Anka’s Story

PROJECT SUMMARY

Eva Clarke is a Holocaust survivor and shares her mother Anka’s story all over the country. She spoke at Alex Cook’s school and he was asked to respond to her story in a creative way and chose to compose piece of music. We invited him to play at Cambridge city council’s HMD in January 2009. 

We did not know until much later was that Alex was SO inspired that he went on to compose a whole suite of music based on Anka’s story, each movement linked to a particular point in the narrative.

It follows Anka’s years in Terezin, her journey to Auschwitz and the punishing roll calls. It tells of the birth and loss of her first child and the hiding of her second pregnancy and her work in a slave labour factory near Dresden. As the war neared its end, the heavily pregnant Anka was packed into an open coal truck where three weeks later, starving and cold, she gave birth to her daughter Eva as the train arrived at Mauthausen Concentration Camp.

When we heard Alex’s music in it’s entirety we knew that this was a story that could be told very effectively through dance and were delighted that Helen, Bryony and Emily Garner, regular contributors to HMD thought so too.

It was premiered in April at Hills Road Sixth Form. We were delighted that the Garner family formed a dnce company and took the piece to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2015.

• Holocaust Education
• Music
• Research
• School
• Theatre