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Room 28

Solidarity with Israel

Solidarity with Ukraine

Book-Gifts for Ukrainian Children

ArtEck Janusz Korczak Bildungsstätte e.V. and Room 28 e.V. are working together on a project to bring some joy to Ukrainian children and show our solidarity with Ukraine. The basis of the project is a new children's book that tells the story on which the children's opera Brundibár is based for children aged four and over.

БРУНДІБАР. Як Анінка й Пепічек шарманщика перемогли

Brundibár. How Aninka and Pepíček defeated the organ grinder

We are preparing readings with music and singing for Ukrainian children who will get a free copy of the Ukrainian edition as a gift. Our Foreign Ministry has supported the production of these boooks.

To give our events a nice setting, we are looking for music-loving children and young people aged 12 and over from the Ukrainian Community who are interested in rehearsing two or three songs from Brundibár in advance of the readings so that we can sing them with the young guests at our readings. A rehearsal under an Ukrainian music teacher and the first event itself will take place at the ArtEck-Janusz-Korczak-Educational Center in the Nikolai Quarter. Further events are planned.

The event is the start of a pilot project that we like to realize in Berlin, Munich and wherever we find allies.

Contact: If you are interested please write an E-Mail or call Room 28:

 Annett Blüher and Hannelore Brenner

brundibar@room28.net telephone:  030-691 83 95

The project is based on the book released in 2023 (German and Ukrainian edition):

Brundibár. Wie Aninka und Pepíček den Leierkastenmann besiegten

Брундібар. Як Анінка й Пепічек шарманщика перемогли |

The following Newsletter from March 30th informs about the concept and our first partners in Berlin and Munich. More in the menu Brundibár.

Helga Pollak-Kinsky in Geneva, January 2014

UNO-High Commissioner Volker Türk: "Austrian Holocaust survivor Helga Pollak-Kinsky spoke at the UN in Geneva about the adults – “carers, teachers, artists” – who helped children in the camps “to maintain our faith in ourselves and in humanity.”' - the folloing link lead to the Original-Statement.

As a contribution to January 27, 2024, I would like to draw your attention to today's statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day by UN High Commissioner for Human Right, Volker Türk. In it, he quotes Helga Pollak-Kinsky (1930-2020), who spoke as a "keynote speaker" at the UN ten years ago, on January 28, 2014, on the occasion of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Türk quote Helga talking "about the caregivers, teachers and artists who helped the children in the camp to keep their faith in themselves and in humanity."

It is this faith that led to the Room 28 Projects, the NPO Room 28, the Edition Room 28 Edition, our educational project and our current Brundibár project. With our ideals and values based on humanism and the projects inspired by them, we hope to succeed in making our world a more peaceful and humane place.

In memory of Helga and in gratitude for all that she passed on to future generations, here are memories of the two days in January 2014.

For schools, teachers and all interested in the children's opera Brundibár, we have a special offer. You will receive the new Brundibár children's book (German or Ukrainian edition) with a gift from our association: a CD with the radio-feature by Hannelore Brenner on the history of the first performances of Brundibár in Prague and in the Theresienstadt ghetto: Brundibár und die Kinder von Theresienstadt. (ORF Vienna 1999). The CD is in German.

These projects are in the focus of our work in the beginning of 2024.

ILSE MEETS THERESIENSTADT is the name of the current school project at the Ilse Löwenstein School in Hamburg, with which we agreed to collaborate. With this project, the school is commemorating its namesake Ilse Löwenstein, who was deported to Kiev and murdered there because she was branded 'Jewish' by the National Socialists. As it is decribed in the presentation of the project, she "shared a similar fate to the children who were deported to the Theresienstadt concentration camp and later to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp".

The project comprises several events throughout the school year. The highlight is the performance of the children's opera Brundibár. In this context, the school shows our exhibition The Girls from Room 28 and organises a staged reading from the book The Girls from Room 28, which is prepared in a workshop together with Hannelore Brenner. Both media, the reading and the exhibition, shed light on the historical context of the Brundibár performances in Terezín and bear witness to the importance this opera had for the children in Terezín.

Our contribution to the project

Reproduction of the panels to be shown for a longer time in the school. Reproduction of further elements according to what will be possible. Our plan includes an audio-station for the Brundibár-panel, a seminar programme for teachers in Hamburg (see Angebote point 1).

On 12 October 2023, we sealed an official school partnership with the Otfried-von-Weißenburg-Gymnasium (OWG) in Dahn/Pfalz with a wonderful event at the Rheinland-Pfalz State Representation in Berlin. The OWG is now preparing  a Networking-Symposium in Dahn in 2024 along with special events.

A new module for the education project will be available by mid-February 2024. It can be completed thanks to support of the Federal Foreign Office. The booklet conveys the historical context of the childhood biographies of the "Girls of Room 28" and focuses on the period 1918-1942, in particular the years 1938/1939. The booklet comprises approx. 88 pages and contains valuable visual material and testimonies of the survivors.

The picture is from the book by Dr Ulrich Grochtmann "Geschichte aus der Nähe. Graphics from the ČSR by JOSEF ČAPEK and others from the period 1933-1938". The author depicts the political events along the time-critical graphics of the artist Josef Čapek and other artists. One of these prints was created in the run-up to the Munich Conference on 29/30 September 1938 (image above).

Room 28 Administrative expenses. First half of 2024

Our organisation relies on donations, membership fees and project funding. We need a minimum of 500 € per month for office and administration costs, rental, websites, advertising costs (e.g. graphics and social media), travel expenses and expense allowances for volunteers.

Our current and post projects are on: