Holocaust drama stimulus

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Thanuja Nandakumar                                                                                                          Draft1

Introduction

During our first lesson, as a class we went through a slide show of different shocking pictures. These shocking pictures represented what the Jewish people had to go through during the period in which the Holocaust took place. As a class, we discussed about how we felt looking at these pictures and these feelings and emotions were going to help us create a new piece of drama later on.

The pictures that were being put in front of us made me feel disgusted, it made me feel disgusted that a whole race can happily discriminate and wipe out another race simply because they did not fit in or because they were not liked.  I was shocked and angry because no one took action as no one really knew this massacre was taking place. We were going through the slide show which showed these horrid pictures of innocent women, men and even children getting killed, dead in piles of bodies or being in really bad conditions, these pictures made the atmosphere feel different; it made the atmosphere feel gloomy and depressing. Everyone who sat in the room went from feeling happy to feeling sad and miserable but suddenly a picture of a man who was behind all of this cruelty came up, at this point all I felt was anger but I also felt pity for him. I felt pity for him because I didn’t understand how someone can be this cruel to human beings. When the photograph of soldiers and one of Hitler laughing with some people was juxtaposed with the photos of the Jewish people in the camps it made me feel confused with different emotions such as anger and sadness.

This was a picture which really made me think about what Jewish people really had to go through. I could see a huge group of heartless and cold blooded German soldiers at the back watching Jews being shot in the back of the head one by one, it seemed like it was some sort of entertainment for them and this was a day to day event.  While the soldiers are just watching, a Jewish man is sitting beside his own death waiting to join all the others who have already been sent down. There was nothing he could do to stop him from falling into the ‘death whole’. I think there is some sort of juxtaposition in this picture. The soldiers who are enjoying and the Jewish who are next to their death have been put side to side despite their differences and despite the contrast between them.  When we were thinking about being a Jewish person it made me feel miserable. People who were Jewish knew they were going to die one day or another, they were just waiting for their life to be taken by one of the heartless Germans, and living like this everyday with such a thought must have been horrific.  

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 I later then used these well-built feelings and emotions to help me maintain a strong and realistic character. These feelings made me focus on the character in which I was playing; it made me focus on what the character may have felt like and what the character went through. I then used all these factors to change the tone of my voice and the way I behave accordingly and appropriately to match the character I was playing.

Task 1

After the discussion we were told to create three still images in our groups. We used ...

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