RAMSEY, Minn. – (Nov. 17, 2016) – The Northern Starz Children’s Theatre usually performs fun musicals. For one of their productions this season they have decided to go in a different direction. With a cast of 6th – 12th graders they will stage a production of, “I Never Saw Another Butterfly”. The play tells a gripping story about life in a Nazi concentration camp.
The production will take place in February, but the cast was picked in August. This has allowed the kids to go through an education series to prepare them to tell this story.
“The very first thing we did working with the Northern Starz theater company is ask them what they already knew about the Holocaust,” said Director of Tolerance Minnesota Laura Zelle. “What have they learned, what did they want to know, what are some things they’ve heard, anything. I tried to establish some trust.”
“It’s been wonderful. The kids have really grown, I think they have really good questions,” said Executive Director Northern Starz Children’s Theater Rachel Bohnsack. “Questions I never thought 6th through 12th graders would ever had about this type of subject. They went out rented movies or got books on the Holocaust, more than what we were going to teach them because it sparked an interest.”
This week the students heard a story of survival and hope.
“In 1942 both my parents families went into hiding,” said the daughter of Holocaust survivors Elisabeth Shapiro.
Shapiro said her family was in Holland and through the generosity of strangers were hiding from the Nazi regime with much of the family separated and not sure who had survived.
“After the war in 1945 everyone came back to their hometown and found the nuclear family had survived though the majority of cousins, aunts, and uncles had been murdered,” said Shapiro.
This is not where the story ends.
“The most amazing part of the story is not so much how they survived, but how they rebuilt their lives. The resilience, the positive energy that they imbued in my brother and I that we have to work together to make this world a better place, that we have the responsibility with the gift of life to make sure such a power never rises again,” said Shapiro.
Shapiro now is committed to making sure future generations continue to share her family’s story. She is preparing a digital family archive for future generations to remember the important history.
Through this educations series and production a group of students will now have their own stories to share. “I hope that they take away some sort of human connection to the history,” said Zelle.
A belief in potential and an understanding of the past continues to motivate Shapiro in her quest to make a better society for all.
“I strongly believe in potential to do good. All of us have the potential to make good choices and bad choices. I think that by talking about these events and addressing these with children as they are growing up at an age appropriate level that we can try to prevent that from happening whether it be small scaled bullying or big scale governmental genocide,” said Shapiro.
More information on Northern Starz Children’s Theatre can be found here.
