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A ‘Passover sweater’ made this Holocaust survivor a sensation. Now, a new play makes Helena Weinrauch’s story come alive.

(New York Jewish Week) — Holocaust survivor Helena Weinrauch survived imprisonment at three concentration camps and a forced death march. And yet the 99-year-old Manhattanite is, by all accounts, a force of nature. Time and again she has stared down unbelievable darkness. And yet she continues to exude a palpable joie de vivre.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, while being nursed back to health in Sweden, which took in thousands of Jewish refugees, Weinrauch wrote a memoir, “A Will to Live.” Her aim was to remember things as they happened, and Weinrauch hoped that if she published the manuscript, her parents would come across it and find her.

The book was never published, and Weinrauch’s parents would never be found — her entire family was murdered by Nazis. But now, “A Will to Live” has been transformed into a one-woman play that premieres Thursday at the Chain Theatre on West 36th Street. Like the memoir, the play tells the story of Weinrauch’s years of survival: As a 20-year-old Weinrauch convalesces in a Swedish hospital, she recalls her experiences as a resilient teen who found herself alone in the world and determined to make it out alive.

“My story is not fiction,” Weinrauch wrote in a statement. “Unfortunately, this is my true story. I wrote it 61 years ago in German and Polish. Two years after I arrived in New York in 1949, I translated it into English. Two people read my story — one questioned the authenticity, the other wanted to know who wrote it. I was very hurt by their reaction and decided not to show it anymore. It remained dormant and unread because as the years passed, my outlook, mentality and perception changed. I would be tempted to correct mistakes, change style, phraseology etc. I was advised not to do it — all authenticity would be lost.”

Weinrauch’s story and personality have captivated many artists and writers over the years: She was among the survivors featured in “Reckonings,” a 2022 film about the complicated decision taken by Israel’s government to accept reparations from the German government in the early days of the state. She is also the subject of a 2015 documentary, “Fascination: Helena’s Story,” directed by Karen Goldfarb, a tale of how the then-octogenarian lived with the haunting shadows of her time in the concentration camps, and how she found joy in ballroom dancing.

Helena Weinrauch’s vivacity in the face of suffering has inspired many artists — including members of the knitting community, who were touched by Weinrauch’s tradition of wearing the same hand-knit blue sweater every Passover. (Karen Goldfarb)

Weinrauch took up ballroom dancing after her husband died in 2006 at 87. (The couple’s sole child, a daughter, had died of breast cancer the decade prior.) A 2019 New York Times profile describes the salvation she found in dancing: “When I dance, I forget what happened to me and it makes me feel for a few minutes or hours that I am happy,” Weinrauch told the paper. The article also quotes Steve Dane, who runs the Manhattan Ballroom Society, who describes Weinrauch as the society’s “Dancing Angel” who is “the last one off the dance floor.”

Weinrauch is also something of an icon in the knitting community. In 2019, Moment Magazine featured a story about the sweater she wears at every Passover seder — a brilliant blue top gifted to her by a friend who had been forced to knit sweaters for Nazis’ wives in order to survive in the Lodz Ghetto. The story about the sweater and her resilience garnered international attention.

It also inspired another project, Knitting Hope, “which aims to share the ways knitting or knitted objects helped women to resist, remember those they lost, and find renewal after the horrors of the Holocaust,” its founder, Tanya Singer, wrote in a New York Jewish Week piece about the project.

“Her story, and her telling of that story, is incredible — her recollections are so fresh,” Kirk Gostkowski, the artistic director of the Chain Theatre who adapted “A Will to Live” for the stage, told the New York Jewish Week. The memoir “was written so close to the war, there’s no room for interpretation.”

RELATED: Why this Holocaust survivor wears the same hand-knit sweater every Passover

Gostkowski said he had wanted to turn Weinrauch’s story into a play for years before the project came to fruition. The pandemic kept pushing the process back. Gostkowski believes it was for the best: The delays allowed him to work with Weinrauch more extensively on the adaptation. Being in her late 90s, she wasn’t able to attend rehearsals, making this initial collaboration all the more important.

“We spoke quite a bit at the beginning [of the adaptation process] about what was important for [Weinrauch] to keep in,” he said. “She wanted to make sure that this wasn’t sanitized, that the hard parts are there. I think we’ve really successfully done that. Really, anything we left out was omitted for length and to make it a play. These are all her words. My only job here is to be the steward of her story. She’s a brilliant writer.”

Weinrauch was born in Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1924, and was only 9 years old when the Nazi party came to power in 1933. As a girl, she loved to dance and to sing; in a 2016 interview with Lilith Magazine, Weinrauch said she could “pound out simple melodies on the piano” by the time she was 4 years old. Her mother was a pianist and Weinrauch dreamed of dancing and performing, but these dreams were cut short.

Weinrauch describes this period of her life as one of “sadness, suffering and loss.” She initially escaped the Nazis with the help of an employer who forged new identification documents for her. Soon, though, she was noticed by an old classmate who turned her in. Weinrauch was sent to a firing squad, but a Nazi soldier she’d danced with at a ball stopped her from being shot. “A bullet is too good for you,” he sneered, sending her to the camps for further torture. That decision would save her life.

