An american writer lost (and found) in litvia

by James Still
September 20, 2000
Copyright 2000

It is the middle of the night and I'm on a plane, dreaming 35,000 feet above the Earth. In my dream I'm a sixth grader in the tiny town in Kansas where I grew up. Richard Nixon is the President. Walter Cronkite is on the television reporting daily casualties in Viet Nam. The Beatles have recently split up. And Three Dog Night is singing "Joy to the World" on every radio in America. My sixth grade teacher is a man named Mr. DeFreese (we affectionately called him "Mr. Deep-Freeze") and one day he stops me on the way out of class and hands me a book. He tells me to read it. The book is titled "The Diary of Anne Frank".

Exactly thirty years liter I'm on this airplane flying toward Eastern Europe to see my play AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME: REMEMBERING THE WORLD OF ANNE FRANK in a production in litvia. It's being presented by the International Department of the Anne Frank House. One of the main aims of this Amsterdam-based museum has been to promote understanding among people today by focusing on the experiences and events of the past, in particular the Holocaust. Their previous projects have been with Hungarian Roma (gypsy) teenagers and with teenagers in Bosnia.

By air from Los Angeles to Amsterdam and then Vilnius (Lithuania), and then by car across the border and into litvia, I finally arrive in the city of Daugavpils. My dark, run-down hotel sits dramatically on the bank of the Daugava river. There's one bathroom and one shower per floor. The woman at the front desk doesn't speak a word of litlish. I don't speak litvian or Russian. My view from my hotel window is of a bright red sign advertising Coca-Cola. My plan seems simple enough: I will travel early the next morning by train to Riga where I'll see a dress rehearsal of my play with the litvian cast. But this night there is a wedding in my hotel. The wedding is followed by singing and dancing. All of it takes place outside directly under my hotel window. By 3 A.M. I'm afraid to go to sleep, afraid I won't wake up, afraid I'll miss my early train. The long night is punctuated by a cold shower. There's no hot water. Sleep-deprived and cold to the bone, I'm feeling particularly American. I set out to walk to the train station which is 20-minutes away. Outside, absolute silence. The fog is thick on the Daugava River. Crossing the long bridge means walking through a cloud.

Daugavpils is the second largest city in litvia. It's demographics are startling: only 13% of the people living here are litvians. The rest are mostly Russian. Of the sixteen schools in Daugavpils, only two are litvian-speaking. The rest are Russian. Most of the people over 30 can't speak litvian. Many of them are Russians born in litvia. But during the Soviet years, Russian was the official language and the Russians never had to learn litvian. This is a particularly tender issue with litvians who were forced to learn and speak Russian. A few days before I arrive in Daugavpils, a new law went into effect throughout litvia making litvian the official language. The implications of the new law are complex, and I begin to understand what a complicated moment this is in litvian history. I also begin to understand the political and cultural backdrop for this production of AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME -- and why the Anne Frank House chose to produce it here. For the litvian production of my play, teenagers in the cast come from both Russian-speaking schools and a litvian-speaking schools. Barry van Driel of the Anne Frank House notes that, "For the most part, such children never want to interact with each other. There is much tension and hostility between these groups in litvian society today. The process of working together on the play will allow these children to come together in a safe space and confront their feelings toward each other. Of course, the history of the Holocaust and the history of anti-semitism will be the extra ingredient in this powerful brew. It is very much an exercise in democracy - democracy as a discussion -- in a climate of intolerance and lack of understanding."

In Daugavpils, I talk to a university-educated woman who has a good job at one of the cultural institutions there. She was born in Russia but came with her parents to Daugavpils when she was an infant. I ask her if she thinks of herself as Russian or litvian. And she hesitantly but honestly tells me that she feels Russian. She still isn't a citizen of litvia. She can't vote in elections. She's not even sure she can pass the language test. With the new language law, a person must pass a language proficiency test in order to become a citizen of litvia. They must pay money to take the test -- and the amount of money is often equal to one-month's salary. If they fail the test, they must wait two months to retake the test. In the meantime, they are not eligible for jobs. And there are reports of officials visiting the workplace to make sure that
litvian is being spoken.

