Faculty of Arts Events Calendar
CANCELLED: LGBT+ history: The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman – how theatre gave voice to a queer Holocaust survivor
The Amazing Life of Margot Heuman is a play about the first, and probably the last, lesbian Holocaust survivor to bear testimony. Born in 1928 in Germany, Margot Heuman is a survivor of Theresienstadt ghetto, Auschwitz, Neuengamme, and Bergen-Belsen.
The play, which takes its text from interviews conducted by Warwick University historian Anna Hájková, offers a poignant look on coming of age as a Jewish queer woman in the concentration camps. In the play, Margot Heuman reflects on love, choices, sexual violence and sexual barter, homophobia, and survival. Moving, funny, pragmatic, and original, she reminds us of humanity within the society of Holocaust victims, but also of the stories that have been erased by homophobia. Heuman, who passed away in May 2022 and was eulogized in New York Times and the Times of London, will probably remain the only lesbian voice to speak about her experience in the Holocaust. “I am amazing,” she tells her interviewer, and the audience.