6M Jewish people died in the holocaust. Pensacola play shares stories of 6 who survived.

This week is Days of Remembrance, an annual week long commemoration of the Holocaust mourning the 6 million Jewish people who were killed.

To remember this tragic event, which still affects Jewish people around the world, the Pensacola Jewish Federation and PenArts, Inc. Outreach Program are presenting the play “Survivors.”

“Survivors" is based on the true stories of six Holocaust survivors and focuses on the power of personal stories to create understanding and change attitudes. The play is set in a contemporary high school classroom and explores the impact of the survivors’ stories on a group of students.

Deborah Layman was inspired to write the play when she was a volunteer and a board member of the Alabama Holocaust Education Center in Birmingham, Alabama. She became acquainted with the many Holocaust survivors within the city and befriended six of them who went to area schools, libraries, churches and synagogues.

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“When I started hearing the survivors' stories, and particularly because the stories that I heard were of people who I knew, men and women who became my friends, it was like being inducted into a sadness that never goes away,” Layman said.

She was asked by the executive director of Red Mountain Theatre in Birmingham to create a play about the survivors' stories. Layman wanted to not only tell the stories, but for young people who heard the stories to internalize them and apply them to their own lives.

The play opened in September 2021 at RMT’s 2021 Human Rights New Works Festival, which showcases new works by playwrights that revolve around the theme of human rights.

The same year she moved to Pensacola and became involved with PenArts, Inc. where she met Christine Kellogg the artistic director for the Gordon Community Art Center. Kellogg read the script and wanted to help produce it at the center during Days of Remembrance week.

Layman also presented the play to the rabbi of B'nai Israel Synagogue, Rabbi David Cohen-Henriquez, who was honored to have the play as part of their Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, commemoration.

Every year the synagogue does something to honor Yom HaShoah. Last year was a presentation by the children and grandchildren of survivors, while other years there have been movies or musical performances.

Cohen-Henriquez views Days of Remembrance and Holocaust Remembrance Day as a period to look back at our past and connect it with current antisemitism and how people of all backgrounds can come together to help and support Jewish people.

“We're still riding the waves of the events of the past, especially after World War II and the Holocaust. We think it's been three generations but we're still feeling the effects in our local and international politics,” Cohen-Henriquez said. “And (as the saying goes), ‘Those who don't learn from history are condemned to repeat it,’ so we see antisemitism and hatred never really disappears.”

Layman's play included commentary and narrative by the grandchildren of the six survivors, who spoke to how important and precious their time with their grandparents was and how their grandparents made them stronger people.

Staying alive was the most important and precious thing that they could achieve in the Holocaust and as a result those who survived came to the United States and started new lives where family was at the center of everything, Layman said.

“Most of them completely lost all of their families in the Holocaust, if you can imagine that. They were children at the time, as young as 6 or 7 years old when the Germans first invaded their part of Europe, some of them were teenagers,” Layman said. “And in the end they lost everything. They lost their homes, their happy lives, their parents, their siblings, everything was stripped away from them. And as a result when they came out the other end of the war alive and were able to emigrate and begin new lives, their whole emphasis was on their families, their children, their grandchildren.”

Want to go?:

• Friday, April 21st – 7:30 p.m. at The Gordon Community Art Center located on 306 N. DeVilliers St. At 7 p.m., there will be music played preceding the performance.

• Saturday, April 22nd – 6:30 p.m. at Ever’man Educational Center located on 350 W. Garden St.

• Sunday, April 23rd – 2:30 p.m. at B’nai Israel located on 1829 N. Ninth Ave. It will include traditional prayers and candle lighting in memory of those who perished in the Holocaust, along with a musical selection by violinist Leonid Yanovskiy and pianist Victoria Adamenko.

Admissions is free. To learn more follow Pen Arts Inc. Facebook page.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Pensacola Holocaust Remembrance Day events include Survivors play