How can a Holocaust survivor face the granddaughter of a Nazi perpetrator? In “ZweitZeuge,” Jean Vaislic and Ilka Vierkant explore the painful path of this confrontation.
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ZweitZeuge - Opa war ein Nazi: Ein Theaterstück von und mit Ilka Vierkant
Both live under a vow of silence—for different reasons. The granddaughter embarks on a journey to uncover the hidden stories at the heart of her own family.
Ilka’s grandfather, Werner, was the Reichsbahn director for the eastern territories. Jean, a survivor of Auschwitz, was forced as a prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau to lay tracks that this grandfather might have planned.
For the actress, who has toured Europe for many years with FAMILIE FLÖZ, her encounter with Jean in Toulouse becomes the impetus to develop a poetic puppet theater performance against forgetting—inspired by the words of Jean Vaislic: “If I give in to a bad thought, I no longer exist. So when a bad thought overtakes me, I think of flowers.”
A German-French—and also Polish—story spanning generations.
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Dates
November 2026
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