unabashed ability of hope that lies in the heart of a child, and the triumph of spirit many were able to achieve through their relationships and their artwork. The play is an impassioned work remembering the more than one million children whose lives would so horrifically be stolen by the Nazis.