News

24 May 2025

On May 10, 2025, members of our association met in Berlin under the motto "Brundibár and the Girls of Room 28" to get to know each other and exchange ideas. Most of them are teachers who had carried out projects under this name at their school and had already cooperated with us at school level - see Kooperation.  

Currently there is such a project with the Paul-Praetorius Gymnasium in Bernau with performances on June 3 and 4. We have launched a Betterplace campaign to get support for it.  Scroll down a little. Support welcome!

It is the aim of our educational circle to promote the Room 28 educational program and the associated publications of Edition Room 28, to further develop the teaching materials, to bundle them and to systematically prepare them for different teaching purposes and make them accessible to schools and teachers. In order to achieve this, we will soon be looking for project funding to als organize common further activities. Interested persons are welcome!

May 2024

The children's opera Brundibár is the focus of our new cooperation project with the Paul-Praetorius-Gymnasium in Bernau under the direction of music teacher Karsten Zweiniger. Part of the project is our exhibition The Girls of Room 28 and our educational offers and publications. Brundibár performances will take place on June 3 and 4, 2025 at the Paul-Praetorius-Gymnasium. Pupils from the school will sing and play, supported by adults and professional musicians.

We are now looking for financial support for this project. Click here to go to the Betterplace donation platform. We would appreciate your support!

Patronage: General Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich Vladimir Jurowski

In the Sign of Solidarity with Ukrainian children

our association and Edition Room 28 launched, under the impression of the Russian attack on Ukraine in 2022, a Book-Gift Project for Ukrainian children. Why?...

... Because friendship, justice, humanity and solidarity are the sources of our strength. This is the message of the opera, and this is the message of the story told in the book Brundibár. Wie Aninka und Pepíček den Leierkastenmann besiegten. (How Aninka and Pepíček defeated the organ-grinder).

Under the terrible massacre by Hamas on 7 October 2023 we decided to also create a Hebrew edition of the book. This project belongs to our gift-project as well. It is also under the patronage of Vladimir Jutrowksi. The production of the books was possible thanks to support by our German Foreign Office. In the frame of events the books will be given as a gift to children. Now we need support for events for children, fee for the artists, a budget for renting locations. If you yourself want to organize an even, please let us know.

The book (84 pages) is available for people interested in our project and in our organization for a fee of 6 Euro plus shipping costs. In the realm of events we give the books to children as a present. Write an E-mail to hannelore brenner@room28.net

Brundibár. The Sound of Resistance and Freedom

Patronage: Vladimir Jurowski

Jewish Arteck Summercamp

This year, the international Jewish ArtEck Summercamp is celebrating its 20th anniversary. The initiator and project manager of these annual international summercamps is Ella Nilová, who also runs and manages the J- Arteck Youth Education Center in Berlin. This year the summercamp will take place from August 10 to 19, 2025 in a youth village near Berlin. The focus is on the children's opera Brundibár and the Brundibár children's book. For the first time, the story on which the plot of the children's opera is based, can be read in the Hebrew edition of the Brundibár children's book which Edition Room 28 publishes in March 2025. All participants of the Summercamp will get our Brundibár-books as a gift.

At the Summercamp young musicians, actors, artists and choral singers, mainly from Israel and the Ukraine, but also from Germany, meet to develop their talents and to create a performance together. Using artistic and creative means, young people will approach the topic and work together to create a multimedia performance based on the opera Brundibár. It will reflect the synergy of the various genres - music, visual arts, theater and literature. The result of their work will be shown in a public performance in Berlin on Monday, 18 August 2025.

Vladmir Jurowski is the General  Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and also Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB).

A click on the image leads to the J-Arteck website.

Young people from Germany can take part !

With "Brundibár" in the centre of the summercamp J-Arteck has chosen a very special and important topic. The opera is of great importance in many ways. Therefore, Jewish Arteck invites also young people from Germany, aged 13 to 17, to this year's summercamp. German participants gain deeper insights into Jewish culture and tradition. It is also a wonderful opportunity to make friends and create international bridges.

The invitation is aimed at young people who are active in the arts - singing in a choir, acting in theater, engaging in visual arts etc. We are therefore addressing this message in particular to choir and theater directors and teachers of creative groups.
"The aim is to create an unforgettable experience." (Ella Nilová)

This is the organ that a member of Room 28 provides to use it in the frame of our Brundibár-project. And a waltz from Brundibár can be heard.

Brundibár-Children's Book in German, Ukrainian, Hebrew

More on the Website of Edition Room 28.

May 2025. Colloquium with Room 28 allies

Brundibár and The Girls of Room 28

Against historical Forgetfulness and anti-Semitism

Room 28 allies, members and our “Brundibár Ambassador” Mstislav Penktovsky, Riga, meet to prepare the following event and to deepen our cooperation.

May 2025. Public Event

Brundibár and The Girls of Room 28

Against historical Forgetfulness and anti-Semitism

Musical-scenic reading with actors, young people and the ensemble Zwockhaus and presentation of the new edition of the old book The Girls of Room 28, which is the basic element of the Room 28 Educational Project. The book is also a contribution to the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in 1945.

On the agenda for 2025/26: 

Digitization of the extensive media archive of the author Hannelore Brenner (recordings of many interviews with contemporary witnesses in sound and film), preparation for use in the educational project and in the exhibition. A Room 28 online exhibition/new website is also planned.

You can support our project. It cannot be realized without financial support. You can donate over Betterplace or directly over Spenden.

You find more information ((in German) on the website Edition Room 28.

What did the "Girls of Room 28" experience before they were deported to the Theresienstadt ghetto? What happened in their home country when their lives were thrown off course in 1938/1939? The new module for the Room 28 Educational Project tells the historical context in which these girls grew up. It shows how the decisive events of the years 1938 to 1942 are reflected in what these girls experienced and, by interweaving political events and individual experiences, makes it possible to experience a chapter of German-Czech history at the time of the "Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia".

More on the website of Edition Room 28.

On June 29, we conducted a reading with music and singing for children aged 5 and up - in German and Ukrainian - at the J-ArtEck Jugendbildungsstätte (Youth Education Centre in Berlin). Iryna Skriabina-Shpyl (music teacher and singer from Kiew) conducted music-workshops for young people who sang some songs of the opera to the reading. Andreas Jocksch read the story and sang the songs of Brundibár. 

This organ is part of our events. A waltz from  the opera Brundibár will sound from it.