"IL GHETTO" - Varsavia, 1943

An opera in three acts by Dino Borlone

Music by
GIANCARLO COLOMBINI

CHARACTERS:

JUSTA, a Jewish girl from Warsaw – (Soprano)
ISACCO, a twenty-year-old young man, her fiancé – (Tenor)
MAREK, a Jew from Warsaw – (Baritone)
SARA, his wife - (Mezzo Soprano)
MICHELE, their son, about four years old – (a Supernumerary)
FÈRI, Justa’s brother, and a Jewish Police Officer in the Ghetto - (Comprimario            Tenor)
SAMUELE, an old Jew from Warsaw and Justa’s father – (Bass)
THE POLE – (Comprimario Tenor)
A Jewish girl – (a Supernumerary)
A woman and her two small children – (Comprimario Mezzo Soprano)
First soldier – (Comprimario Tenor)
Second soldier – (Comprimario Baritone)
Third soldier – (Comprimario Tenor)
Soldiers, SS Officers, men, women, old people, young people, children

English translation by Brigitte Ciaramella

 Introduction

“The Jewish residential quarter in Warsaw has ceased to exist. The large-scale action was terminated with the blowing up of the Warsaw synagogue at 20.15 hours”.
This is what the report by the German Police Leader Stropp said about the final action in Warsaw Ghetto.
The report was dated 16th May, 1943.
Of the four hundred and fifty thousand Jews living in the Polish capital city, only a few dozen survived, thanks to purely accidental circumstances.

FIRST ACT

THE SCENE shows a square in the Warsaw Ghetto. In the foreground, on the left is a building, behind which a road runs parallel to the line of the proscenium. Before the audience a narrow alley runs between almost ruined buildings.
To the right of the square there is a lower building, of which the side facing the audience is open so that the inside can be seen: a cold kitchen with little furniture (a table, some chairs, and an old stove); in the right-hand corner there are a few wooden boxes and a rough pallet. On the left of the front wall there is a door that opens onto the square. A Jewish star is painted in whitewash on the black wooden door.

First Scene

It is five o’clock in the afternoon.
In the kitchen, in the left-hand corner, Samuele is sitting on an old chair in a solemn position; Marek and Sara are talking sadly; Michele, wrapped up in a big coat, is sitting on the floor in the middle of the room and is playing with a few bits of wood.
In the square: a few scruffy children are leaning on the walls of the houses with outstretched hands; black female figures go in and out of front doors quickly, others peep at the street through half-closed windows.
An SS platoon appears from the street on the left and moves away along the central alley; as they pass by, the women and children stand still in their positions.
A young woman wearing a light raincoat suddenly appears running from the bottom of the street: she is being chased, or believes so.
She climbs the five stone steps leading to
the kitchen door, bangs anxiously and leans on it.
After a moment’s hesitation, Marek opens the door for her. 

Second Scene
(Samuele, Marek, Sara, Michele and Justa)
MAREK
(apprehensively)
Justa!

JUSTA
(breathlessly; she beckons him to be quiet)

Be quiet! For pity’s sake!

Outside, distant orders in German can be heard; they get closer and closer: the women and children in the street go and hide behind the front doors. From the left enters a long queue of Jews with sacks and bundles, watched by guards. The queue advances slowly and disappears at the end of the middle street.

JUSTA
(letting go of the door; fearful)
Always the same….
….Towards Death….
Marek and Sara come closer to her, as would someone expecting news do; Samuele leans forward from his chair.

JUSTA
They’d taken me.
I hardly managed to escape!
(she runs to her father and kneels down at his feet; she rests her head on his legs; her father strokes her hair)
I’m still alive today,
but what about tomorrow? …
This wait is killing us slowly.
It is not hunger. Or cold.
It is this silence of the world around us.
MAREK
(as if following his own thoughts)
One can kill a butterfly, or tread on a flower
on the edge of the road.
SAMUELE
Without a moan, or tears,
or a cry……
JUSTA
Our end is their
ultimate purpose.
MAREK
(spelling out)
“If you disobey
“the Lord’s voice,
“and don’t observe
“His commandments and His Law
“what will happen is that the curses….”
JUSTA
(she gets up, interrupting him
ironically and angrily)
Stop it!
Do you believe so then?
This is the madness of many
who prostrate themselves on the ground
for a non-existing fault.
Where’s our fault in having been born Jews?

