Using Anne Frank to fight against antisemitism and other forms of racism in Lithuania

.By: Patricia Wessels
Translation: Florence Tonk
Originally published in Bijeen

Twelve young people between the ages of 13 and 17 are putting Bernard Kop's play "Dreams of Anne Frank" on stage. A touching story about the life of a vibrant, intelligent, humorous, and headstrong girl who also happens to be Jewish and because of that, has to fear for her life. The mixed cast of Lithuanians and Jews is something extraordinary because these two sections of Lithuanian society would rather live apart than together which is the reason for a lot of prejudices. By selecting this group of young actors the Anne Frank House hopes to create awareness among young people about the destructive consequences of racial hatred.

Twelve young people between the ages of 13 and 17 are putting Bernard Kop's play "Dreams of Anne Frank" on stage. A touching story about the life of a vibrant, intelligent, humorous, and headstrong girl who also happens to be Jewish and because of that, has to fear for her life.
The mixed cast of Lithuanians and Jews is something extraordinary because these two sections of Lithuanian society would rather live apart than together which is the reason for a lot of prejudices. By selecting this group of young actors the Anne Frank House hopes to create awareness among young people about the destructive consequences of racial hatred.

Anne the gypsy
The Anne Frank House has been battling racism for years. Many Dutch school classes have visited the Anne Frank House where they have learned about the parallels between the Holocaust and recent neo-fascism. But this organization is also active outside of the Netherlands. It organizes teacher seminars about the Holocaust wherever it finds education lacking on this subject.
A traveling exhibition and a play about the life of Anne Frank belongs to the many projects -and not just in Lithuania. In Bosnia, for example, young Muslims and Croats stood side-by-side on stage while in Hungary the role of Anne was performed by a gypsy girl. It works so well because it is a human and familiar story about a girl from a different country in a different time. Young people can identify themselves with the play, without feeling too personally involved. Once they're aware of the dangers of racism, the link to their own society is easily made.

Exploring boundaries
Rehearsal in "School Nine." A somewhat depressing square building surrounded by shabby, communist-era apartment complexes. Inside someone has made a brave attempt to chase away the much-despised Soviet atmosphere by hanging up tapestries. Two girls whirl through the theater hall. One plays Anne, the other her Diary. They've just made a pact. British director Henrietta Seehbohm (33) gets up from her chair and is pleased: "Nice, very nice." Diary is beaming while Anne tries to hide her pride. A heavy-set boy with a shaven head approaches me with a big bottle of soda and a mega-sized package of chocolate wafers. "Want some?" he asks with the feigned nonchalance of a teenager. His name is Vytanta Omilevicius (Vytas in short), a boy who proudly calls himself a "purebred Lithuanian." He has the part of Mr. Van Daan, one of the fellow-refugees gone into hiding with the Frank family. Like all the other boys Vytas loves to joke around with the lively Ieva Blurshtein (14) who is quick to laugh and has the part of Anne's sister Margot. During the weeks of rehearsal many interesting boundaries are explored - not just between boys and girls, but also between Jews and ethnic Lithuanians.
Some of the young actors come from the Jewish School, the others come from the Lithuanian School Nine. Until recently children like Ieva and Vytas had no friends outside their own ethnic group. Ieva -of Jewish descent- initially attended a Lithuanian school where her teacher openly displayed her dislike of the girl. "As soon as my father found out about this he sent me to a Jewish school. Ever since I have been raised with Jewish stories, prayers, and songs. I sing with a Jewish choir, attend Jewish summer camp and therefore I mainly meet Jewish people." Dina Lurje (14), who has the lead in the play, also likes the fact that for the first time she has been able to make friends outside the Jewish community.
The students of the Jewish School obviously received a good education on the Holocaust. To them Anne Frank was no stranger. Dina read the diary six times. But Vytas, like the other Lithuanians in his group, had never even heard of Anne Frank. Now he says: I finished the diary in one night. Vytas might be the one who was most affected by the Anne Frank project.

