Miri Ben-Shalom

Miri Ben-Shalom, was born and grew up in Israel. In 1973 she moved to New York where she married and raised her own family. Miri has been a documentary filmmaker and editor for more than twenty years. She co-produced and edited the documentary Preserving the Past to Ensure the Future that was nominated for an Academy Award, about the one and a half million Jewish children murdered during the Holocaust. For her other works she was a Telly Awards recipient, a US International Film and Video Festival winner and received a 1998 National Headliners Award.

She has worked for CBS, NBC, CTW, Israeli TV and Court TV, as well as on many independent productions. She has written, produced, directed and edited several documentaries and children's films for her former production company, Yellow Giraffe Productions. She also wrote several feature length screen plays. Currently she is the Literary Liaison of the theater group The Genesius Guild. (www.genesiusguild.org)

The impetus behind the creation of the play began in 1990, when Miri learned that her mother, a Holocaust survivor, was terminally ill:

"A few months before she died, my mother said to me "I beat the Nazis, I'll beat this too." I knew she would not. She, though, never lost hope. On her sick bed she gave me my aunt Ester's written memoir and asked me to read it. Then my mother, who never before spoke to me about her past, told me "when I get better, I will tell you about what I went through." I knew she would never get better, but I could not betray her hope. The play about my aunt Ester is also the story about my mother that I will never write, because I never asked her about her painful past."

Only after both her parents passed away, was Ms. Ben-Shalom able to deal with her own feelings about the Holocaust. Though her parents never shared their memories with her, and she never wanted to hear them, the Holocaust was always part of their life. As a first step Ms. Ben-Shalom traveled to Poland to visit her parents' former homes. Upon her return she started a series of interviews with her aunt. It took a lot of courage, tears, and time, over five years. The result is this play.

From Home to Homeland, Inc.

From Home to Homeland, Inc. is a non-profit organization dedicated to promote understanding of the malevolence of anti-Semitism, bigotry and racism through the performing and visual arts. We strive to increase awareness of the consequences of racial prejudice, religious persecution and hatred in an effort to help prevent the horrors of intolerance, oppression and genocide - that sadly still occurring today.

Ester Herschberg, now in her seventies, went through 6 years of man-made hell, we call the Holocaust. For years Ester was unable to confront the horrors of her past. Trying to erase it all from her memory, she never spoke a word about her experiences. After all these years, realizing that there are people who do not believe that the Holocaust really happened, Ester decided to break her silence and talk about what she went through. She decided that younger generations should hear and know the terrible truth of the Holocaust. This became more important to her than protecting herself from reliving her painful past.

The need to write this play emerged in 1990, when Miri Ben-Shalom learned that her mother, a Holocaust survivor, was terminally ill:

"A few months before she died, my mother said to me - I beat the Nazis, I'll beat this too. I knew she would not. She, though, never lost hope. On her sick bed she gave me my aunt Ester's written memoir and asked me to read it. Then my mother, who never before spoke to me about her past, told me - when I get better, I will tell you about what I went through. I knew she would never get better, but I could not betray her hope. The play about my aunt Ester is also the story about my mother that I will never write, because I never asked her about her painful past."