(more calmly, though bitterly)
God curses
and abandons us….
Isacco’s hand
held mine….
My God! How sad it is
to die little by little!
MAREK
Justa, this doesn’t help.
People are dying, with your cry in their throat.

SAMUELE
And they die all the same.
JUSTA
(pulling herself together,
struck by a sudden thought;
she goes towards the door)
Marek,
Isacco’s not back yet.
It’s late….
MAREK
He said not before six.
JUSTA
(anxiously)
And it is?
MAREK
Still a little while.

The occasional machine-gun blasts in the distance. A second SS platoon enters from the street on the left, crosses the square and departs along the middle street.

JUSTA
(with terror and anxiety,
following the thread of her
own thoughts)
Tomorrow many Jews will be killed.
They will come….
They will take us all
to the long black train.
MAREK
Be quiet!
JUSTA
(bitterly and in pain)
To be quiet. This is what we are left with.
Oh! I wish I could no longer hear anything.
Not the silence of my city
full of dead people. Not the cry
of children in the streets. No longer
the anguish of lonely mothers…

 

Third Scene
(The same characters, Isacco)

ISACCO
(from the outside, he
knocks on the door)
JUSTA
(rushing to open the door)
It’s Isacco!
ISACCO
(he comes in and embraces her)
Justa!
(with apprehension)
Have you been waiting for me long?
JUSTA
Every day all this anxiety….
ISACCO
Now the Ghetto is quiet
and the Umschlagplatze is empty,
but there’s a stormy wind
in the air.
(a short pause, then towards Samuele)
Shalom!
SAMUELE
Shalom, Isacco.

The kitchen darkens. Only Justa and Isacco are still in the light.
On the horizon the pale twilight sun illuminates the city, that can be seen from the window. (Outside, in the square, the atmosphere is unchanging). On the window-sill, is illuminated an earthenware pot of flowers. It is as if we were no longer in the Ghetto, but in a Warsaw garden before the war.

Fourth Scene
(Justa and Isacco)

JUSTA
(she returns to Isacco’s arms;
she points at the flowers as if dreaming)
You see these flowers,
they’re my whole life….
Today they’re lovelier, and happier….
The April rain makes the streets shine
and it looks as if Spring were back
for good, where in Winter
the frost struggled with snowdrops.
Every drop of rain in my eyes
revives the words you used to speak
when we seemed to have reached
a future together .…
ISACCO
(absorbed in illusion, just like her)
Primroses weave merry embroideries
on the fields.…
And our sky becomes tinted
with crystal clear strokes.
JUSTA
(without sadness)
While dying out, once again,
another year buries our farewells,
our memory is tired, and so is our heart.
ISACCO
(letting go of her and taking
her hands; tenderly)
These hands of yours, as white as snow.…

JUSTA (tenderly moved)                                 ISACCO
They’re red from cold.                                     I want them on my
Oh, I love you so!                                            face. How sweet
you are…

JUSTA
Hold me tight.
Never let me go!

ISACCO
I’ll always be with you….
JUSTA
All our life….
ISACCO
Yes, all our life….
ISACCO and JUSTA
And should we
find Death today
among these flowers,
already dead and withered…
When they die of frost
we will still be together beyond life!

All of a sudden the room is fully lit.

Fifth Scene
(Isacco, Justa, Marek)
MAREK
Isacco,
have you any news of our escape?
ISACCO
(pulling himself together,
he lets go of Justa)
Tomorrow at dawn they’re coming to accompany us to the exit of the great sewerage perhaps.
MAREK
(apprehensively)
I’m not coming with you.
But will you take Sara where no one
can hurt her?
ISACCO
There’s no place in Poland
where a Jew can tear away
the yellow star from his dirty clothes.
(almost angrily)
We’ll escape to Aryan Poland
and wash our faces in Aryan water
and we’ll breathe non-Jewish air….
(with angry bitterness)
But we’ll have to cut
our old men’s plaits,
and shudder at every step
that breaks the silence,
and reject our mother a thousand times,
when we see that it is her
they’re killing….
If they ask who is Jewish among us,
we’ll have to give them our neighbour’s name and forge the iron of his chains….
This is our fate!