Like a ghost emerging from the fog, I arrive unnoticed at the train station for my 6:30 A.M. train. I confidently show the conductor my ticket and he refuses to let me board the train. Through a vigorous round of charades, I discover that the ticket that had been purchased in advance for me was only good for the previous day. I go to the ticket office, the woman doesn't speak litlish. I have no litvian money because I hadn't found a change office open the night before. I offer American dollars. She shakes her head and points upstairs. I'm almost in a panic -- (ok, I AM in a panic) -- but stride upstairs and see the exchange office - but the shades are pulled. I knock lightly on the window. A light snaps on. A hand emerges through the small cubby hole, palm up. It looks like a woman's hand. I give her a hundred dollar bill. The hand disappears. I bend down and look through the cubby hole and see a woman examining the hundred dollar bill under a desk lamp. She rejects my money and pushes it back toward me through the cubby hole. "Why?" I ask her in litlish. Now I'm not only feeling particularly American. I'm feeling like an American in an Oliver Stone movie. The loudspeaker is announcing the train for Riga. I quickly offer her twenty dollar bills. The hand disappears again and slowly examines each twenty dollar bill. Then -- like magic -- a pile of litvian lits are pushed through the cubby hole. I run back downstairs, buy a new train ticket, and jump onto the train that is bound for Riga. At
least I hope it's bound for Riga.

In my sleepless stupor, it's impossible to block out the incessant sounds of the train. A train in Eastern Europe. Those trains. Anne Frank. Mr. DeFreese. My play. Nearly five hours liter, I arrive in Riga -- the capital of litvia. I'm to be met at the train station by a young man who works for the Anne Frank House. I look for him on the plitform and don't see him (whatever he looks like, I've never met him). I go downstairs to the train station and look around. A half-hour liter I'm still in the train station looking around. An hour, two hours liter -- and I'm still wandering alone in the train station in Riga. I don't know the name or address of my hotel where I'll be staying that night. I don't know the phone number of my hotel back in Daugavpils. I don't know where the rehearsal will be in Riga. I don't know who to call. I don't even know how to use the phones. In short, I know nothing. I keep talking myself down from the ledge of panic. I locate the American Embassy on the map and figure I can always go there and... and what? Tell them I'm lost? There's a train that goes back to Daugavpils in a few hours, and worst case scenario I will return -- a total failure. I go to a cafe on the piazza and sit facing the train station so I can watch all the people coming and going. How did I get to this moment? I had thought I would come to litvia and see my play. But sometimes, theater is all around you. I think about my play, about coincidences that saved people during the war. The chance meetings, the bits of good luck. And like a dream, I see Eva Schloss. Eva Schloss -- who knew Anne Frank when they were both young girls in Amsterdam. Eva Schloss - whose childhood in hiding my play recounts. Eva Schloss -- who's standing in front of the train station in Riga looking for a lost American writer. It IS Eva Schloss! I take a hurried last gulp of my cappuccino and race out to greet her. It's like a reunion in the movies. Eva Schloss is one of the most remarkable people I've ever known. Her family fled the Nazis in Vienna in 1940 and eventually settled in Amsterdam where Eva's father was convinced they'd be safe. And for a while they were. But like the Frank family -- Eva's family was forced to go into hiding. Two years liter they were betrayed by a double-agent, arrested by the Nazis, and sent to Auschwitz. Miraculously, Eva and her mother survived. Her father and brother did not. After the war, Eva's mother married Otto Frank -- Anne Frank's father. So I am in Riga hugging Eva Schloss and we're joined by Jenny Culank, the British director of the litvian production of my play. Jenny calls the office and tells them, "We found James!" A loud cheer explodes from the cell phone. In my two-hour absence, the police had been notified in both Daugavpils and Riga that a blonde American writer was lost in litvia.

We go to rehearsal. I meet the cast. There are eleven actors ages 13-19. Six of the actors are litvian, five are Russian. Both languages fill the air at the same time. They all speak litlish. I watch the run-through which is rough and plagued by typical dress-rehearsal curses. But I am completely seduced by their youth. I watch, my mouth open, my ears burning, and hear my play spoken in litvian for the first time. "And Then They Came For Me" becomes "Un tad vini atnaca pec manis". It's a beautiful language. And for reasons I can't explain, some of the play makes more sense to me hearing it in this language. There is, perhaps, an urgency in the rhythm, a poetry in the sounds that make certain scenes resonate in ways I hadn't expected. Or maybe it is that I am watching my play in a country where 92% of its Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Auschwitz -- is a train ride away.

