This past Friday night, Mr. Robert Sandler organized a trip for his Jewish History class to see Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library at the Women’s Project Theater. The title character, Mrs. Stern, is actually a young Hannah Arendt, who at the time went by her married name, Johanna Stern. In the play, Arendt reflects on her arrest, recalling her famous interview with Günter Gaus, in which she explains that after the Reichstag fire of 1933, she could no longer avoid politics. While she briefly considered emigrating, she ultimately decided to stay and assist the Zionist cause by alerting the international community to the atrocities occurring in Germany. Arendt was arrested, and the play uses her description of that experience to examine the dangers of arbitrary rule and the essence of totalitarian regimes.
After the performance, we had a talkback with the director and writer of the play, and Roger Berkowitz, the director of the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College. Berkowitz, a professor of Political Studies, Philosophy, and Human Rights, engaged our students in a discussion that was both enlightening and thought-provoking.See a full size photo collage here.