(after a pause)
Sara and Michele will come out with us,
but our salvation….

Sixth Scene
(The same characters, Fèri)

FÈRI
(he comes running from thebottom of the central alley.
He’s wearing the Jewish Police uniform.
He suddenly comes in: everybody turns around and
looks at him surprised and with contempt)
I’ve come to tell you
that tomorrow
the Warsaw Ghetto
will be destroyed.
(with apprehension, though
suppressed by pride)
You must run away!
JUSTA
(sceptical and with contempt)
What do you want,
you who have betrayed us?

MAREK
(to Justa)
Listen to him, Justa!
JUSTA
He’s my brother – oh God! –
and he disgusts me!
He’s selling us all
for one day’s life!
FÈRI
(angrily)
Don’t you believe me?
Well, then
die!
If you don’t know yet,
everything’s already been decided:
tomorrow at dawn
you will all be dead!
ISACCO
(calmly)
Are you deluding yourself that you will really be saved?
FÈRI
(ironically)
It is with this illusion
that I sold myself away.
You didn’t do it:
we’ll see who’s more knowing!
JUSTA
(writhing)
Clear out! Fèri!
I feel sorry for you!
FÈRI
(raging; he goes towards the
door, but stops with his hand
on the door-handle)
There’s no mercy for you!

In the meanwhile, outside, two SS officers are dragging a struggling man. The man slips to the ground. One of the SS officers reacts angrily and shoots him point-blank.
Fèri has remained still for a second watching the scene, then he quickly departs along the street on the left.
RAPID CURTAIN FALL

 

SECOND ACT

First Scene
(First Soldier, Second Soldier, Third Soldier)
From the bottom of the central alley, three soldiers enlisted among the Germans walk towards the square in their tattered uniforms, perhaps drunk. Two of them are walking and embracing one another; the other one is at a distance.

FIRST SOLDIER
Bloody life!
SECOND SOLDIER
Damned war!
FIRST SOLDIER
Will it end?
SECOND AND THIRD SOLDIERS
If it ever finishes
FIRST, SECOND AND THIRD SOLDIERS
we’ll go back
to our old homes….
SECOND SOLDIER
(laughing)
to our old getting drunk….
THIRD SOLDIER
(shaking the uniform he’s wearing)
This uniform, ah!
Had I only had a chance to,
I would have already thrown it
into the Vistula a thousand years ago
SECOND SOLDIER
Into Hell, you mean!
FIRST SOLDIER
To the fat girls
FIRST SECOND AND THIRD SOLDIER
If it ever finishes, you can be sure
that we’ll go back running….

SECOND SOLDIER
If ever we are lucky….
FIRST SOLDIER
If there is any luck….
FIRST SECOND AND THIRD SOLDIER
Each of us thinks for himself
As vultures do,
and lackeys too,
the three of us all searching loot!...

Second Scene
(The same ones and a young woman)
Suddenly a young Jewish girl comes out of a front door; upon seeing the three soldiers, she leans against the wall intimidated)

FIRST SOLDIER
(he stops at once with his arms
akimbo to look at the young woman)

There! How she’s shaking!
SECOND SOLDIER
(approaching the young woman)
Afraid?
(he holds out his hand towards her:
the woman attempts an escape; the
soldier steps in front of her)
There, don’t move!
We’re friends,
great friends of the Jews.
THIRD SOLDIER
(laughing)
Of the Jews and of the pogrom…
FIRST SOLDIER
(to the other two)
Stop this now!
(to the girl)
Go! Run away! Run! Away!

The young woman runs away; the soldier shouts at her:
Slaves, just like you…

The three men are now in front of the kitchen door. The second soldier goes near it and spits against it, then moves away, picks up a stone and throws it against the wood. The other two just look at him.

