Humor and Melody
Theater of the Absurd at the Westerbork Transit Camp

by Yehudit Shendar

“And I thank you, Herr Kommandant, for permitting us to have this evening.”

With these words of gratitude to camp commander A.K. Gemmeker, theater director Max Ehrlich closed another cabaret evening on the Westerbork Theater stage.

The Westerbork Theater was contained within the same transit camp—Westerbork— from where 100,000 Dutch Jews were deported to death camps in the East between 1942-1944. Under the shadow of weekly deportations and with the encouragement of the camp commander, classical concerts, recitals, and cabaret shows (that gained wide popularity) were performed on the camp’s theater stage. A great number of participants took part in the productions, as cast members or stage crews. All those involved clung to these performances as if to life preservers, for as long as the shows went on, their names would be omitted from the deportation lists.

Gemmeker was proud of his Jewish protégés—the highly talented celebrities of Berlin’s cultural milieu interned in Westerbork—boasting of them to the German officers and officials who visited him in the camp. He was also aware that the performances enabled him to create the illusion of ‘normal life ’ within the confinement of the barbed-wire fences.

The most spectacular show produced on the Westerbork theater stage was Humor and Melody, which premiered on 4 September 1943. Comprising18 separate skits, the cabaret production presented a satirical rendering of daily life in the camp.

In further appreciation to camp commander Gemmeker for allowing the production to continue, director Max Ehrlich, and playwrights and composers, Willy Rosen and Erich Ziegler, dedicated a magnificent album of photographs with hand drawn embellishments from Humor and Melody to the camp commander. Ehrlich, Rosen, and Ziegler’s signatures appear on the album’s dedication, dated 27 September 1943. Many of the illustrations contained therein were drawn by the Dutch Jewish stage designer, Leo Kok. Kok arrived at Westerbork in the summer of 1942 and joined the set design team as its director. 

In one of the album’s photographs of the theatrical skit “Magdalene, Behave Yourself,” actress Catharina Frank (today known as van-den-Berg) appears in a short skirt, first from the left. Catharina van-den-Berg was deported from Westerbork to Theresienstadt in June 1943. A year later, on orders from camp headquarters, all shows on the Westerbork theater stage were halted. Most of the production staff including Ehrlich, were deported to the East. Leo Kok, who had just married fellow inmate Kitty de Wijze in the winter of 1943, was deported with his wife to Theresienstadt on 5 September 1944.

Within the interval of a few months, Catharina van-den-Berg and Kitty Kok found themselves in the same camp once again. By virtue of luck the two women were among the few Dutch Jews to survive the Holocaust. Nonetheless, they did not completely escape the cruel mark of death; both of their husbands perished. Catharina’s husband, Jacques, did not accompany her to Theresienstadt. He perished after being deported from Westerbork to Sobibor, only weeks following the birth of their only son, Clarence. In October 1944, Leo Kok was included in a deportation from Theresienstadt to Auschwitz, where he perished.

“The show must go on” acquires an entirely alternate connotation when applied to the Holocaust. The stage of the Westerbork Theater was a manifestation of the total absurd. The paramount of Jewish talent performed repeatedly for auditoriums packed with Jewish prisoners, while Nazi camp commanders filled the front rows. Simultaneously, every Tuesday trains were bound Eastward for the journey of no return.

“The show must go on,” except in the realm of the Holocaust. In the reality of the Shoah, the show continued only until the last of the Jewish talent, too, was slated for deportation. In the shadow of the gas chambers the cast of the Westerbork Theater was sentenced to the same fate as its brethren. Thus, the Jewish people lost incredible talents—actors, musicians, and artists—who by miraculous advent managed to kindle hearts only moments before they eternally silenced.  

Epilogue:

In December 1998, Catharina van-den-Berg came to Yad Vashem to donate two paintings by the artist C. Buresova to Yad Vashem’s art collection. The paintings depict her and her son, Clarence, who was born within the barbed-wire-fences of Westerbork camp. Thanks to her, Yehudit Shendar became acquainted with the album Humor and Melody, housed in the Yad Vashem Archives (AM4/1168).

The author is the Senior Art Curator, Museums Division