THE annual Fred Marcus Memorial Holocaust Lecture, now in its 12th year, invites academics, documentarians, authors and Holocaust survivors to delve into the most accursed period of human century.
This past Sunday, however, was different.
Nearly 400 people at the JCC disappeared inside Miep Gies: A Beacon of Hope, a monologue written and performed by longtime teacher Judy Winnick.
Miep Gies, who died in 2010, was one of five Dutch citizens who hid Anne Frank, her family and four Jewish acquaintances in an Amsterdam attic from 1942 until their arrest and deportation in 1944.
DUs Dr. Sarah Pessin gave the introduction.
Each year, the Marcus Memorial Holocaust Lecture strives to bring the memory of the Holocaust from the exterior scaffold inward, allowing all of us to experience Holocaust history and memory from the inside, she said.
Judy Winnick is a gifted performer and educator, and we are about to embark on a truly transformative journey of memory memory experienced on the inside, together.
Before going into hiding, Annes father Otto the familys lone survivor of the Holocaust asked Gies, a Viennese-born employee at his business, if she would bring food and essentials to the family once they occupied the Secret Annex above.
She agreed, prolonging their lives and preserving Annes diary for posterity.
Made a Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem, Gies spoke around the world about Dutch resistance against the Nazis and particularly Anne Frank well into her 90s.
I have no word to describe these people [the Franks] who were always friendly and grateful, she once said. Yes, I do have a word. Heroes. True heroes they were. People sometimes call me a hero. I dont like it. I myself am a common person. I simply had no choice . . .
It has happened that people walk up to me and ask what I would answer to those who deny the Holocaust even took place. My response is that on August 4, 1944 [the day the Gestapo arrested the Franks] I saw a healthy and strong 15-year-old girl, Anne Frank. The next thing I saw was her name on a German list of people on a cattle train to Auschwitz.
So please, tell me where Anne Frank lives at the moment if the Holocaust did not take place, because Anne Frank would still be with us today.
JUDY Winnick taught in the Littleton Public Schools for 25 years. After bringing Polish rescuer Irena Sendler to life four years ago, Winnick turned her creative energies to Miep Gies in 2013.
I have to resonate with the character, Winnick told the Intermountain Jewish News regarding her choice of Gies. Miep was little. I am too.
Then she unearthed every fact and nuance concerning the humble woman who recovered Annes diary and notebooks and kept them safe in the remote chance she survived the camps.
Miep was a very proud, stoic person, Winnick says. One by one, the people who hid the Franks in the attic died. She was the last of her generation.
But Miep never took any credit. She constantly stressed that her friends were equally crucial in this endeavor.
To compress a long life into 30 minutes is daunting. Armed with exhaustive research and a penetrating imagination, Winnick created 12 vignettes that she later reduced to six.
I started in 1933, while Im writing at my desk in Ottos office, she says, suddenly dropping into character. Otto asks me to get some extra coffee and milk in the kitchen, and then introduces me to Edith, Margot and Anne, who is only four. I see Anne in a fluffy white coat running around the office. She likes my typewriter.
The vignettes, she says, have no beginning, middle or end, and are not always chronological. Once the moment grabs her, she runs with it.
For example, Miep buys Anna a present for her 14th birthday a pair of used high heels, Winnick says. She worries, Where do I find more food? Miep and her husband Jan are invited to celebrate their first wedding anniversary in the annex.
Gies, whose native language was German, moved to Holland at age 11.
Winnick trained with a dialect coach at CU to capture the essence of her diction, which alternated between German and Dutch.
Camouflaged by thick make up, a wig, outdated glasses and era-appropriate clothing, the effervescent, attractive Winnick is virtually unrecognizable.
Following the performance, she held two 15-minute question and answer sessions with the audience one as Miep Gies, one as Judy Winnick.
TWO people at the lecture hesitantly asked her whether she was Jewish because they couldnt separate Winnick from Miep Gies. I am Jewish, she assures. But when I perform at churches, no one asks me that. They assume Im Catholic.
Winnick was raised in a religious household that observed kashrut and spoke Yiddish. One of the first Bat Mitzvahs in the 1960s, she knew many Holocaust survivors during her youth in Los Angeles.
Despite presenting Miep Gies to countless Jewish and non-Jewish organizations and schools across the globe, her relationship with Gies is intensely personal, fresh and fluid.
Before the show, I meditate for about 20 minutes and then look at Mieps photograph, she says. I feel her spirit, her pain. Half the time I cry before its time to go on stage.
Its a tough subject, as you well know. And when I do this for students, its even more difficult. Youre looking at the faces of children.
She confines her research on the Holocaust to mornings and afternoons. Otherwise she cant sleep at night.
The Holocaust affects me profoundly. The more I learn, the harder it is to wrap my head around it.
Last year, she traveled to the Netherlands and spent a week with an expert tour guide. At the Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht, Winnick met a woman who had known Gies for 20 years.
She also toured Westerbork, the transit camp for Jews deported to the camps.
When you visit a place the person youre portraying actually lived, you breathe her air, walk where shes walked, Winnick says. She enters your soul.
Each new slice of historical information changes the script.
I feel compelled to do this, she says of her pieces on Sendler and Gies. At first there was too much horror about the Holocaust. Now is the time to talk about the rescuers.
Many Holocaust survivors harbor intractable resentment against Germans and Poles, whose anti-Semitism paved the road to Jewish genocide.
Winnick hopes reconciliation is possible.
We have to stop saying, all Germans, all Poles,she says. We must look at people as individuals. I completely understand the survivors aversion, but Id like to break that down.
Poland is a new country now, she says. Its part of NATO and the EU. In 2012 I did two shows there on Irena Sendler. The teachers wanted this. And the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is incredible.
Prof. Stephen Berk of Union College wrote, You can say what you want, but no Jew in Poland could have survived the Holocaust without the help of one Christian Pole.
Yad Vashem has honored more than 6,000 Polish rescuers and 5,000 from the Netherlands.
Even though they were few in number, they had choices and these people chose to do the right thing, she says.
Winnicks next project is a performance piece about Alice Herz-Sommer, survivor of Theresienstadt and a concert pianist who recently died at age 110.
Her love of music was the food of her soul. We must keep her spirit alive as well.
Andrea Jacobs may be reached via andrea@ijn.com
