Photos/Video: Holocaust Survivors Attend Performance of HERE THERE ARE BLUEBERRIES

On November 5, 19 survivors of the Holocaust took their seats at Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre for a performance of Here There Are Blueberries, the Pulitzer Prize-finalist play that confronts the Holocaust through photographs taken by the very people who carried out the atrocities. Check out video and photos here!

The play examines an album of snapshots kept by a Nazi officer at Auschwitz: images of the camp’s staff at leisure, laughing and singing, mere feet from the gas chambers. What those photographs leave out is the reality endured by millions. On Thursday night, 19 people who lived through that history sat in the audience.

At the curtain call, cast member Kathleen Chalfant addressed the survivors directly, “To our honored guests, your courage, your resilience, and your willingness to share your stories are gifts beyond measure. We are deeply humbled by your presence, and profoundly grateful that you have joined us for this performance.”

After, the 19 survivors stood to be recognized. The survivors attended in partnership with 3GNJ.

Moisés Kaufman, who co-wrote play and directs the production, said, “Each year, fewer survivors remain to share their testimony. This play is about how we look at history, and the responsibility to bear witness. The presence of these 19 human beings was a reminder that these events are not distant. They live on in the people who survived them, and in the stories they have shared to the generations that follow.”

Co-playwright Amanda Gronich said, “It’s so incredibly powerful to share this play with survivors. Everyone from the survivor community who saw the pictures in the Höcker Album all said the same thing: ‘let people see these images for themselves.’”

Here There Are Blueberries is currently in preview performances at Broadway’s Barrymore Theatre (243 West 47th Street) and will open Monday, November 9.

Photo Credit: Here There Are Blueberries on Broadway