Cool Nazis
One night Vytas openly shares the story that, not so long ago, he was rather racist himself. We are sitting in a loud and smoky cafe somewhere near the Jewish Community Center where the group has rehearsed that day. Vytas lights one cigarette after another. He speaks loudly to reach over the voices of his fellow-actors who have ordered warm wine, big mugs of beer, as well as hard liquor. "My friends and I used to bring the Hitler salute when we'd run into each other." A confession without a trace of shame. "I don't even know why." After giving it some thought: "Well okay, we sympathized with the Hitlerjugend that was strong and powerful. I had seen them in movies. Their uniforms and way of walking really appealed to me. And the Nazis were cool because they freed us from the Russians. I thought like a child. But I've changed and I am less nationalistic now." Still he laughs when recounting the following anecdote: "The other day my brother and I walked through a quiet street when we saw an orthodox Jew approaching." Vytas' fingers draw two corkscrew curls in the air. " My brother has a closely shaven head, just like me, purely for practical reasons by the way. As soon as the Jew noticed us he turned around and ran away like a frightened animal. That man thought we were skinheads! Ha,ha what a joke!"
Doesn't it make you sad that this man still clearly has so much fear? "Yes but we couldn't exactly run after him to tell him we weren't skinheads. That would've really scared him to death." What is it like to play a Jewish gentleman yourself now?
"That's not so hard. His character resembles mine: he likes to joke around. And I've experienced some discrimination myself. When I was new at school everyone called me fatty."

Museum of Genocide
"The fate of the Jews in the Second World War was terrible," Vytas now says after reading Anne Frank's diary. He has rehearsed intensively for three weeks and visited Fort IX -the place where most of the 200,000 Lithuanian Jews were executed. He sounds sincere. Optimistically he adds: "I think that antisemitism will disappear with time. Already I am less angry than my father. Maybe the next generation will have lost all of this anger. Middle-aged Lithuanians discriminate the most. My dad, for example, still calls black people 'apes.' And Jews evoke antipathy because they welcomed the Russian occupiers and cooperated with them. There were even Jews in the KGB." That, however, can't explain the anti-Semitism in Lithuania: there are only two names known of Jews who worked for the KGB. Still, a visit to the former KGB basements in Vilnius throws a different light on the antisemitism. Many Lithuanians feel hurt because the whole world recognizes the suffering of he Jews while no one talks about the hardships the Lithuanians suffered. And they feel victimized too. The KGB is responsible for the death of about 100,000 Lithuanians.The name "Museum of Genocide" which the Lithuanians gave to the KGB basements, symbolizes their strong need for recognition. The Jews, who saw the Russians as their liberators, are also blamed for the KGB murders.
Wouldn't Vytas have preferred to participate in a play about that history? "No, that is too close for comfort. People would probably get very upset if you performed a play which contained a message that said not to hate the Russians. But Anne Frank is not threatening or provocative in that sense and that is why the audience is prepared to listen."

Stitching yellow stars

Vytas joins the other drinkers while Gabriëla Martinkinaite (17) sits down next to me. She plays Edith Frank's part and is a lot more cynical about the positive impact of the play. "Many classmates come to watch what we are doing and they're not interested in the play's theme at all. At the end of the performance we walk around in slow motion, wearing striped concentration camp suits. This won't impress them much, I know these people. They're most likely to say things to each other like: 'Look that's why we love the Germans.' They think that's cool. I could've said it myself. I don't cry for the Jews. A lot of our people died as well and there isn't a Jew who cries for us." It's getting late. The actors disappear into the night, on their way to a party. Not much later I'm getting settled on the sleeper sofa in the ragged communist-era apartment where Henrietta Seebohm -everybody calls her Henri- has temporarily made her home. She gets home at dawn because she has spent the entire night stitching yellow stars onto the costumes.

