A play
Cast
Today we have arranged something extraordinary for you. Please give a kind round of applause to our first guest.
I'm not quite sure why I'm here. I accepted the invitation because it sounded like a straw to cling to. We don't have many left at the moment.
Back home everything is quite different from here. I liked strolling through your gardens this morning. And I stumbled into this nice elderly gentleman who appears to live here. He was so kind and encouraging. Will he join us for dinner tonight? I would really like to see him again.
We used to have a little garden ourselves with an apple and a cherry tree. Sour cherries ….
But we soon had to evacuate. My dad took us to Poland. It's so odd to be in safety there when so many of my friends aren't.
And when one of my brothers has lost his life in the trenches, and the other is missing.
I don't know whether you want to hear about any of this. The grief, the anxiety, the bad dreams.
I don't think I had a single good night's sleep ever since that Thursday.
But, you know, perhaps I will sleep well tonight. The air is so fresh here. I envy you quite a bit for this.
The gentleman told me I should talk about resistance. And resisting we are. All of us. Boys, girls, men, women.
I often wished we hadn't gone to Poland and I could do more. Maybe next year I will. I'm turning eighteen then.
I can see myself already in uniform.
Anyway, this is not just what I think. It's what everybody thinks. And that's why we will prevail.
Slava —
And with that we can begin our lesson now. Children, please, welcome our special guest, the one and only —