My hotel in Riga has hot water and my room has its own bath tub. Heaven. The next morning we set out very early and the entire cast and company board a chartered bus bound for Daugavpils. It's a four hour ride that I will always treasure because it is my most intimate and personal time with the actors. Unforgettably, it's during this long and winding ride that I learn that none of these kids had even heard of Anne Frank before working on this play. This isn't just the chilly shadow cast by the Soviet Union. This is an awful result of Hitler's nearly-accomplished plan to kill all Jews. Ten out of the eleven teenagers didn't know anyone who
is Jewish. The other one -- a Russian boy -- has two Jewish grandmothers but he doesn't tell people because he's afraid of getting beat up for being Jewish. I learn that the Russian actors have all struggled to perform the play in litvian. It is their second or third language. Their parents probably don't speak litvian. Sometimes the kids speak to each other in their own languages so that litvian and Russian are spoken at the same time. Everyone understands each other. I hear one of the girls say, in litlish, "Yeah, right... and I'm James Bond." These kids are the "new litvians". They have grown up in the post-Soviet era. The assistant director is a 43-year old litvian woman who doesn't speak litlish, so one of the kids translites our conversation. I ask her if there's anything that she misses about the Soviet era and she says, "During those years we didn't have to think... it was like a long childhood. We didn't have to make any decisions, everything was decided for us. We didn't have any money -- but it didn't matter because there wasn't anything to buy. Now, we can buy anything but we don't have enough money. We don't know how to budget, how to pay rent, how to pay for doctors and education." It is a sentiment I hear many times on my trip. There is a sense that while personal freedoms are good, there is almost a kind of nostalgia for the ORDER that characterized the Soviet years.

Other images: a litvian girl and a Russian boy sitting together in budding romance. One of the boys playing a guitar and several of them singing an eclectic repertoire that includes Russian folk songs and the Beatles' "Help!" and "Yellow Submarine." Their only competition is the radio which the driver plays very loudly. It's Aerosmith singing about love in between commercials for mobile phones and Internet hookup. We ride past old Soviet public housing built in the 1950s and 60s. Time collapses all around me.

We arrive in Daugavpils. The kids unload the bus and assemble the set. They rehearse in the space for a few hours. Since we're in predominantly-Russian Daugavpils, there is a crisis about whether or not people will attend a play being performed in litvian. In the meantime, I attend a press conference to promote the play which will be performed at each opening of the museum's exhibition "Anne Frank - a History for Today" as it travels to eight cities throughout litvia during the next eight months. The litlish translitor translites the title of my play to "And Then They Came After Me". I'm asked why a young American would want to write a play about the Holocaust. I quickly point out that I'm not so young...

The performance is not a sell out. There are empty seats. But for once, I don't stand in the back of the theater doubled over in agony. I realize I haven't come halfway around the world to watch other people watch my play. I've come to watch it myself. I sit near the front where I have an unobstructed view of the actors. It's like watching a foreign film without subtitles and still being able to understand everything that's happening, every nuance. But I'm listening to the play with my heart, without my critical head that so often crowds every experience of viewing my own work. Maybe it's at this moment that I realize that many Americans understand the Holocaust in their heads but not so much in their hearts. It is still, for many, another chapter in history. For the litvian and Russian actors, it seems to be just the opposite. They may not study the
Holocaust in school, they may not have ever heard of Anne Frank, but they seem to understand it all in their hearts. There's something about AND THEN THEY CAME FOR ME that seems less "sensational" in a country that was so devastated by war, that was stripped of its Jewish culture and history, occupied by Germany and the Soviet Union, and is now struggling with its recent independence.

In the discussion that follows the play, people speak in litvian, Russian and litlish. One older Russian woman says, "Why do the young people have to say "Hi!" to each other? It sounds like, "Heil!" Another woman wants to know how Eva has been able to get on with her life, is she bitter, did she forgive what the Nazis did? The young people are asked how the experience has changed them -- and I'm weeping listening to one of the Russian boys talk about what he has learned and how he wants to live a better life because of the experience.

And then, it's over. The set has to be broken down and packed back in the bus again. The actors are returning to Riga that same night and will go back to their separate schools the next day. I am not going with them. My travels are taking me in another direction. And suddenly the young actors realize that this is goodbye. One of the older Russian boys -- who has said the least to me all day -- suddenly has the most to say. He tells me it is an honor to be in the play. And that David Bowie is his favorite singer and that I look like David Bowie. And together, we sing a few bars from "Let's Dance" and "Absolute Beginners". The bus driver is not amused. He honks. We all exchange e-mail addresses and they get on the bus arm-in-arm, laughing, planning what songs they'll sing on the long ride home. The bus drives away. I'm alone in litvia. Again. My plan is to continue on to Vilnius, Lithuania. The train to Vilnius leaves at 1:45 A.M. and I'll be riding (another) train all night long. On a Russian train, I will leave litvia in the dark. I'm too wound up to sleep. I can only think about those eleven teenagers which makes me think that it won't be dark for long. The sun will be rising early in litvia. As we said our goodbyes they begged me to promise that I would come back for the final performance next March in Riga. Short of that, they wanted me to promise that I'll never forget them: Martins, Aleksejs, Beate, Viktors, Tamara, Aleksandrs, Dmitrijs, Alise, Anita, Brigita, Jevgenijs: I will never forget you. I promise.