Goodbye Marianne

Sheree Haughian is an elementary-school teacher-librarian with the
Dufferin County Board of Education.

Images of stick figures and furnaces belching the remains of human
flesh have infinitely more horror about them than the formulaic blood
and gore of series spinegrabbers by R.L. Stine and cohorts. However, it
is not only the grimmest depictions of the Holocaust that hold
attraction for young readers. Underneath the bleak surface of genocide,
there are survival stories that highlight the courage, hope, and
tenacity of the human spirit.

A play of only 30 pages, Goodbye Marianne is a distinct contrast to the
epic chronicles of Nazi domination, concentration camps, and attempts at
postwar family reunions. It opens in Berlin on November 15, 1938, six
days after Kristallnacht, the night Hitler stepped up his anti-Semitic
campaign by encouraging mob violence against Jewish businesses and
synagogues. Six weeks earlier, Marianne Kohn’s father had gone into
hiding for some minor infraction against the Reich. On this mid-November
day, Marianne’s future is shattered further. German schools have
closed their doors permanently to Jewish students, and even park benches
are forbidden. During her enforced “school holiday,” Marianne has
two very significant encounters. Inge, a girl in the park who is
friendly at first, explodes into a racist tirade on discovering
Marianne’s last name. A boy named Ernst, up from the country, seems an
ordinary empathetic teenager, but he is later seen in the uniform of
Hitler Youth. Just when Marianne feels betrayed by everyone, she learns
that Nazi clothing does not destroy a person’s soul. Ernst wishes her
well as she embarks on a solitary journey to Britain by
kindertransportes, the lifeline that brought 10,000 children safely out
of Germany before the war.

What is remarkable about this drama is its ability to zero in on an
important chain of events in Holocaust history and develop meaningful
relationships among characters in only eight scenes. Although background
to the play and a glossary assist with the historical context, the stark
emotional power of the script pinpoints a period of history so dangerous
to survival that words and actions had to be stripped to their bare
bones. Highly recommended.