
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 14, 1995                   TAG: 9504140007
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-3   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: TERESA OGLE SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG                                 LENGTH: Medium

BEARING WITNESS WITH THE ARTS

An SS soldier approaches a young, Jewish woman scrubbing the floor. She turns her head from him. He strokes her hair. She scrubs harder. He takes her hand and raises her to her feet and eventually leads her away. Others look on, helpless.

The music and movements of the dancers work together to create an absorbing, empathic mood. The scene is so powerfully done, the dancers themselves cry. They're not performing, they say; they're experiencing.

Virginia Tech student Danya Conn, in her attempt at dealing with the Holocaust and prejudice, has choreographed a powerful performance she calls, ``To Bear Witness.'' The dance deals with prejudice, alienation and powerlessness in the concentration camps of WWII. It will be performed next week by the Southwest Virginia Ballet in a show called "Arts to Fight Prejudice." Other performers in the show, one in a series of events to commemorate and remember the Holocaust, are members of Virginia Tech's Ujima Dance Company, theater faculty and students, and members of the New Virginians.

``I want people to remember the Holocaust, slavery, the native American displacement, and the atrocities that are going on now,`` said Conn, activities director for Hillel, Tech's Jewish students' group. ``There needs to be more sensitivity."

Conn, with the help of others, has organized a series of events to help people understand and learn about prejudice and minority oppression. The music of Claudia Stevens will be featured during the week, along with speaker Anna Perl, who survived the Holocaust by working in the enamel- ware factory of Oskar Schindler.

"If you have not experienced what it's like to be on the outside, you can't understand," Conn said. "The most you can do is sympathize.

``I'm looking for people to understand. I don't want sympathy. Through the arts, people gain understanding. I want to get to their spirits. For a moment, they experience, through art, the feelings attached to the words and impersonal statistics. Six million killed is too overwhelming. I want them to try to put themselves in the minority's shoes so they can be more sensitive."

The events center around Yom ha-Shoah, the day for commemorating the Holocaust. Conn hopes this year to come to terms with the catastrophe in a creative and profound way.

``I'm not religiously active,'' Conn said. ``But my Jewish heritage is rich and I want to explore it.''

Cultural and social tradition are at the core of Judaism.

``Judaism is a civilization based on peoplehood, as if it were one extended family with a strong sense of identification,'' explained Dan Farkas, a leader in the Blacksburg Jewish Community. ``Its beliefs are a consequence of its culture. ... There are many Jews who don't even believe in God. It's very difficult to reconcile a God who is good with a with anything as tragic as the Holocaust''

The Jewish community is coming together by trying to come to terms with the Holocaust, Farkas said. ``People get so caught up in their day-to-day life, jobs, family and recreation.

"It takes something extraordinary to make them think of anything outside of their routine. ... Everything is personal. If we weren't involved ourselves, then it was our father, or uncle or second cousin.''

During the Jewish Passover, which begins at sundown tonight, participants in the dinnertime seder tell the story of the Jews' exodus from Egypt as if they were there.

And they remember, too, the Holocaust, making it seem more immediate. And more real.

by CNB