SECOND SOLDIER
(shouting)
Come out!
Dirty pigs!

The kitchen lights up: Sara, kneeling near little Michele lying on the bed, is looking at the door terror-stricken.
The three soldiers linger outside the door for a while, and then depart along the street on the left, jumping and singing like drunkards across the square.

Third Scene
(Sara, Michele, and then Marek)
Sara keeps listening until the steps cannot be heard anymore. Then she bends down over the child who is gasping.
SARA
(very anguished)
Michele…
Oh God, God, God!
(she takes him into her arms; the
child yields: he is dead)
Listen,
wait!
We’ll have lots of sweet-smelling cakes…
(she realizes he is not breathing any more)
God!
What are you doing?
(her first instinct is to scream, but she refrains;
she moves around the kitchen with her son in her arms;
she stops as if to think.
She moves again searching the corners.
She goes towards the boxes and hides the corpse behind them,
trying to cover it up with some clothes).

MAREK
(he comes in from the right and
goes near her)
Sara, what are you doing?
Where’s Michele?
SARA
(standing up, in a dreamy voice)
He’s outside, in the courtyard…
MAREK
(he embraces her round her
shoulders)
How tired you are…
You must get ready for our escape.
SARA
(with anguish)
Escape?
MAREK
It’s all been decided.
Maybe our God will help us.
Keep Michele ready.
SARA
Little Michele…
MAREK
Is he not well?
SARA
(she cuddles up to him)
Not anymore…
Now sufferance
will not torment him anymore…
He’s dead… Dead!
MAREK
(he understands everything: he
rushes to the bundle behind the boxes)
Michele!

(after a pause)
We’re alone!
You’ve left us alone!
To cry day after day
this great grief…
(bitterly)
Your revenge, God, is completed here.
(he cries softly, cuddling the corpse;
then he pulls himself together and turns to Sara suspiciously)
And you, what were you doing?
SARA
(with tragic calmness)
We’re so hungry….
I was hiding him to avoid denouncing his death.
We might need his ration.
MAREK
(he turns towards her angrily, but then stops;
he sits down, looking at the floor: the measure of abandonment becomes clear to him)
SARA
(feverishly, she picks up what she was doing)
Michele, little one,
you’ve run away from this black night….

(she’s lost as if in a vision)
Now I can see you with a smile on your mouth and your pale eyes lost in the blue….
How lovely you were when at the gardens
your forehead sweated from running,
and you came to tell me about the adventures
of your games….
Oh, little butterfly of my flowering fields
where the grass of life flourishes, a life
seized forever by avaricious hands….
Oh, little butterfly of my flowering fields….
I can see you amidst a thousand golden rays,
timid, good, no longer in pain.

….Oh my Michele….
You’re dead!

(solicitous)
Just like every night, rest and pray….

(she cries violently)
Only a few hours are now left before dawn: they all know that exactly at dawn the Nazis will give the “go” sign for the final action in the Ghetto.

Fourth Scene
(The same characters and Isacco)

ISACCO
(he comes in from the
street gasping)
Everything’s ready!
The end of the Ghetto has started.
They are looking for people house by house!
Let’s go!
MAREK
(with obvious indifference)
Sara, be quick…
SARA
(she lifts her eyes, surprised)
There’s only time left
to die.
The sun is waiting for me outside the fog.
Oh I wish I had wings to fly far away,
where the world ends!
An enormous mountain
is crushing my heart.
Dead hands in a thousand chains.
And our eyes every sun ray
silently kills.

(towards Marek, suddenly,
desperate)
I’m so hungry!
ISACCO
(baffled)
What’s the matter with her?
MAREK
(without expression)
Michele is dead.
ISACCO
Dead?
SARA
(as if she hadn’t heard,
tormented)
Isacco, fly away!
Run! Fly! Fly!
(more calmly, with tragic irony)
And from the land of Zion
let me know
if there are any smiling children…
In the kitchen the light goes out suddenly; Sara, Marek and Isacco remain still: during the entire following scene they will be like Chinese shadows against the dimly-lit window.

