Weiner High School’s Gifted and Talented Program presented Who Will Carry The Word? written by Holocaust survivor, Charlotte Delbo at seven performances in April 2010. Drawing upon her memoir, Auschwitz and After, the play depicts the lives of 20 non-Jewish women, who were part of the French resistance, sharing a barracks in Auschwitz. Their goal: to keep the strongest of them alive so that someone can share their experiences with the world. A celebration of the human spirit, Who Will Carry The Word? is a sobering and very moving portrait of the resilience of ordinary people placed in extraordinary and in this case, horrifying circumstances—circumstances that make us feel uncomfortable—circumstances we’d rather not know; however as Delbo reminds us, “We will have had the strength to live it, why would others not have the strength to hear it?”
Who Will Carry The Word?, written in 1966, attempts what so many Holocaust plays avoid: to describe the life inside the concentration camps with an unflinching eye. Delbo makes us see something else, too. She makes us see the special responsibility we, the living, have to remember. In the last part of her poem entitled, “Prayer to the Living, To Forgive them for Being Alive,” she writes: “I beg you—do something to justify your existence, something that gives you the right to be dressed in your skin…because it would be too senseless after all, for so many to have died while you live doing nothing with your life.”
Who Will Carry The Word?, written in 1966, attempts what so many Holocaust plays avoid: to describe the life inside the concentration camps with an unflinching eye. Delbo makes us see something else, too. She makes us see the special responsibility we, the living, have to remember. In the last part of her poem entitled, “Prayer to the Living, To Forgive them for Being Alive,” she writes: “I beg you—do something to justify your existence, something that gives you the right to be dressed in your skin…because it would be too senseless after all, for so many to have died while you live doing nothing with your life.”
I beg you
Do something
Learn a dance step
Something to justify your existence
Something that gives you the right
To be dressed in your skin
in your body hair
Learn to walk and to laugh
Because it would be too senseless
After all
For so many to have died
While you live
Doing nothing with your life.
(Charlotte Delbo)
Do something
Learn a dance step
Something to justify your existence
Something that gives you the right
To be dressed in your skin
in your body hair
Learn to walk and to laugh
Because it would be too senseless
After all
For so many to have died
While you live
Doing nothing with your life.
(Charlotte Delbo)
