Brest Stories Guide

Documentary audio performance in the space of the city of Brest ghetto.

Brest Stories Guide - project at the intersection of art, tourism and preservation of cultural heritage.

In 2016 the theater "Wings halopa" started the project Brest Stories Guide - a series of documentary audio performances in urban space. The theme of the first performance - Anti-Semitism and the destruction of the Jewish community of Brest in 1941-1942. Before the outbreak of war in Brest there were about 24,000 Jews (about 45% of the population). Almost all of these people were killed. As a result of the Holocaust, the repatriation of indigenous inhabitants of the city, as well as the anti-Semitism of the Soviet space the city had disappeared and the memory of the Jewish community and its contribution to the development of Brest. Today we can say that the greatest disaster and trauma in the life of the city is not present in his memory.

Audioperformance allows the viewer to move in a free mode on the proposed route, guided by the software based on Android. In certain places in the city audience will hear stories associated with this site (eg. The area of ​​the ghetto, the former synagogue, etc.), and also has the ability to view text and photos. The city itself is the space of the performance. Streets, buildings, yards become the stage on which the voices of the past. Theater KX offers the viewer / listener to "dive" into the history and see how the image of the city today through the outlines of the disappeared, the old Brest.

The play is based on archive material, book publications, photos, interviews with witnesses of the events related to anti-Semitic manifestations in 1937, the Brest ghetto and the annihilation of the Jewish community in 1941-1942. In addition to the memories of Jewish survivors and witnesses of Brest in used previously unpublished testimony of German officers from the German archives. The play becomes a kind of investigation with the hearing of witnesses in the case of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust in Brest in 1930-40-ies. In Brest, there is the story told not textbook authors and creators of heroic narratives, and its inhabitants.

Brest Stories Guide - project at the intersection of art, tourism and preservation of cultural

Heritage, a collaboration of about twenty people, including historians, experts of Jewish organizations, as well as the best actors Brest theaters. This makes it an innovative and artistic tourist product, as well as a reliable source for studying the history of the city.

Historian Kristian Gantser:

"Voices from the past are invited to reflect on contemporary culture of memory, as well as our relationship to the discrimination and the exclusion of certain groups of people from society. Therefore, I believe that the Brest Stories Guide - project related not only to the historical memory, education and the arts, but also with important ethical issues. "