 

Fifth Scene
In the street SS officers appear coming from every side road, hitting front doors with the stocks of their guns and shouting orders. The first Jews start coming out of their houses pushed by the guards.
Confused screams can be heard: “They’re destroying everything!”,“…To Treblinka!...” “Murderers!”, “Help!”, etcetera.
A woman, with her two children clutching her long black skirts, runs towards the centre of the scene.
AN SS OFFICER
(shouting at the woman)
Come on, get in the queue with the others!

 

THE WOMAN
(she throws herself  onto her children crouching on the ground; they look
at the German man)
You can kill me!
You can kill me here!
I’m not coming!
THE SS OFFICER
(he throws
himself onto her
and tries to pull
her away from
her children)

THE WOMAN
(with a sharp
scream)
I’m not coming!

THE SS OFFICER
(he hits her violently with the stock of his gun and shoots at her and her children.)

The bodies are left on the ground, in the middle of the square like a black bundle. A brief moment of silence in the middle of the crowd leaning against the walls and looking at the scene horrified.
The Germans remain still too, pointing their guns at the crowd. Suddenly the Jews leave the walls, come out of the houses and throw themselves on the three corpses. All this happens in absolute silence. They all remain absolutely still in their positions, bent, desperate, terrified, until the curtain comes down quickly. 

RAPID CURTAIN FALL

 

THIRD ACT

The scene is still the same as in the first and second acts. However, the square and the street are empty and without any light. It is a few hours before full sunshine.

First Scene
Light slowly dawns.
(In the kitchen: Isacco, Justa, Marek, Samuele, Sara bent over the dead child).

ISACCO
Everything’s ready for our escape: our friends are waiting for us beyond the wall.
JUSTA
Resistance inside the Ghetto has by now been decided: it would be vile to run away.
ISACCO
(surprised, after a long
pause)
We can only choose between two ways:
to die while fighting
or in the forest outside Warsaw.
SAMUELE
Two ways only, both leading to death.
MAREK
(to Isacco, calmly)
Isacco, we are staying.
What do we need escape for now?
Our heart, insensitive,
can no longer give
love to the world.
We’ll stay and die
among these burnt stones,
these houses’ livid walls,
these trees’ black arms in the sky….
SARA
(aside, dreamlike)
An enormous mountain….
MAREK
Here, look at Sara:
She doesn’t know, she’s lost
her mind….
She’s in the best state of mind….
Her life has become
a vain tale,                                ,
in her eyes
there is no longer
that fear which for years
has destroyed and broken
our every hope.

Second Scene
(The same characters and Fèri)
Fèri appears in the square: he looks around; he knocks on the door. Isacco opens it.
FÈRI
(he comes in devastated; he’s ragged and scared:
everybody turns round to look at him)
Help me!
JUSTA
(furious and surprised)
You? Are you asking us for help?
ISACCO
(he grabs Justa by the arm,
as if to calm her down;
then, to Fèri)
What do you expect?
Why are you asking us?
FÈRI
(shaking visibly; with scared violence)
They have taken many of our kind
to the furnaces in Treblinka …
MAREK
(in anguish)
You too, then?
SAMUELE
(severe and solemn)
We won’t give you our hand.
You are lost.
FÈRI
(he throws himself to his
father’s feet, but the latter
remains unmoved)

JUSTA
You don’t deserve pity.
You didn’t feel any.
FÈRI
Me too, yes, I helped you….
JUSTA
(interrupting him heatedly)
Be quiet!
FÈRI
…. in secret.
JUSTA
During the year thousands and thousands of Jews were murdered like animals
by the enemy
You were with….
Beast!
MAREK
(to Justa)
It is not for us
to decide his destiny.
ISACCO
(to Justa, tenderly)
He’s your brother, after all…
JUSTA
(with rage)
He’s no longer my brother.
SAMUELE
He has betrayed his blood.
He is the shame of the people
of Israel.
SARA
(still dreamlike; aside)
Oh little butterfly of my flowering fields…
ISACCO
(to everybody)
There’s no more time for the past!
We must decide:
either stay or run away!
JUSTA
(defiantly, chiefly directed
towards her brother still
kneeling before his father)
We won’t run away.
We will bear witness
here to the world.

