A Note from the Founding Artistic Director by Jeffrey Horowitz

A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDING ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Jan Karski was of course, Polish and a hero, Holocaust witness, resistance fighter. The city of Stanislawow once in Poland was where my paternal grandfather, Harry, grew up. As a young man, Harry, emigrated to New York City just before W.W.I erupted. But no one in my family talked about Stanislawow and in preparation for Remember This, I read about it.

Stanislawow was founded in 1654. Jews were given the right of permanent settlement in 1662. For hundreds of years, it was a haven for Jews. In 1939, it changed its spelling to Stanislav and became part of Ukraine, which was then in the Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1961, Stanislav changed its name again to Ivano-Frankivsk and it is now in independent Ukraine.

At the beginning of W.W. II, there were about 25,000 Jews in Stanislawow of an overall population of about 75,000. When the Nazis invaded Poland, one thing they did was to take control of Stanislawow and establish a Ghetto. One night, they shot 8,000-12,000 Jews. No doubt relatives and friends of my grandfather were murdered. Of course, if my grandfather hadn’t emigrated and instead married and had a family and his children and then their children stayed in Poland, all these families would have perished. Stanislawow, once a safe place for Jews, became indescribably brutal. Jan Karski knew what was happening. But, now for me, Stanislawow is not only a name in a book. You can imagine my surprise when I read that a Jewish Labor Office was established to arrange for Jews from the Stanislawow Ghetto to work in German factories. A man named Horowitz headed this, Labor Office. Horowitz is a very common Jewish name, but still…

My father wanted to be a doctor. In the 1930's, he was in college in a pre-med program in a well-known university in Tennessee and hoped to be admitted to their School of Medicine. Today, this School of Medicine’s web site has many images of diversity. But this wasn't true in the 1930's. My father, despite qualifying grades, was denied admittance and told, "Let the New York Jews take care of themselves." W.W.II started. He enlisted and, after the War, chose other work.

By the end of the War, approximately 1,500 Jews survived in Stanislawow from a population of 25,000 who lived in the city when the War began. My father and mother may have never heard of Jan Karski, but they knew genocide can happen anywhere, anytime to anyone because the world permits it to go on and on. Jan Karski and the artists who made Remember This ask we listen as do authors TFANA has been privileged to present such as Shakespeare, and in recent seasons, Alice Childress, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Adrienne Kennedy, and others.

Jeffrey Horowitz

David Strathairn (Jan Karski) in Theatre for a New Audience's production of Remember This, directed by Derek Goldman. Photo by Hollis King.