Weinrauch would go on to be confined in three separate concentration camps, interrogated by the Gestapo and left for dead in the snow outside Bergen-Belsen, saved by a British soldier who happened to notice that her body was still warm.

The play, and its cast and crew, are deeply dedicated to portraying Weinrauch’s story with the utmost accuracy. “Huge sections of the play are taken right from the memoir, so I’m literally saying her words,” Masha King, who stars in the show as Weinrauch, told the New York Jewish Week. “There’s nothing fictionalized. Honestly, if she was young enough she could do this play herself.”

The play is structured, like the memoir, as a series of memories. “We transport the set through visual projection mapping and sound design, none of which could have been possible without Greg Russ and David Henderson, our sound and projection designers,” Gostrowski said. “Everybody’s very emotionally invested in the show.”

King and Gostkowski said everyone on the production team is on the same page about the vision for the play. “Rick [Hamilton, the director] and I spoke about doing this in a way that really honors the way it’s written,” Gostkowski said. “It feels like a friend telling you about the worst time of their life. There’s an intimacy with the way that Helena wrote, and the way Masha portrays that is outstanding.”

To King and Gostkowski, the play feels vital and important. The rise in global antisemitism has them both on edge — “It’s never really gone away, but it’s so prevalent right now,” Gostkowski said — but that’s not the only driving force.

“Anything that has to do with the Holocaust is always relevant,” said King, a Jewish immigrant from Ukraine who previously toured the country performing as Anne Frank in an educational adaptation of her diary. “It’s more than just a Jewish issue… We still face antisemitism, yes, but also anti-any-group-of-people. [Helena] is a child — she’s 16 when it happens. She doesn’t even talk about religion in her memoir, other than the fact that she was Jewish and that meant she could no longer live as a human being.”

“If you have an oppressive regime, it will oppress everyone,” King added, noting how gays, Romani people, people with disabilities and countless others were targets of Nazi hatred. “I welcome antisemites to come see the show. Please, come. If we could influence one person to think about the humanity of others, we’ve done a great job.”

Weinrauch herself concurs. “I hope that my story may bring hope and love into the lives of those who hear it,” she said.

“A Will to Live” will be performed at the Chain Theater (312 West 36th St.) through Sept. 16. For tickets and info, click here


The post A ‘Passover sweater’ made this Holocaust survivor a sensation. Now, a new play makes Helena Weinrauch’s story come alive. appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi lays a wreath as he visits the burial site of former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, on the outskirts of Beirut, Lebanon, June 3, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir

A member of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah was killed in an Israeli air strike on Tehran alongside a member of an Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group, a senior Lebanese security source told Reuters and the Iraqi group said on Saturday.

The source identified the Hezbollah member as Abu Ali Khalil, who had served as a bodyguard for Hezbollah’s slain chief Hassan Nasrallah. The source said Khalil had been on a religious pilgrimage to Iraq when he met up with a member of the Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada group.

They traveled together to Tehran and were both killed in an Israeli strike there, along with Khalil’s son, the senior security source said. Hezbollah has not joined in Iran’s air strikes against Israel from Lebanon.

Kataeb Sayyed Al-Shuhada published a statement confirming that both the head of its security unit and Khalil had been killed in an Israeli strike.

Nasrallah was killed in an Israeli aerial attack on Beirut’s southern suburbs in September.

Israel and Iran have been trading strikes for nine consecutive days since Israel launched attacks on Iran, saying Tehran was on the verge of developing nuclear weapons. Iran has said it does not seek nuclear weapons.

The post Israeli Strike on Tehran Kills Bodyguard of Slain Hezbollah Chief first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip

Israeli soldiers operate during a ground operation in the southern Gaza Strip, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, July 3, 2024. Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS

i24 News – The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), in cooperation with the General Security Service (Shin Bet), announced on Friday the killing of Ibrahim Abu Shamala, a senior financial official in Hamas’ military wing.

The operation took place on June 17th in the central Gaza Strip.

Abu Shamala held several key positions, including financial officer for Hamas’ military wing and assistant to Marwan Issa, the deputy commander of Hamas’ military wing until his elimination in March 2024.

He was responsible for managing all the financial resources of Hamas’ military wing in Gaza, overseeing the planning and execution of the group’s war budget. This involved handling and smuggling millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip to fund Hamas’ military operations.

The post Hamas Financial Officer and Commander Eliminated by IDF in the Gaza Strip first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves during a meeting in Tehran, Iran, May 20, 2025. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS

i24 News – Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei named three senior clerics as candidates to succeed him should he be killed, the New York Times reported on Saturday citing unnamed Iranian officials. It is understood the Ayatollah fears he could be assassinated in the coming days.

Khamenei reportedly mostly speaks with his commanders through a trusted aide now, suspending electronic communications.

Khamenei has designated three senior religious figures as candidates to replace him as well as choosing successors in the military chain of command in the likely event that additional senior officials be eliminated.

Earlier on Saturday Israel confirmed the elimination of Saeed Izadi and Bhanam Shahriari.

Shahriari, head of Iran’s Quds Force Weapons Transfer Unit, responsible for arming Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, was killed in an Israeli airstrike over 1,000 km from Israel in western Iran.

The post Report: Wary of Assassination by Israel, Khamenei Names 3 Potential Successors first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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