ISACCO
But we will fight outside,
and to more effect.
At least our life
will have a price that will be paid.
FÈRI
(timidly)
We will fight…
JUSTA
(to Fèri)
You shut up!
(to everybody, decided)
This is our place,
where yesterday the enemy still
crushed us like earth worms.
Here we will show our armed hand
and our eyes in the face of the murderers.
ISACCO
(getting close to her)
Stay? and say farewell forever
to everything we once loved?
(in an extreme attempt to convince her)
In a little while a friend of ours 
will announce to us that our departure is ready.
JUSTA
(with great resolution)
I won’t come, Isacco.  
(then towards her father)
Father, bless me.
(she kneels down)
For the last time.

SAMUELE
(he lifts his right hand;
grieved)
God be with you…
For me now
life no longer counts,
but for you, it can still
make your dreams come true.  
Save yourself!
JUSTA
(with firm tenderness)
No, father!

 

Third Scene
(The same characters, the Pole)

THE POLE
(rushing in, after having
crossed the Square)

Everything’s ready, let’s go!
There’s only one minute left.

JUSTA
I’m not coming.
The action of extermination already completes the hideous design of Death.
Here we shall defend our life.

The sun has risen. The first fires can be seen and distant screams and noises can be heard. In the street, there are black figures of corpses that become clearer and clearer as daylight advances; there are figures running towards the background, hiding inside front doors, while the SS violently push people against the walls, go into houses and drag out other people.
THE POLE
(to Isacco)
What’s she saying?
ISACCO
(wretched)
She’s decided so.
THE POLE
And you? Quick!
ISACCO
I don’t know anymore.
FÈRI
(throwing himself at the Pole,
begging)

I’ll come with you…
Save me!
THE POLE
(he gives him a scornful look)

 

JUSTA
(she rushes at him)
No! You’ll stay!
(she grabs him by the arm)
You have to pay too!
FÈRI
(stunned with fear, at first he
gives in; then weakly)

Let me go…
(suddenly, he frees himself and runs out; he gets to the middle of the stage, at the beginning of the street. A hail of bullets kills him: he falls down with a scream.)
Shocked by Fèri’s gesture, all remain motionless.
THE POLE
Well, Isacco?
I must go.
ISACCO
(as if talking to himself)

Due to one of us they will say
that we’ve been vile…
When they shut us inside these walls
we didn’t know that this
would have been our fate,
and when the first trains
went to Treblinka
we thought that it was for work:
only now do we know
how they want us to die.
We kept quiet when
they put us against one another through hunger, some of us put on
horrible uniforms
and our very friends

came to look for us in our dens….
(vehemently, towards the others and
the audience)
No! They won’t say that we’ve died like dogs!
(he goes near Justa, and takes her
hands)
Yes, Justa, our place is here.
Our war is another one,
and our fate is another one, too.
THE POLE
You’re mad! Farewell!
(he goes out and departs along the
side road)
ISACCO
(going on)

Justa, we thought
that life would be sweeter
and that for everyone
there would be a place in the world:
it is our duty now
to say that a man is a man!

JUSTA
We’ll say so, Isacco!
ISACCO
We’ll tell the world!
ISACCO and JUSTA
Our joined hands
will be a stronger
chain than death!
JUSTA
You told me: beyond life….
ISACCO and JUSTA
Beyond life, together!
SS officers knock on the door.
The house inside slowly becomes dark, while Isacco and Justa remain there embracing one another; all the others are motionless. Only their shadows can be seen by now.

On the pane of the big window some words appear in clear Jewish characters and will remain until the end.

 

A distant voice reads.
WHO WILL TELL THEIR STORY
ONCE THEY ARE SEVERED FROM EARTH?
WHO WILL DECLARE:
“DUE TO OUR EVILS
THEIR BODIES ARE LIVID WITH WOUNDS”?

 

SLOW CURTAIN