Regine Beer

On the 17th of March 2007 some of us went to an event called 'Non-violence Day' in Kortrijk.
Not just because we are against violence, but also because we wanted to listen to Regine Beer's story.

Regine Beer, born on the 5th of November 1920 in Antwerp, is Jewish and although she didn't practice her religion, she had a 'J' for Jewish on her passport.
She was arrested, brought to the Dossinkazerne in Mechelen where she was imprisoned for several months and finally she got deported to Auschwitz.
In Auschwitz she was no more than a number: KZ A 5148.
She struggled to survive, to see her mother again and courageously made it through this hell.

She kept her past secret for a long time, but eventually she told her children everything.
After that, she visited more than 1000 schools to talk about what she had experienced.

She pleads for peace and friendship. This ordeal should never happen again.

Charlotte Salomon by Greet Vissers

Thursday the 8th of February we went to the play ‘Charlotte Salomon’ by Greet Vissers. It was performed by theatre group ‘Blauw’ in playroom the Schakel in Waregem. The story was represented well. With the use of puppets everything was very clear. The stage setting was very simple: A black piano on the right with a pianist and an opera singer, both dressed in black. The rest of the stage setting and the players were white. By using those contrasts, you could see very well who the real actors were and who took care of the singing. Dressed in black, you immediately saw that they didn’t belong to the actors. They used coloured puppets and players dressed in white. The players were portrayed as a white sheet of paper and the puppets were the drawings who came alive. The actors were chosen well, different from Charlotte. She was portrayed too immature and too open. The storybook with the gouaches gave the impression that Charlotte was rather withdrawn.