Crying Hands

At the website of Teater Manu the following, among other things, is written about Crying Hands:

"Hans

Hans was born deaf, growing up in Berlin prior to the start of the war in 1939. Hans was very interested in motorbikes. With other deaf people, he became a Nazi Stormtrooper, and took part in the parade when Hitler came to power in 1933. In the performance, we follow Hans' life and destiny, in the violent transformation from being a sports-interested youth, to having to fight for survival.

Gertrud

Gertrud also is German, born into a good, wealthy family. She studied medicine, and at an early time became interested in the Nazi theories of race. Eventually, she became directly involved in the systematic marginalisation of the deaf.

Bentein Baardson about the project:

'I was completely unaware of the mandatory sterilisation of deaf men, women and children that took place in Germany as early as the 1930es. Nor was I aware that the Nazis already then had started systematic efforts to exterminate the deaf, regarding it as a natural part of their racially hygienic, eugenic program.

(...)

The destinies of the deaf in Nazi Germany has been a neglected aspect in the story of Holocaust. Only in recent years, this almost unknown chapter of history has become subject for documentation and scientific research. This material, not least represented by Donna F. Ryan and John S. Schuchman, has been the foundation of my adaption, in combination with personal interviews with ten deaf persons who survived the horrors of Nazism.

As I became familiar with the material, and had read up on Horst Biesold's significant dissipation of it, it became clear to me that this unknown part of history had to be conveyed in a documentary way, with photographic montages, as a (literally) historical/visual backdrop to the actors' work in conveying it. Days spent at the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem reinforced my wish for this kind of stage design.

Crying Hands is based on actual stories or events

Inspired by the interviews in Israel with the ten deaf survivors, two destinies crystallised, Hans and Gertrud. They are fictional characters, but practically everything they tell us about, has been found in actual stories or events'."

SOURCES:

Import from the Scenekunst.no list of openings 27.11.2017

Teater Manu, 23.11.2017, teatermanu.no, http://www.teatermanu.no/produksjoner/gratende-hender/

Heddadagene, www.heddadagene.no, 16.07.2018, https://www.heddadagene.no/kalender