You are here
Mothers
Production
A baby is born into a world of complete silence. This way, the mother is able to protect it from the extermination, to which all male Jewish newborns are condemned. And when she cannot hide him anymore, she makes a wicker basket, seals it with resin and tar, puts her baby inside and lets it go down the river. Stuck in the bulrushes, the basket is found by an Egyptian princess. She takes the baby under her care and becomes its mother. She names it Moshe, which means “pulled out of water” or “saved.” We will not find the Jewish baby's name from the time before it became Moses mentioned anywhere.
Much later, another small boy is put inside a basket with soaps. Lulled to sleep with luminal and taken away from the ghetto. His mother gives him just one thing - a photo of her.
Born in the ghetto, a small girl is put inside a shoe box, next to her, a spoon with her date of birth engraved. The girl's birth certificate. Something resembling a name that determines who she is, when she “came about.” But in a few days, the girl will “come about” once more because of the decision taken by the other mother who wants to make the girl her child.
What is this moment, right before the decision, for the mother? Before the decision to start teaching the child how to forget its mother's and its own name. And a moment later, when their names are just words written down on a small piece of paper hidden under the ground along with other names-cards. And before the decision of the other mother to make an unknown child hers.
Today, together with the adult “basket children,” we are trying to be there with both mothers in their before moments. In the dark, stumbling, we search for answers to the questions that will have to be asked. Questions about identity, continuance, duty. Uneasy questions that rub and jostle in the word “mother,” demanding attention.
“Mothers” stage show/performance/meeting
according to Gołda Tencer's idea
With the participation of graduates of the Actor’s Studio netTTheatre (Dominika Kimaty, Aleksandra Karpiuk, Anna Opolska, Noemi Berenstein, Olga Bury, Anna Puzio, Maja Furmaga, Paulina Wójtowicz), members of the Association “Children of Holocaust.” Elżbieta Ficowska and Joanna Sobolewska-Pyz as well as the special guest Romuald Jakub Weksler-Waszkinel.