How a photo of Nazis eating blueberries inspired Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich's Holocaust play

New York — In 2007, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum successful Washington, D.C., received an medium of photographs documenting the acquisition of those who worked astatine Auschwitz-Birkenau. The images supply a unsocial position connected the Holocaust, chronicling S.S. officers going astir their regular activities successful a mode utterly divorced from the world of the wide execution that was taking spot nearby.

The medium was donated by a U.S. quality serviceman who had recovered the cache of photos successful Germany soon aft World War II. After the photos were reviewed by the museum, quality of the find made headlines each implicit the world. “In the Shadow of Horror, SS Guardians Relax and Frolic,” the New York Times people headline, starkly captures the dichotomy that made these photos truthful gripping and disturbing.

“Here There Are Blueberries,” a play by Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich that was a 2024 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for drama, tells the communicative of this photograph medium successful a signifier accumulation that makes the painstaking enactment of humanities enquiry look similar the top detective communicative ever written. Uncovering the identities of the figures successful the photos is simply a cardinal portion of the investigation, but the bigger enigma is what could person allowed mean Germans to go portion of the bureaucracy of decease that resulted successful the extermination of astir 6 cardinal Jews.

The institution of “Here There Are Blueberries.”

(Tectonic Theater Project)

Kaufman, who conceived and directed the play for his New York-based company, Tectonic Theater Project, was sitting successful a Midtown Manhattan bureau with co-writer Gronich conscionable a mates of days earlier they near for Los Angeles, wherever “Here There Are Blueberries” volition beryllium performed astatine the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts done March 30 earlier it heads to Berkeley Rep successful April. How did they conceive the thought of making a theatre portion astir an medium of photos?

“I saw the front-page nonfiction successful the New York Times and was struck by a photograph of the Nazis with an accordion,” Kaufman recalled. “Both Amanda’s household and my ain are Holocaust survivors. I’ve ever wanted to tackle a Holocaust play, but the Holocaust is simply a singular lawsuit successful history, and 1 of the astir addressed successful literature. What is determination caller to say? But erstwhile I saw these pictures, I saw thing we hadn’t seen before. And I thought, however tin you devour blueberries and sing a opus accompanied by an accordion erstwhile your regular occupation is to termination 1.1. cardinal people?”

Kaufman, a 2015 National Medal of Arts recipient, reached retired to Rebecca Erbelding, a young archivist astatine the depository who was mentioned successful the New York Times story. He modestly assumed she wouldn’t cognize who helium was, but she told him that “The Laramie Project,” the 2000 play helium wrote with members of Tectonic Theater Project investigating the sidesplitting of Matthew Shepard (and inactive 1 of the astir produced works successful the American theater), had been precocious performed astatine her college. An interrogation was acceptable up, and Kaufman sensed helium was blistery connected the way of a caller project.

“So I had the hunch, but I thought, ‘How bash we marque a play astir this?’ ” helium said. “The ngo of Tectonic Theater Project is to research theatrical languages and theatrical forms. When I got to America, I was truthful bored with America’s fascination with realism and naturalism. I had travel from Venezuela and had experienced the enactment of Peter Brook and Pina Bausch. There was a truly bully planetary theatre festival. So I was trained successful a rigorous benignant of experimental theater. Many radical telephone Tectonic a documentary theatre company, and immoderate of our works are based successful reality. But we’re overmuch much funny successful what we bash with the creation form. What is simply a theatrical language? What is theatricality? And truthful the question, the ceremonial question for maine was, tin you marque a play successful which the photographs inhabit 1 of the cardinal communicative lines?”

Barbara Pitts, Luke Forbes and Delia Cunningham successful “Here There Are Blueberries.”

(Tectonic Theater Project)

During his interrogation with Erbelding, Kaufman was struck by however melodramatic the enactment of an archivist could be.

“When Rebecca was telling maine the communicative of the album, I felt that she was truthful passionate astir discovering who everyone was, what they were doing oregon celebrating,” helium said. “As soon arsenic I realized that this was a detective story, I knew however to constitute the play. So I called Amanda, different subordinate of Tectonic, who’s not lone a superb writer and creator but besides has an unthinkable magnitude of cognition astir the Holocaust, and asked if she wanted to articulation maine successful this.”

Gronich didn’t request overmuch persuading, but she did person concerns. As she recounted, “When Moisés archetypal talked to maine astir the thought of making a play astir an medium of photographs I said, ‘That’s impossible. You can’t marque a play astir an medium of photographs. And you peculiarly can’t marque a play astir this medium of photographs.’ But past I took a enactment and said, ‘Wait a second. If we truly deliberation astir however to research this theatrically, determination could beryllium thing genuinely bonzer here. And for me, the accidental to archer the communicative done theatre was enormously breathtaking and thrilling and daunting and scary.”

