Prague, Sept 6 (CTK) – An opera on German Oskar Schindler, who saved Jews during WWII, and his wife will be staged in the complex of the former concentration camp and factory in Brnenec village near Svitavy, east Bohemia, in a world preview, its author, American composer Thomas Morse, told reporters on Tuesday.
Martin Netolicky, governor of the Pardubice region, where Brnenec is situated, supported the plan in the lower house on Tuesday.
By the opera, Morse wants to support the preservation of the complex in Brnenec where industrialist Schindler (1908-74) employed Jewish workers in his factory and thereby saved more than 1000 people from death.
The site is to be turned into a Holocaust memorial.
Netolicky says the site in Brnenec is unique since it is the only preserved concentration camp on Czech territory and it was still used for textile production a few years ago. Now, it is a ruin.
Morse started writing the opera entitled Frau Schindler four years ago. He told reporters on Tuesday that he focused on the psychology of characters and relations during WWII in his opera.
He pointed out that his portrait of Schindler might be a bit more realistic than in the famous movie Schindler’s List directed by Steven Spielberg.
The Czech Endowment Fund Memorial of Shoah and Oskar Schindler wants to turn the former factory and concentration camp in Brnenec into a memorial to the Holocaust victims. It plans to build a true replica of the wartime camp with a display on the life of Schindler and the fates of selected inmates.
The fund would like the memorial to be a place for excursions as well as exhibitions and conferences. It also plans to publish books, make documentaries and films on the Holocaust.
Schindler’s life is also to be mapped by an educational trail.
Netolicky said the memorial would be an interesting destination of foreign tourists.
