Jews are the lowest form of mankind,” said Wheat Ridge High School senior Jaymes Adams. “If we can get rid of the Jews, the world will be a better place. That is what the Fuhrer says.”
Adams, dressed in Nazi Youth regalia, then walked off the stage and sat joking with a teenager portraying a young Jewish woman. The pair is acting, but the material is far from the typical “Grease” or “42nd Street” re-enactment performed at high schools.
On Nov. 5 through 7, Wheat Ridge High School will become the second known high school in the nation to stage “… And Then They Came for me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank.”
The play, written by James Still, tells the stories of Holocaust survivors Ed Silverberg and Eva Schloss, who were both Jewish Holocaust survivors intimately connected with Anne Frank.
Silverberg was Frank’s first boyfriend, and he narrowly escaped the Nazis before hiding in Belgium for two years. Schloss was a childhood friend who went into hiding with her family. Her family was arrested by Nazis and sent to a concentration camp on her 15th birthday. After the war, Eva’s mother married Anne’s father, Otto Frank.
“Ultimately, we’re honoring the memories and the lives of these people,” said Hannah Middleton, 17, who plays Eva’s mother.
She said it has been rewarding but difficult to act out the horrific history of Nazi Germany.
“We’re dealing with atrocities that nobody should ever have had to deal with,” Middleton said.
Dennis Leach, 17, who plays Silverberg, said the play tackles an important subject, and he wants to make sure young people remember the Holocaust.
“People need to remember that it happened,” Leach said. “People remember things like the Spanish Inquisition but they don’t remember this.”
Middleton said three months of rehearsal have been draining and she is anxious for the Nov. 5 through 7 performances.
“It’s been emotionally trying and physically trying,” she said.
Aside from the intense and difficult material, the play presents other challenges to the young cast and crew. The actors must work with video and audio footage of real Nazi marches and concentration camps.
Portions of the play are staged behind the video screen and creatively lit, designed to make the action look like part of the video.
The students also interact with contemporary video interviews of Holocaust survivors, as they re-enact scenes from the survivors’ lives.
The students said they hope the play is a catalyst for wider dialogue within the school about World War II history.
“People seem to be interested in a play that has some purpose,” Middleton said.
The play is named for a famous 1941 quote by German Pastor Martin Niemoller.
“In Germany the Nazis first came for the Communists and I didn’t object because I wasn’t a Communist,” said Niemoller. “Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t object because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t object because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t object because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me — and by that time no one was left to speak up.”