Publication Date: Wednesday Jul 29, 1998

Revisiting the Holocaust

On a cool spring day a few months ago, history teacher Mike McGovern concludes a lecture on the Holocaust. Then, he calmly tells his students they are going on a field trip.

"You have to be on your best behavior," McGovern warns before the ninth-graders leave Room 304 in Palo Alto High School's social studies building.

The students look around, a little puzzled. McGovern escorts the class across campus to an old building that few of the freshman have ever visited.

Little do they know the horrors that await them in the building's attic. Before they enter, they get a quick taste. They are met by three brawny older teens, dressed as Gestapo guards and brandishing rifles.

There are a few snickers from the students, but the soldiers put a quick end to that, grabbing their shoulders and pushing them in line while screaming in their face. The students quickly quiet down.

The soldiers herd the students into the building and up a flight of stairs to a room that resembles a study or library. A young woman dressed in a dress from a bygone era greets them at the top.

"You guys, this is so important," she tells the group. "You are about to enter someone's home, so be very respectful."

The girl then walks over to one of the bookcases and pushes it open, exposing a hidden passageway. Everyone files through and sits down on the floor in a corner of the room.

Before them are seven people sitting around their one-room living quarters.

Welcome to Anne Frank's home, an attic in Amsterdam, Holland, 1944.

What follows is a stunning re-enactment of one of the most touchingly sad episodes of the 20th century: a tale, recounted through the eyes of a young girl, of two Jewish families who remained hiding in an attic for two years, trying to escape the notice of the Nazis.

The play has the feel of a modern dramatic production, with the action taking place around the audience, which sits in one corner of the room. In the nine years since it was first performed, the play has been transformed from a student's dramatic monologue to a project produced with nearly two dozen students and a permanent set. Each year, the unforgettable presentation has been seen not only by the 140 freshmen in McGovern's world history classes but by scores of parents and students from throughout the school.

But the productions in the coming school year may be the last: The set for the play is in a building slated to be razed for a new science wing, and there is no other space on campus where McGovern can place the set permanently. (See sidebar.) Unless McGovern can raise enough funds to construct a new building, the play after this year may continue only in a classroom or other campus facility. The production set and its authentic feel will be lost--and with it one of the more creative teaching ideas at Paly.

Anne Frank's ordeal is just one of several historical events that McGovern's classes dramatize each year. The others--the Black Death, the French Revolution, Hannibal's crossing of the Alps and World War I--are all performed in the classroom. Only the Frank play, the crown jewel in the re-enactments, involves the use of a permanent set.

McGovern's goal in staging the play is to have students feel the emotions of the characters.

"I know a lot of people will remember something if they feel it," McGovern said. "If they know what it feels like, then it helps them remember it because they have experienced it. If the feeling is resonating throughout, in your heart, that is a powerful learning tool."

After his classes see a re-enactment, McGovern uses it as reference material.

"I can say, `Remember when John played Robespierre in the French Revolution?'" McGovern gave as an example. "I can actively refer to kids' characters or parts of the re-enactments."

Paly principal Marilyn Cook says this use of drama in teaching greatly deepens the educational experience.

"If the students are given something they can hang onto, those kids will remember it," she said. "If they have emotional reactions, it is shown students will remember it better."

McGovern started using drama as part of his lessons in the late '70s, when he was a student-teacher at Paly.

"It started with me doing a lecture in costume. I would conduct the class in character," McGovern said. "It was really (fellow teachers) Ron Andersen and Bob Alvares who encouraged me. They said it would be better if I got the kids involved."

Over the years, McGovern has whittled down his role in the plays to a minimum, letting his students lead the way instead. He estimates that about 50 students a year from the five sections of his world history class participate in a re-enactment.

The dramatization of the Anne Frank story is the most emotionally powerful of the plays. The story of the Holocaust is one that McGovern believes must be taught in strong tones. It's also one that he feels is not taught adequately in most U.S. schools. He should know. A Palo Alto native, McGovern said he wasn't fully aware of the extent of the atrocity until he reached graduate school.

In the play, the audience watches the lives of two Jewish families unfold in front of them. The Franks--Otto and Edith and their daughters Anne and Margo--and the Van Daans--Herrmann, Augusta and their son Peter--have lived in the attic of their friend Mrs. Kraeler for nearly 2 1/2 years.

Both families went into hiding when Holland fell to the Nazis. The families could get news only from a weak radio and friends on the outside who came to visit. One of these friends, Miep Gies, was the lifeline for the Franks and Van Daans, delivering food and other items.

Rumors of what the Germans were doing to Jews filtered up to Anne, which she recorded in her diary. Her writings, which were recovered after her capture, make up the now famous "Diary of Anne Frank."

During the course of the play, the audience gets a close look at how the families survived. Food was snuck up to them by their friend Miep Gies. They had to walk around without shoes to avoid being heard. They resisted opening the curtains for fear of being seen.

The Franks and the Van Daans are seen in happy moments--a gift of a cake from Miep, the news of the D-Day landings and Anne's first kiss. But the bad times are also shown--fighting over food, the hardships of living cooped up for so long, and their worst nightmare: being discovered by the Germans.

