Lodz Ghetto

In marking Holocaust Memorial Day Age Exchange reflects on one of its most unique intergenerational projects and theatre productions.

For many years the wonderful Helen Aronson volunteered at Age Exchange. In the early 2000s David Savill was directing the then Age Exchange Youth Theatre which specialised in working with older people in the community to perform their reminiscences. In 2002 Helen told David about her astonishing experience of the Holocaust. For 50 years Helen had kept her experience to herself. Helen agreed to share her story with the Youth Theatre, having refused to give permission for professional actors to perform her family story. Helen felt it was important that her story should only be performed by young people who were the age she was when she went into the ghetto. And so an extraordinary journey began. One which would have a lasting impact on all who took part including Helen herself.

Helen invited the entire youth theatre to her home in Greenwich for afternoon tea. She wanted to eat together before taking out a small box of precious family mementos from her childhood experience of the Holocaust to help her share her story. Our youth theatre members took Helen to their hearts and determined to tell her story to the very best of their ability. For two months Helen and David devised and wrote “Lodz Ghetto” with the entire you theatre taking part every week in the devising process, where memories were dramatised – with Helen helping shape each scene before the play was ready for its first performance. The play and its impact on all who saw it and the young people who performed is one of the most memorable experiences David says he has had in his 25 years at the charity.

The play then became a documentary drama. And Helen began her journey in becoming a hugely important figure in Holocaust Education for which she was awarded the British Empire Medal just recently.

Helen was one of eight Holocaust survivors in the UK to have her portrait commissioned by The King two years ago. That portrait was unveiled in Buckingham Palace. David and Helen have remained very close friends for over 20 years. David’s daughter was in that first production and herself went on to specialise in the Holocaust for her masters at University citing Helen as her inspiration.