Piano prodigy Norbert Stern was slain at Auschwitz; nephew’s play revives his genius
After high-profile gigs in the US and Europe, playwright Roger Peltzman will stage ‘Dedication’ at United Nations for International Holocaust Remembrance Day in January 2025
Reporter at The Times of Israel
NEW YORK — Roger Peltzman channels the uncle he never met in his one-man play, “Dedication.”
Norbert Stern, murdered at Auschwitz at age 21, was an acclaimed young pianist given a medal for his abilities by Belgium’s king before the Holocaust.
“Regrettably, we can never know how Norbert Stern’s musical talent might have flourished or manifested itself in his later years, had he not been murdered for simply being a Jew,” said Peltzman. “It’s up to me to see that the world never forgets him.”
The music of Chopin — which Stern mastered as a teenager in Belgium — is woven into Peltzman’s show, set to tour Europe twice this year. When he plays Chopin for audiences, Peltzman said he can now “sense” the presence of his uncle.
In Peltzman’s assessment, to master Chopin requires a “special temperament” that combines “dignity, sorry and panache,” as he tells audiences.
“My uncle wasn’t going to make himself known until I got better,” said Peltzman, referring to learning to play Chopin through the years. “To play Chopin is an elusive specialty but if someone has it, you’ll know it.”
“I do sense him now when I play the piano. I get sad,” Peltzman told The Times of Israel. “I regret that I can’t ask him questions about music and technique,” he said.
“But every time I do a performance of ‘Dedication,’ it brings my family to life. The Nazis didn’t succeed,” said the New York-based Peltzman, whose mother Beatrice was Norbert Stern’s sister.
First performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, “Dedication” is set for February stagings in Berlin and Brussels. In Belgium, a production at the Royal Flemish Theatre of Brussels will be sponsored by the US State Department. He has also performed “Dedication” at schools in upstate New York.
“My dream is to focus all of my energy on presenting ‘Dedication’ at theaters, schools, churches, mosques, universities — wherever the opportunity exists to communicate the still-existing horrors of antisemitism,” said Peltzman.
‘I’m a victor in all this’
Framing the show is Peltzman’s lifelong question, “How do you cope when the most important event of your life occurred before you were born?”
“Dedication” takes its name from Peltzman’s evolving relationship with the uncle he never met but whose legacy — and image — filled his childhood home.
“I had no feelings whatsoever for those people growing up, seeing their pictures around the house,” said Peltzman, referring to his mother’s family.
During the Nazi occupation of Belgium, the Stern family went into hiding in a tiny attic in Brussels.
After two years, they were discovered by the Nazis and taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where all of them — except Peltzman’s mother, who managed to flee the hiding place by climbing out of a window — were murdered.
“My mother’s tragedy was losing her entire family at 17,” said Peltzman. “Mine was knowing yet not knowing them,” he said.
Although a lot of “Dedication” is about trauma inherited from the past, Peltzman said he is a “happier person” since connecting with his lost family through the show.
“Reclaiming the lives of my family has been a belated act of defiance on their behalf — a sort of victory,” said Peltzman, who is currently seeking funding to stage an off-Broadway run of the show.
Regarding the Hamas massacres of October 7 and the Israel-Hamas war, Peltzman said he will not be altering the content of his show. However, said the playwright, the topic might be discussed after his performances.
“I’ll certainly integrate my personal opinions in Q&As,” said Peltzman, who also produces. “But the show stays as is.”
“[October 7] was an important reminder of our shared humanity and of what the Jewish people have gone through [due to] misinformation spread by an uninformed and uneducated segment of the population,” said Peltzman.
After stateside performances at the Zekelman Holocaust Center in Detroit, Peltzman is set to return to Europe for summer performances in Prague, Hamburg, Krakow and “perhaps Kyiv,” he said.
For International Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2025, Peltzman has been asked to perform “Dedication” at the United Nations in New York.
Major theaters in Chicago, Toronto, and Pittsburgh expressed interest in staging “Dedication” as well, said Peltzman, whose show ran for a month at the Marylebone Theatre in London last summer.
Peltzman said he has been particularly humbled by reactions and comments from students and older audience members following performances in upstate New York.
“You can always hear a pin drop during the show. The question-and-answer sessions that follow each performance illustrate how deeply the show has affected audiences, including young people,” said Peltzman.
“I believe that by humanizing the Jewish experience and the tragedy that results from antisemitism, I can have a profound emotional impact on audiences now and in the future, perhaps even more so than reasoned arguments and statistics,” said Peltzman.