During the 45-minute play, the audience watches German SS soldiers break down the secret door and terrorize the two families. Glass is shattered, chairs are broken, the children are thrown around, and the men screamed at with guns pointed in their faces.

The Germans' leader is McGovern himself, who sneaks out of the audience shortly after entering the attic with his students. This is a surprise not only to the audience but to the student cast. Through the two months of rehearsals, he has said nothing about having any role in the play.

After the mayhem ends, the woman who guided the group into the room returns.

"Get out!" she yells.

The play deeply affects many members of the audience. As they climb down the stairs, two female students comfort each other with a hug. Tears roll down the cheeks of several young faces.

After the play, many students admit they knew little of the Holocaust. But others could relate personally to the re-enactment.

"This really happened to my ancestors," said Jed Adler, a Paly freshman who is Jewish. "(The play) was really powerful because it was so realistic."

As part of the class, every student is asked to critique the Anne Frank play.

One recent student wrote: "I have been very educated when it comes to the Holocaust...I have sat in classes, watched movies and been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. This was by far the most real and most moving event I have ever been a part of. I saw it three times and it was just as moving, if not more, each time I saw it."

Another student wrote: "It made me think about all the parts of my life I take for granted. I think the re-enactment wouldn't have been nearly as effective if it hadn't been in the attic. Walking up the stairs into the attic was like walking into 1944 and leaving my life behind."

Kendra Behling, one of the students who co-directed the play this spring, may express the point of the re-enactment best.

"Six million is sometimes an unfathomable number for people to think about," Behling said, referring to the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust. "But if they can think of one or two or three characters (from the re-enactment), it can maybe give them an idea, give them a picture of what it must have been like."

The cast members' emotions are even more intense than the audience. Fifteen minutes after the re-enactment ended, all were still visibly shaken.

"(The Nazis) are spitting on you, you're lying on the ground, and you don't know what they are saying," said Ashley Houston, who played Anne Frank. "They hurt you and throw things at you."

"They stuck a gun in my mouth, and they broke a picture on my head," said Beau Clark, who was Otto Frank in the play.

During rehearsals, McGovern tries to give the cast the most realistic experience possible.

"One day we spend the whole day, like 9 to 5, in the attic," said co-director Katie Currie, who graduated this year. "We couldn't talk, we'd only whisper, and we would eat only what they ate."

Currie and Behling, who also graduated in June, participated in the Anne Frank re-enactment in each of their four years at Paly. McGovern said it is common for members of past casts to return to direct or help backstage. When they were ninth-graders, Behling played Anne and Currie was Margo.

The nine freshmen in the play this spring rehearsed in secret for three months, with only McGovern and the student directors privy to the secret.

From the first day of school in September, McGovern is on the lookout for potential cast members. Some have acted before, but others, such as Houston, had none at all.

"Some people I just know are right for the part," said McGovern. "Like Corey Andikopoulos: I knew right away, the first time I saw him in September, he was Mr. Van Daan."

While McGovern selects students from his classes to fill the nine main roles in the production, he generally looks for upperclassmen to play the guards. Lynz Floren, who graduated in June, recalled how he was approached for the part of a storm trooper.

"Mr. McGovern came up to me and said, `You're big, you're scary-- would you like to be a Nazi guard?'" Floren said.

Although some cast members were friends before they started, most were not particularly close. But spending every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and the weekends together, they became very familiar with each other.

"This has changed the entire school year for me," said Chrissy Henneberg, who played Margo Frank this year. "It is really true: Everyone in the cast got closer and are more like family now."

The Anne Frank re-enactment started as a dramatic monologue created by Kristen Andersen, daughter of Paly social studies teacher and former City Councilman Ron Andersen, in 1989, when she was a junior at Paly.

"It was performed in the classroom the first year, and the only prop was an antique green lamp," McGovern fondly recalled.

Over the years, additional roles and the set were added, with the dialogue in the production evolving from Andersen's script.

"It's not like a regular play; there's a lot of improvisation," said Corey Andrikopoulos, who this spring played Herrmann Van Daan. "Half the play didn't come from the script. The conversation on the couch and the D-Day announcement--those are all made up."

The attic space where the play is performed originally was a storage space for the sets for McGovern's other re-enactments. The idea of staging the Anne Frank story in a cramped space was suggested by a student seven years ago.

"I remember when we were returning a set to the attic one of my students said, `Why don't you use the attic for the Anne Frank re-enactment?'" McGovern said. "I said, `Wow! What a good idea.' It's always fun to work with (students). They see things I don't see."

Parents of cast helped build a set of bunk beds for the attic the first year the play was staged there. Each subsequent year, artifacts were added, including furniture, china, silverware, movie posters and an antique radio. The German uniforms and rifles are rented from a costume-supply company in Los Angeles. This year, parent volunteers helped connect running water to the set.

Former cast member and co-director Behling said the play was a life-changing experience and that she'll be sad if another location for the set is not found.

"This is the best thing I've ever done," Behling said. "I don't know what I'm going to do when it's over. It has become such a huge part of my life...of who I am. It's hard to think of not having people from Anne Frank being a part of my life."

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