Son of Survivor to give Holocaust Performance in Franklin Lakes

The Mitzvah (“The Good Deed”) is a one-person drama that sheds light on one of the most astonishing stories of World War II: how tens of thousands of German men, classified as “mischlinge” (the derogatory term the Nazis used to describe those descended from one, two or three Jewish grandparents) ended up serving in Hitler’s army. 

A touching and tragic tale, The Mitzvah was conceived and is performed and co-authored by actor, playwright and child of survivor, Roger Grunwald. It will be presented in commemoration of Yom HaShoah on Thursday, May 1, at 7:30pm at the Chabad Jewish Center of NW Bergen County, 375 Pulis Avenue, Franklin Lakes. 

The Mitzvah is directed and co-authored by Broadway veteran, Annie McGreevey.

To tell the story of The Mitzvah, Grunwald portrays an array of characters including Christoph (the “mischling”); Schmuel, a Polish Jew from Bialystok and the play’s Chorus who offers edgy commentary probing the boundary between the absurd and the horrific.

Through Christoph’s story, The Mitzvah reveals the startling history of tens of thousands of "partial Jews" who served in Hitler's military, most of whom were discharged beginning in April of 1940. Nearly all were sent to forced labor camps — or worse. A few thousand mischlinge who had (what the Nazis considered) an “Aryan” appearance and who had distinguished themselves on the field of battle, were exempted from the Nazi race laws. 

A “Declaration of German Blood” (a Deutschblütigkeitserklärung) — signed by Hitler himself — allowed these select few thousand mischlinge to fight for the Nazi cause. Most died in battle.  

The Mitzvah adds to the historical narratives about the Jewish experience during The Holocaust and was inspired by the lives of Grunwald’s mother and aunt, survivors of Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. Its world premiere was at the Emerging Artists Theatre’s “Illuminating Artists: One Man Talking” festival in New York City and has also been presented in Port Washington, NY and Evanston, IL.

The show is a one-act presented with a post-performance lecture / audience discussion tracing the fateful chronology of Jews in Germany — from Moses Mendelssohn, through the arrival, in the late 19th and early 20th century into Germany, of over a hundred thousand Jews from the Pale of Settlement (so-called Ost Juden) — to the rise of Hitler. Grunwald charts two centuries of German Jewish assimilation, intermarriage and conversion — the collective aspiration of generations of German Jews — to find a seat at the table within Germany’s dominant Christian culture. 

After having converted to Christianity in 1825, Heinrich Heine, the renowned German Jewish poet, believed he had “bought an entry ticket to European culture.” For hundreds of thousands of German Jews under Hitler, Heine’s entry ticket became a one-way train ride to oblivion.

The play engages several socio/cultural/historical issues: Who decides what culture, race and ethnicity mean? What is identity? What responsibility, if any, do we have to the dead? Does killing another human being have a place in a moral universe? Do human beings have the capacity to learn from history?

The Mitzvah Project is fiscally sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), a 501(c)(3) public, tax-exempt foundation established by the New York State Council on the Arts in 1971 to work with the arts community to develop and facilitate programs in all disciplines. The Mitzvah Project is the recipient of a 2013 NYFA Opportunity Grant.

Admission fee for the May 1 performance and lectures is $10, sponsors of $180 are appreciated. To RSVP please call (201) 848-0449 or email rabbi@chabadplace.org.