Das ist Esther

The class (group) is waiting for a visit from a Holocaust survivor, but Esther Bauer is late. Instead, a nervous young woman enters the classroom and introduces herself as the granddaughter of the survivor. She has photos and audio recordings in her luggage documenting the stations of her “Granny” and so Mary Ann hesitantly takes over Esther's task and begins to tell the story. She talks about Esther's childhood and youth in Germany, her fate as a concentration camp prisoner, her survival and her emigration to America. Mary Ann speaks of her grandmother with great respect, but also with the amazement of her grandchildren's generation, for whom much of the Third Reich era must seem unimaginable. She repeatedly draws concrete comparisons in order to visualize the situation at that time.

The piece addresses the transience of contemporary testimony and poses the question of how remembrance can take place. Mary Ann l leaves the class with a whole life story: this is Esther.