Synopsis
Girl in a Striped Dress: the Holocaust Story of Rosalie Lebovic Simon is a one-woman piece of documentary theatre. Rosalie’s memoir and history is recited memorized and verbatim to honor and cherish her testimony and palpable presence. To archive the survivors’s testimony, the play’s spoken narrative of Rosalie’s memories represents how she experienced and remembered the Shoah. This play is much more personal than a traditional, narrative drama yet imbued with “goneness”, as we cannot say we will ever know or understand these events. While on stage, the actor/hyper-historian (Gerold) re-appears as a Holocaust survivor and performs a re-remembering of an actual testimony, making it possible for audiences to recognize an actual re-seeing of a survivor’s past.
Girl in a Striped Dress is the story of Rosalie Lebovic Simon, a twelve-year-old girl who had a happy homelife, loved school, and dreamed of the future. The Nazis stole that future from her during Passover in 1944, when her family was forced out of their home and into a ghetto. Rosalie, her four sisters and father eventually survived the ghetto and three concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau; her mother and older brother did not. At the age of twelve the Nazis selected Rosalie twice for immediate death in the gas chambers. She escaped that fate and refused to die in spite of starvation, disease and torture. Rosalie survived in part because of her strong will and determination. The five sisters stayed together which served as a life force that kept each woman alive and supported through the ghettos, Auschwitz–Birkenau, and other camps. They helped each other survive sickness, selections, beatings, and unbearable starvation. The support of Rosalie’s four sisters and others along the way helped her defy the will of Hitler and the Nazis, who succeeded in murdering six million Jews, almost two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe.
Unless this horror is described, it will be forgotten. Fortunately, artists can educate audiences even when survivors can no longer personally tell their stories. Watching an actor play Rosalie helps audiences understand the difficulty of the task and the dedication needed to tell the story as honestly as possible. An actor who embodies the voice of a survivor can work with the audience to develop understanding, offering audiences a sense of witnessing, as well as preserving this important history
Content Warning: Description of trauma, violence, and death.
About the Performer
Erica Gerold (she/her) graduated from Rowan University in May 2023 with a Bachelor of Arts in Public Relations and a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre Arts with Concentrations in Acting, Directing, Musical Theatre, and Theatre Education. She is forever grateful for the opportunity to help keep Rosalie’s voice alive so we can all hear her story. Recent credits include The Trail to Oregon! (Son), Collective Rage: A Play in Five Betties (Betty #1), The Lovesong of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Lilith), Urinetown (Cladwell’s Secretary), and Plum Bun (Esther Bayliss). She was also the recipient of the Philip Graneto Excellence in Theatre Medallion Award.
Under the guidance of Dr. Anthony Hostetter, Erica performed in the world premiere of his one-woman, verbatim testimonial play Girl in a Striped Dress: the Holocaust Story of Rosalie Lebovic Simon (April 2022) at Rowan University. Subsequent performances followed at the Sara & Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center (July 2022) at Stockton University, the Mid-Island Y JCC in Long Island, NY (April 2023) for a Yom HaShoah Community Observance, and most recently at the JCC of Mid-Westchester, NY (April 2023) for a teen camp. She intends to continue telling Rosalie’s story for as long as she can.
Erica would like to thank Rosalie, whom she has the utmost respect for, for changing her life for the better. She is in awe of her strong will, determination, bravery, and willingness to relive her history. It has been an honor and privilege for Erica to get to know this loving, compassionate, and forgiving person. She hopes audiences can find inspiration in Rosalie’s words to be “upstanders and not bystanders” in the way they walk through life. Thank you to the Lebovic-Simon family for their blessing to share this piece.
gerolderica@gmail.com