About.
What is 'The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman?'
'The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman' is a work of documentary theatre that offers a rare glimpse into a queer life during the Holocaust. Born in 1928 in Germany, Margot Heuman is a survivor of Theresienstadt ghetto, Auschwitz, Neuengamme, and Bergen-Belsen. She is the first lesbian Holocaust survivor to bear testimony. Based on the historian Anna Hájková's interviews with Heuman, we present a poignant look on coming of age as a Jewish queer woman in the concentration camps, on love, choices, sexual violence, homophobia, and survival. Moving, funny, pragmatic, and always original, Margot Heuman reminds us of humanity within the society of Holocaust victims, but also of the stories that have been erased by the heteronormative expectations of the genocide. Today, Heuman will probably remain the only lesbian voice of a Shoah survivor. “I am amazing,” she tells her interviewer, and our audience. When is 'The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman' being performed? The play is being performed online, live, during the Brighton Fringe Festival at 19:30 on 24th-26th June. Tickets can be purchased here. Whilst this play is premiering at the Brighton Fringe, the production team is keen to take this show to other venues and festivals. |
The Team |
Dr Anna Hájková- Writer Dr Anna Hájková is associate professor at the University of Warwick. Her book, The Last Ghetto: An Everyday History of Theresienstadt, came out in 2020 with Oxford University Press. She has also published three short books: in addition to a coauthored book on the Veit Simon family, she also edited family wartime diaries from the Communist resistance in the Holocaust, and in 2021, published ”Menschen ohne Geschichte sind Staub” with Wallstein publishing house, on queer teenagers in the Holocaust. She is currently working on two projects: a study of transgressive sexuality in the Holocaust, for which is writing a trade book on the Neuengamme guard Anneliese Kohlmann and her relationship with a woman prisoner. She is also working on a generational history of a Communist generation in Central Europe, 1930-1970. Her work on queer history of the Holocaust was published in Czech, German, British, US American, and Israeli newspapers. She has edited a special issue of German History “Sexuality, Holocaust, Stigma.” In addition to her academic work, she serves on the board of the Czech Society for Queer Memory. Photo Copyright- Seed9 |
Dr Erika Hughes- Director and Writer Dr Erika Hughes is Academic Lead for Performance in the School of Art, Design and Performance at the University of Portsmouth, where she also serves as Course Leader for the BA (Hons) in Drama and Performance. In autumn 2021 she will become Course Leader for the MA Theatre: Socially Engaged Practice. Her global research and creative work sit at the intersection of memory, history, and performance. Her projects and publications are focused on two interrelated and international areas: theatre as historiography and theatre as cultural diplomacy. She is the author of Holocaust Memory and Youth Performance, which will be published by Bloomsbury/Methuen Drama in 2022. Her scholarship and practice research have been supported by grants from Innovate UK (in collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company), the US State Department (in collaboration with Kinnaird College for Women University in Lahore, Pakistan), and fellowships at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Free University of Berlin, the University of Bonn, the Technical University of Berlin, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. |