Kaufman and Gronich met astatine NYU, and erstwhile helium was founding Tectonic Theater Project she became a “proud aboriginal charter member.” Gronich has extended acquisition arsenic a writer of nonfiction tv but said she ne'er worked connected thing astir World War II. “Because of my household history, [working connected ‘Here There Are Blueberries’] was profoundly idiosyncratic for me,” she said. “But echoing Moisés, I wondered however to archer the communicative successful the 21st period successful a mode that feels caller and explores the vocabulary of however we prosecute an audience.”

Jeanne Sakata successful “Here There Are Blueberries.”

(Tectonic Theater Project)

The play, which premiered astatine La Jolla Playhouse successful 2022, brings audiences viscerally into the gumshoe enactment of archivists and researchers who authenticate, clarify and sphere artifacts of history. If this sounds dry, I can’t retrieve erstwhile I experienced specified aggravated absorption connected the portion of theatergoers. The enthralled hush astatine the La Jolla Playhouse matinee I attended was engulfing. What precisely did these frolicking SS officers and enactment unit recognize astir their work? How did they negociate their ignorance oregon warrant their knowledge? These questions don’t ever consciousness remote. “Here There Are Blueberries” implicates the contiguous and the aboriginal arsenic overmuch arsenic it does the past.

At a clip of rising antisemitism and Holocaust denialism, erstwhile salient governmental and taste figures are flirting with Nazi identification, the play sounds an alarm from history. What happened successful Europe successful the 1930s and ’40s tin hap here. Demonization and dehumanization are tried and existent tactics of demagogues successful each era. Genocide, arsenic 1 of the experts brought distant successful the play points out, “starts with words.”

“The tendency to region yourself from things that you comprehend arsenic evil is precise human,” Kaufman said. “We each privation to say, ‘I’m not similar that.’ And with the Holocaust specifically, we person spent decades saying the Nazis were monsters, arsenic opposed to the Nazis were humans who did monstrous things.”

He pointed to a photograph of a radical of women, secretaries and auxiliary workers, enjoying blueberries arsenic an accordion subordinate serenades them connected the platform of a recreational edifice that was a reward for the German campy unit of Auschwitz.

“They are eating blueberries,” Kaufman said. “I similar blueberries. It’s beauteous erstwhile you person an accordion subordinate astatine a party. Seeing the quotidian quality of their regular lives prevents the assemblage from distancing themselves. We bring you, the audience, into the country to look astatine this together, to entice your curiosity, to spot these radical playing with their pets, talking to their children.”

The constituent isn’t to normalize but to interrogate with wide eyes.

“The play unwraps and unravels an artifact of history,” Gronich said. “There is literal, irrefutable grounds connected stage.”

The communicative of history, she continued, is babelike connected what past leaves behind. But it’s besides contingent connected our willingness to face what is uncovered with courageousness and honesty.

The Company of “Here There Are Blueberries.”

(Tectonic Theater Project)

It turns retired that the photograph medium was the idiosyncratic spot of a apical head of the campy who had risen from the lowly ranks of a slope teller and was arrogant of his elevated status. Loyalty was prized implicit merit by the Nazis, and these photos are what Gronich calls “the selfies of an SS officer.”

“When we look astatine the pictures, what we’re seeing are the radical who believed they were going to beryllium the victors,” she said. “You spot the satellite that they can’t hold to inhabit. It’s this performative celebratory vigor successful those pictures, and what they’re reveling successful is their imaginativeness of the thousand-year Reich, and that is simply a satellite escaped of each of the alleged undesirables. And truthful determination are these young women flirting with these men successful this bucolic setting. Meanwhile extracurricular the frame, 1.1. cardinal radical are being sent to their deaths.”

Reaction to “Here There Are Blueberries” has changed arsenic the governmental scenery has shifted since the play had its premiere little than 3 years ago. It’s been a tumultuous clip successful America and the world, to accidental the least. A pandemic, wars successful Europe and the Middle East, frenetic technological developments, soaring economical inequality, oligarchic shamelessness and elections that person empowered aspiring authoritarians. Kaufman sees theatre arsenic an invitation to audiences to bring into the venue what’s happening extracurricular of it. In plays specified arsenic “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde,” “The Laramie Project” and “33 Variations,” Kaufman has been intent connected creating structures that let the past and contiguous to interact successful the nationalist forum of the theater.

Gronich doesn’t judge this is the clip to shy distant from hard dialogue. “Everyone, the moving people and the nonrecreational class, doctors, lawyers, journalists, concern radical and the clergy had to enactment to facilitate [the Holocaust]. This mentality, the hatred that has to beryllium successful place, is simply a crab successful society, but past what bash you do? What presumption bash you take? The play looks astatine this continuum of culpability, complacency and complicity, and examines wherever each these radical autumn successful that continuum.”

“You tin look astatine anybody successful the satellite and we each autumn wrong that continuum,” Kaufman reflected with somber acceptance.

Kaufman and his collaborators don’t region themselves from scrutiny. “Here There Are Blueberries” convenes america to adjacent collectively done the filter of past astatine thing frighteningly adjacent to location — quality nature.