Hannelore Brenner

Brundibár

In 1938, Hans Krása, together with his librettist Adolf Hoffmeister, created in Prague his children's opera Brundibár – a piece about the strength of community and impressive testimony to the will to survive of the Jews who were deported to the Terezin concentration camp. From September 1943 Brundibár was performed more than 50 times with the children interned in the camp. Many of them did not survive the Shoah. Rediscovered in the 1990s and since then performed in countless productions and in numerous languages around the world, the work is not only a resounding memorial to the memory of those murdered in the Holocaust. The story of the siblings Aninka and Pepícek who, with the help of dog, cat and sparrow, stand up to the villain, the organ grinder Brundibár, also appeals to the solidarity of a community. Author Hannelore Brenner and illustrator Maria Thomaschke have lovingly turned Brundibár into a children's book that makes the music-theatre plot accessible to both children and adults while at the same time encouraging them to sing along.