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Jarrad Saff ren | Staff Writer
A t the start of the play “Survivors”
on April 20 at Springfi eld Township
High School, Springfi eld Middle School
Principal Zachary Fuller asked students
not to use their phones. He asked. He
did not tell. Nor did he collect the phones
and put them into a box.

It is diffi cult to confi scate a piece of
technology that to 200 middle school
students is more like a limb. But once
the show started, the students heeded
his request.

Throughout the hour-long lesson on
Holocaust history, portraying the stories
of 10 survivors, not a phone was spotted
Theatre Ariel actors perform “Survivors” at Springfi eld Township High
School on April 20.

or heard. The kids looked toward the
stage and paid attention.

“I hope that they walk away with a
greater sense of empathy for all of the
survivors and victims of the Holocaust,”
said Christina Photiades, an English
teacher at Springfi eld Middle School.

Photiades was talking about the
intended lesson for her students. But she
also was describing the goal of the play’s
distributors, Gratz College and Theatre
Ariel. Between April 18 and 28, the
Jewish college and salon theater staged
the show in local school districts, like
Abington, Lower Moreland and Lower
Merion, around the area. Gratz estimated
that 4,000 students saw the play.

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6 APRIL 27, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Photo by Brad Gellman
As Holocaust Survivors Die,
Gratz and Theatre Ariel Try to
Help Students Remember



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Theatre Ariel and Gratz College brought the play “Survivors” to
Springfi eld Township Middle School students.

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2022-2023 and-answer session, only fi ve students
asked about the Shoah. Most of the kids
who raised their hands inquired about
acting in and producing a show. Photiades
said they recently took a fi eld trip to
the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum in Washington, D.C. And leading
up to that trip, Springfi eld’s history teach-
ers focused on “the severity of the things
they were going to learn about.” The
English teacher thinks that “a lot of those
questions happened in the classrooms,
where they might have felt a little more
comfortable asking a trusted adult.”
“So … I’m not entirely concerned,” she
said, laughing a little.

The play tried to get in 10 stories in 60
minutes. It was hard to follow at times. It
also raced through the rise of Hitler, his
expansion through Europe, the Holocaust
and World War II. But even if the storytell-
ing was not perfect, it was worth a shot,
according to Damian Johnston, the assis-
tant superintendent of the School District
of Springfi eld Township.

“Anytime we can have fi rst-person
accounts shared with students allows
them an insight and a window into seeing
a part of life that they did not experience
themselves,” she said. “So, I’m excited
for them to have the opportunity to learn
and feel beyond something in print or
the museum trip a few months ago.”
Earlier in April, Springfi eld High School
hosted a speaker who was 98 years old
and a survivor.

“That’s what the conversation
actually was from the staff and from
the students,” Johnston said. “When
those stories are not available to us,
what risk is there for us to not be able
to learn and feel?” ■
Baltimore Jewish Times
“Survivors,” written by Wendy Kout,
focuses on 10 people who settled in
Rochester, New York, after World War
II. Center Stage, a theater company in
Rochester, created it with help from the
Jewish Federation of Greater Rochester’s
Center for Holocaust Awareness and
Information. As an email from Gratz explained,
the play was commissioned because
Holocaust memory might be fading.

Survivors are dying. And a 2020 survey
by the Claims Conference “indicated that
63% of American adults under 40 did not
know that six million Jews were killed
during the Shoah.”
A play can help fi ll that gap, according
to Jesse Bernstein, artistic director of
Theatre Ariel.

“By putting it into a story, it is a testa-
ment to the narrative that the survivors
have, but it also engages the students
in following the narrative in a dramatic
way,” he said. “Those two combined
helps give context and create empathy.”
After the show on April 20, Theatre
Ariel’s actors took questions from students.

Some were about the Holocaust.

“There aren’t that many survivors left.

Are any of the ones you portrayed still
alive?” asked one student.

“Sadly, all of the survivors we portray
in the show have passed,” responded
one of the actors. “But that’s why it’s
even more important that we continue
to tell these stories. These people aren’t
around anymore to tell them themselves.”
“Why did Hitler commit suicide?”
asked another student.

“As soon as he knew the war was
over, he knew that he was going to have
to pay for everything he had done,”
answered one of the actors.

But during a half-hour question-
with Compassion!
jewishexponent.com jsaff ren@midatlanticmedia.com
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