by Lauren B. McConnell
Terezín’s The Fireflies is a children’s play with music that was created and performed by Jewish prisoners in the Terezín concentration camp (also known as Theresienstadt) during World War II. The text to the play was lost after the war, but through archival documentation and witness testimony from survivors, playwright and theatre scholar Lauren B. McConnell and composer José-Luis Maúrtua created a reconstructed version of the musical.
Based on the popular 19th century children’s book Broučci, by Jan Karafiát, Terezín’s The Fireflies tells of the adventures of Brouček, a little firefly boy, as he grows up. The purpose of the show in the camp was to give children a cheerful activity that also had educational value and entertained fellow inmates. Czechoslovak folk songs were integrated into play, making it a fun and unique musical that was popular in the camp, where it was performed at least 35 times. Later, the show was also used for propaganda purposes by the Nazis, who demanded The Fireflies be performed for the Red Cross and other visiting dignitaries who were evaluating the conditions of the camp in 1945.
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