Lost and found Holocaust poetry-inspired show among offerings at new Jewish cultural festival By: AV Kitching Posted: 6:17 PM CDT Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024

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This article was published 27/10/2024 (665 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When musician and composer Lenka Lichtenberg performs her solo show, The Secret Poetess of Terezin, as part of the inaugural JFest WPG on Tuesday, she will be singing words penned by her maternal grandmother more than 79 years ago.

Between 1940 to 1945, Lichtenberg’s babinka, Anna Hana Friesová, filled two notebooks with poetry, some of which was written when Friesová was in the Terezin (Theresienstadt) concentration camp, where she was imprisoned during the Second World War.

Lichtenberg had no idea they existed. The notebooks, which contained around 70 poems, had sat undiscovered in a desk drawer for years, buried under piles of paperwork.

“I found them when my own mother passed and I was looking for some documents in her apartment in Prague,” she says. “I recognized my grandmother’s writing. I sat reading in that little bedroom for hours, completely transfixed.

“The writing is deep and thoughtful and philosophical and creative, about relationships and the human condition. I had no idea my grandmother wrote poetry. It came as a shock to me.”

Having been a musician all her life, it felt only natural for Lichtenberg to turn the poems into songs.

She’s since released two albums, the Juno-award winning Thieves of Dreams, featuring 16 songs sung in Czech, and the English-language Feel With Blood, which features eight reimagined tracks from the original album and nine new compositions.

But the work, which will be performed at the Berney Theatre, was always meant to be a play, Lichtenberg says.

“I felt the show was the right way to present it. To paint the picture and make the songs meaningful, you need to convey a lot more than any album can provide,” she says. “And the only way I can do this writing and my grandmother any justice is if I put it with the story; then the full impact of it comes through.”

Originally presented by an ensemble cast featuring three other narrators and five musicians, tomorrow’s show will be her third solo performance.

She’s stripped the story down to its bones, including only songs that resonate deeply with her. She says this is what she has been working towards ever since she discovered the diaries.

“It’s been a process, going backwards to get here. It took a while for the work to evolve from a big show to a solo show. This is what I really need to say and here are the songs that say it.”

Working on the production has not only enriched her creatively, but also allowed her to rediscover her relationship with her grandmother, who died when Lichtenberg was in her 20s.

“I fly at the end of the show, I do. I love it, I feel like I have been given a huge gift by this discovery, and I have done with it what needed to be done,” she says.

“When I am onstage, I bring with me her beautiful portrait and it is standing there on an easel on the stage for everyone to see, so she is kind of there. I think she would really like that.”

Lichtenberg’s performance is one of three musical shows taking place at JFest, which runs until Sunday Nov. 3 at the Rady Jewish Community Centre. There is also an art exhibition and a children’s festival as part of the programming.

JFest was created to expand the cultural activities on offer at the Rady, and to present different aspects of Jewish culture to a wider audience, says festival musical producer Karla Berbrayer.

“It’s for anybody who enjoys arts, music and children’s programming,” Berbrayer says. “We are hoping people of all backgrounds will come.”

av.kitching@freepress.mb.ca