South Jersey Holocaust Survivors Stories Shared In Stockton Plays

GALLOWAY, NJ — South Jersey Holocaust survivors will have their stories shared through plays performed at Stockton University in July.

Three plays in "The Manya Project," sponsored by the Sara and Sam Schoffer Holocaust Resource Center at Stockton University, will be shown in three free performances at Stockton.

• “Rella, Rose, and I: Elizabeth Ehrlich Roth’s Story of Survival” will be performed at 7 p.m. on July 7.
• “Try to Survive: Rose Ickowicz Rechnic’s Memory of the Holocaust” will be performed at 7 p.m. on July 14.
• “Girl in a Striped Dress: The Holocaust Story of Rosalie Lebovic Simon” will be performed at 7 p.m. on July 28.

The plays will be performed at the Stockton University John F. Scarpa Academic Center, 3711 Atlantic Ave., Atlantic City.

The plays were created from the memoirs of three local Holocaust survivors: Elizabeth Ehrlich Roth of Vineland, Rosalie Lebovic Simon of Margate and the late Rose Ickowicz Rechnic of Atlantic City, who died in 2006. The memoirs came from Stockton's "Writing as a Witness" project.

The project was done in collaboration with Anthony Hostetter, an assistant professor in the theater department at Rowan University in Glassboro. He worked with Stockton's Holocaust Resource Center to create the plays.

“It is essential that we take advantage of every opportunity to tell the stories of our Holocaust survivors,” Gail Rosenthal, executive director of the Stockton Holocaust Center, said in a release. “It is especially poignant that these are stories of local survivors.”

The Stockton Holocaust Center met with and interviewed the survivors and their families, and Hostetter wrote the original plays about each of the survivors. The plays are performed by recent Rowan graduates who performed them as their capstone projects.

“It has been extraordinary, life-affirming, and inspiring working with Rosalie Lebovic Simon, Elizabeth Ehrlich Roth, their families, and the family of Rose Ickowicz Rechnic on these three plays. They all took time from their busy lives to attend first-draft readings of the scripts and offered many suggestions and infinite support for the actors and for me,” Hostetter said. “I hope these plays do justice to these heroic women who experienced so much tragedy but went onto show the world that humanity, compassion, and love is ultimately stronger that violence and hate.”

The plays are free and open to the public. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. with plays beginning at 7 p.m. For more information, call 609-652-4699. Parking is available in the lot behind the Scarpa Academic Center.