Auschwitz

"Arbeit Macht Frei" - work makes you free: the same sign that greeted the deportees at their arrival in Auschwitz greets the spectators entering the auditorium. The lager is here, today, the past knocks at our door and we are obliged to listen.

On the occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day 2009 the Frantoio presents a journey, that of the deportees and that of the audience, that links past and present to keep the dialogue between them alive. Over the week more than 700 teenagers are called in as witnesses. You pass the gate of the concentration camp and you're not a human being anymore, your identity is taken by a number. It is time to be undressed and shaved, dignity is taken away, you wear a uniform and become an object among the objects. It is "the machine", a perfect engine working with the rhythm of a factory, because the Holocaust is a daily application of simple and dull gestures.

The performance, inspired by Firenza Guidi's numerous journeys to the concentration camps of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II-Birkenau, as well as Terezin (Cech Republic) and Ebensee (Austria) with 200 14-year-olds students from the school of Cerreto Guidi, Vinci and Sovigliana, wants to bring back the memory of a unique historical moment for the physical, material and spiritual harm inflicted on millions of human beings. It is a witness from the past and an invitation to spot the signs of it in the present.