Culture of Remembrance Kinder des Schattens

With Kinder des Schattens (Children of Shadows), publisher Matthias Naumann presents, for the first time, a comprehensive anthology of Israeli theatre texts on the Shoah from 1948 onwards. The collection brings together 15 plays – many newly translated into German – offering a compelling insight into how Israeli theatre has explored memory, trauma and identity. We spoke to Naumann about the project's origins, the role of theatre in the culture of remembrance and the challenges of translation.

What personally inspired you to produce this anthology, and what do you hope to achieve with it in the context of Germany’s culture of remembrance? Who do you hope to reach with „Kinder des Schattens“ (Children of the Shadows) and why do you think now is the right moment for this project?

This anthology of Israeli theatre texts on the Shoah is a project that has developed over a period of many years. When I started working on the idea, it was impossible to predict the situation we would find ourselves in today, both in the cultural field and in society as a whole. Given the widespread mistrust – and even hostility – towards Israel, often accompanied by a baseless rejection of the country, it seems all the more important to bring Israeli culture to Germany today – and in my case as a translator of theatre texts, specifically this body of work. The impetus for the project, however, came from a different source, even if in retrospect it appears connected. I have long been involved with Israeli theatre, and something that has struck me repeatedly is how little is known in Germany, particularly regarding how the Shoah is received in Israeli arts – even though memory culture in Germany plays such a central role. However, Germany’s culture of remembrance often seems one-dimensional, reflecting primarily the German perspective and giving little consideration to Israeli viewpoints. With this anthology, I wanted to create an opportunity to explore Israeli perspectives on the Shoah. Initially, I assumed a publication of this kind this must already exist, and I was surprised to discover this wasn’t the case. Moreover, Israeli theatre is seldom addressed in German theatre studies. As a result, I had to undertake the project myself, and the research and subsequent translation took several years to complete.

The anthology brings together 15 plays, many of which have been translated into German for the first time. How did you choose which texts to include, and what cultural and linguistic challenges did you encounter when translating them – particularly given the different cultures of remembrance in Israel and Germany?

When selecting the texts, my aim was to provide an overview of Israeli theatre, from the founding of the state of Israel to the present day, as represented through select plays. Clearly, after almost 80 years, far more than 15 plays have addressed the Shoah. However, the preservation of these works is inconsistent; theatre is a transient medium; many texts were never archived or have become untraceable, and there are only references to them in theatre programmes and reviews. My selection was therefore limited to the texts that were available to me. Naturally, certain “classics” were a must, like the eponymous Children of the Shadows (1962) by Ben-Zion Tomer, which has been repeatedly performed on Israeli stages – something most plays cannot boast. That had to be included alongside works like Ghetto (1984) by Joshua Sobol and Amsterdam (2018) by Maya Arad Yasur, both of which were staged in Germany shortly after their premieres and continue to be performed today.

I wanted to present as broad a spectrum of perspectives and forms as possible – for example, juxtaposing the documentary works of Sobol and Motti Lerner with Execution (1979) by Hanoch Levin, who explores the experience of being subjected to violence through his own distinctive theatrical language. Over the past ten years, the perspectives on the Shoah represented in Israeli theatre have expanded even further, addressing such issues as second-generation trauma, as seen in Whistle (2019) by Jacob Buchan and Hadar Galron, as well as the historical experiences of Iraqi and Moroccan Jews during the Second World War. This is why a significant portion of the selection focuses on the past ten to 15 years.
Translating these very different texts from different periods presented distinct challenges, as both the Hebrew language and theatrical forms have evolved since the 1950s. I am very grateful that Gundula Schiffer produced two excellent translations of the plays by Lea Goldberg and Nathan Shaham from the 1950s, each capturing the authors’ unique linguistic styles, while I focused on Levin, who has his own poetic voice, and especially on more recent texts. The language in these texts sometimes takes on a colloquial or comedic tone, as in Ilan Hatzor’s Sabotage (2018), or becomes highly rhythmic and musical, as in the work of Maya Arad Yasur.