Henri has something tough about her. Small, blond and fiery. A fighter with a strong dose of idealism. And that's what you need when you're constantly sent off to another country where you have to start from scratch, creating a stage play with a bunch of unruly teenagers from different ethnic backgrounds. People whom you have to bring together into a closely-knit group. She has certainly succeeded in Lithuania, as became clear from Vytas' remarks the other day: "I now love the people whom I regarded suspiciously in the beginning. Without them the play wouldn't be complete. During this experience I've learned not to judge people based on their appearance but to take the trouble to get to know them first. This is a terrific group. We learned to understand each other, we can communicate, help and stimulate one another. I can use this as a model for my own life."

A microcosm of society
"The conditions for doing theater together are feeling safe and trusting one another," says Henri at breakfast. Creating a close-knit group has more priority for her than producing the perfect play. "When people don't feel safe, they're afraid to make a fool out of themselves, to take risks, or to show their feelings. When this is the case they won't be able to create something together. That's why in the first week we mainly do exercises that are aimed at increasing trust. Games where, for example, you let yourself drop while blind-folded, trusting that someone from the group will catch you. In doing this you also exercise the feelings of responsibility within the group as a whole and of each member individually. That's how these young people realize that each group member has influence over all the others. This principle also rules during rehearsals. When someone takes the wrong position on stage, or forgets his or her lines, it's the responsibility of the entire group to help this person. Instead of laughing at someone the first reaction should be: how can I come up with a solution as quickly as possible."

Replace the word 'group' with 'society' and you're halfway there. Henri: " A theater group is a microcosm of society. Its players have different backgrounds, different experiences, feelings, and prejudices. Each of the actors entered here with their own perspectives and histories. By now the group has become a mirror that reflects the possibilities of what can be achieved in real life." Henri takes a spoonful of yogurt, a sip of chamomile tea and goes on. About the role- playing in which each of the youths took turns having control over the entire group. "That's how they could learn what it is like to control others and also what it is like to be controlled. Other than that we used their own experiences with fear, discrimination and abuse of power as a basis for improvisations. Subsequently they find out that these personal experiences are also the themes in the play. I find it very important that these boys and girls realize that oppression, racism and abuse of power are recurring pitfalls. The beast lives in all of us and has many faces. But I believe that change is possible. If you can transform xenophobia in yourself there is hope that this will have its effects on the world around you."

F****** Nigger
The question remains whether the project has actually changed the perspectives of the teenagers. During the last rehearsal this question yields the following answers. Dinah: " I work on being more like Anne Frank. She was more optimistic than me, while she had less reasons to be so. I'm easily put off and the smallest setback can discourage me. But since I play Anne I don't get beat-down that quickly any more. I admire her. She is my role-model." Dalia Ciupailaite (16): " Thanks to this play I can now start to see the true meaning of history. In school we learned the facts but we didn't learn to understand them. My father thought it a bit strange that I got the part of the Jewish Mrs. Van Daan. He said: 'Don't they have Jews for that.' I think that is ridiculous. Imagine if Romeo and Juliet could only be played by Italians."

Gabriëla: "I realized that the history lessons in school didn't tell the entire truth about the Second World War. There was very little emphasis on the persecution of the Jews. The 'poor' Germans had lost the war and in the end their country was split in half because those cruel Russians built a wall straight through the middle."
The rehearsal takes until about eight in the evening. In the hallway fathers are waiting to pick up their daughters. "Which part does your daughter play?" I ask one of them. Not understanding my question he proudly replies: "She's Jewish." The next day, on opening night, I see the same father in the audience. His face shows a mixture of emotion and satisfaction. For once his history is told instead of denied. Surprisingly enough it is done by Jews and Lithuanians together.

Strangely enough it is his daughter Adelina who makes a faux-pas at the party after the premiere. She's playing a silly game with a few of the others, passing around objects in a circle while giving them different names. For example, a beer glass gets passed around and is called a lemon. Adelina points at her Lithuanian neighbor and while trying to catch her breath she explains what was so funny: "He gave me this matchbox and said this is a fucking nigger."
Maybe next time a play on the life of Martin Luther King?