October 7, 2006 The Hide House in Milwaukee, WI. 8:00 p.m.

The Dystopia Project is a collaborative effort of Milwaukee musicians, writers, and a filmmaker to creatively interpret, react, and respond to the horrors that took place in the concentration camps during WWII. We feel it is our responsibility to remember those past atrocities in light of their present continuance. This page will help us and others follow our creative processes as we form and fuse together our creative talents during this time of war.

The goal is complete four or five pieces by September 2006. Here is our current outline, which may change or stay the same, as we shovel our way, onward through the fog.

• "What is there to Describe" (Monolouge/ Music/ Film piece) inspired by Herb & Edith DeLevie who immigrated to Madison, WI in 1949. The brother and sister spent 4 years cramped in a single room. The DeLevie family was lucky to have the support of the Dutch underground. According to their testimony, the family read over 3,000 books while in captivity. Below is a quote from Herb DeLevie, taken from an interview asking him questions regarding his liberation. "No. No what is there to describe? You get a big hug and I remembering getting a candy bar. But then, you didn't need to communicate. They could see with their faces that it was worth it to them, and what we felt, I can't describe. "

• "Composers of Terezin" (Experimental Music, Score, Celli) piece inspired by concentration camp composers. The camp of Terezin was the holding camp for artists and musicians. Many did not live to see liberation day, but amazingly still managed to compose music while in the Terezin! Pavel Hass, Edwin Shulhoff, and others. Testimony and witness accounts reveal that there were musician quartet. They would practice outside of their barren barracks, one day they would find that the viola player would be "missing". Death at Terezin meant a constant or near constant rotating band of members. To create in order to survive, to become accustomed in order to create…

• "Ode to Spiegelman" Music piece accompanied by organ pipes which were removed from a funeral home in the Washington Heights Neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Piece inspired by Art Spiegelman's Holocaust cartoons – Maus I and Maus II which are currently on exhibit at the Milwaukee Art Museum.

• "The History of Tattooing in Auschwitz" – (Monolouge, Film, Music) Only prisoners of Auschwitz were tattooed, this had more to do with Stalin's prisoners of war...

About Terezin from The Holocaust Encyclopedia