How have Israeli playwrights’ perspectives and narrative approaches to the Shoah changed over the generations, and what social developments are reflected in these changes?

In the early works, there is a noticeable caution in approaching the topic. The critic Chaim Gamzu wrote of Nathan Shaham’s New Account (1954) – the first play to focus on the Shoah – that tackling this subject requires enormous sensitivity and courage. Two aspects stand out: the play is set in contemporary Israel, and the Shoah exists only in memory; the actual sites are never depicted. Sobol was the first to do this in Ghetto, bringing the Vilna Ghetto to the stage, just as Lerner does in Kastner (1985), depicting the negotiations between Rezsö Kastner and the SS in Budapest in 1944. However, most Israeli plays with a realistic setting locate their action in the playwrights’ present day – rather than in the historical moment of the Shoah – whether in Israel or, in more recent works, in Europe, where Israeli characters are confronted with its legacy.
Another issue Shaham addresses is that of suspected collaboration – whether someone may have collaborated with the Nazis and thereby incurred guilt. This theme recurs in many plays into the 1980s and is also central, for example, to Children of the Shadows. It clearly reflects a broader societal preoccupation with the question, often taking precedence over the personal experiences of survivors, while the texts themselves resist hasty judgment. Reading these works, I was often struck by how much more intensely Israeli theatre has engaged with questions of collaboration and possible (survivor) guilt than German theatre has confronted issues of German perpetration and historical, political and ethical responsibility.

From the 1990s onwards, the themes began to shift, undoubtedly influenced by the emergence of new theatre-makers. Arbeit macht frei vom Toitland Europa by David Maayan and Smadar Yaaron, for instance – reconstructed and translated by Gundula Schiffer – offers a particularly critical examination of the Israeli culture of remembrance. Between the mid-1990s and the late 2000s, there was a relative lull: the Shoah was addressed far less frequently on Israeli stages. The subject only began to resurface again in the 2010s, this time with new topics and new voices – most notably, female playwrights. In earlier decades, with the exception of Lea Goldberg, almost all playwrights were male. One striking feature of the plays of the last ten years is that they include Mizrahi perspectives – for instance, the experiences of Iraqi Jews during the Farhud in 1941, as depicted in Gilit Itzhaki’s The Father’s Daughters (2016). The fact that Jews from Arab countries and Iran constitute a significant portion of Israel’s population is largely overlooked in German discourse and reporting on Israel. In this context, it seemed especially important that an anthology like this should reflect the full diversity of perspectives.

How do you hope this anthology will influence engagement with the Shoah in Germany – both among playwrights and audiences? Do you believe these plays still have a transformative power today, especially for young people who have no direct connection to the Shoah?

For me, the anthology speaks to several audiences. On the one hand, there are the theatre-makers, who I hope will discover a play and present it on stage – either an older, previously unknown work in Germany or a newer piece. At the same time, I want to provide readers with an overview, offer a foundation in German for potential theatre studies research and introduce anyone with a general interest in Israel to aspects of Israeli culture they may not yet be familiar with. And yes, I believe these plays still have the power to deepen understanding of Israeli culture and the memory discourses that shape its society. They enable audiences not only to learn about the Shoah, but also to see how this horrific historical experience has defined Israeli consciousness and continues to be discussed in public life. Theatre has long been – and remains – an important public space in Israel.

I believe this approach can be particularly effective for young people who have no direct connection to the Shoah. Understanding historical events, as well as other cultures and experiences, is often best achieved through art, especially literature and theatre. The anthology’s final play, Untitled (1944–18) by Elinor Milchan and Sharon Burstein Bichachi, explores the fate of a young woman in Theresienstadt and was staged at the Kinder- und Jugendtheater Dortmund by Andreas Gruhn, where it received an enthusiastic response. This, to me, is strong evidence that such works truly resonate.