As part of the popular Holocaust course at Ferrum College, the Mill Mountain Players Tour brings students and community members a dramatic experience of the European tragedy of the 1930s and 40s, And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank. The play is scheduled for Tuesday, February 27, at 7:30 p.m. in the College's Sale Theatre.
"This is a special treat for the College and our community. Dramatic performance brings an immediacy to the Holocaust tragedy, and it touches people directly," explains Ferrum's Holocaust course Coordinator and Associate Professor of English, Dr. Marcia Horn.
And Then They Came for Me is a multimedia play by James Still that weaves videotaped interviews with Holocaust survivors Ed Silverberg and Eva Schloss with live actors recreating scenes from the survivors' experiences during World War II.
Silverberg was Anne Frank's first boyfriend, and she wrote about him in the beginning of her now-famous diary. He barely escaped the Nazis before going into hiding in Belgium for 26 months.
Eva Schloss was the same age as Anne Frank and lived in the same building in Amsterdam. Her family went into hiding the same day as the Frank family. Like the Frank family, they were betrayed. On Eva's 15th birthday, her family was arrested by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps. Eva and her mother survived.
And Then they Came for Me is part oral history, part dramatic action, part direct address, part remembrance. Playwright James Still says he vividly remembers reading Anne Frank's diary when he was 12. "Something stirred inside me-still stirred inside me years later as I worked on this projectI know that [Eva and Ed] do not think of themselves as heroes--but to me, that is what they are. And by choosing to share their stories with young people and their families, Eva Schloss and Ed Silverberg are heroes again."
The Tour's visit to Ferrum College is sponsored by the Virginia Commission for the Arts, several local businesses and the College.
The public is invited to attend the free event. For more information, please contact Marcia Horn at (540) 365-4328 or (540) 483-8880.
Ferrum College is a four-year, private, co-educational, liberal arts college affiliated with the United Methodist Church. Ferrum offers a choice of nationally recognized bachelor's degree programs at a cost well below the national average for private colleges. To learn more about the College, call 1-800-868-9797 or visit www.ferrum.edu. # # #