Mona Golabek on stage Concert pianist and performer Mona Golabek performed a powerful live show for tens of thousand students and teachers on Wednesday, January 25th in Texas as part of a Holocaust Remembrance Week education program.
Golabek appeared in person at Meyerland Performing and Visual Arts Middle School in Houston, with over 50,000 students streaming virtually from school districts in Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, El Paso and San Antonio. Even with vicious thunderstorms and tornadoes ripping through the Lone Star state this week, the events were able to go on as planned.
The performance featured stories of Holocaust survival as told through music by the Grammy-nominated performer Golabek.
She alternated between playing and speaking from behind a piano to the wide-eyed middle and high school audience. Golabek would then abruptly halt the music, rise to her feet and speak words that heightened the tension of the story. The subject was her mother Lisa Jura’s inspiring story of survival as a teenage Austrian Jewish refugee during World War II.
“My mother’s story is all about how the music saved her life and gave her the strength to survive,” Golabek told the Journal before a show in Los Angeles in 2021. “Any time there was pain or uncertainty or darkness, she would escape into the music. She told me when Kristallnacht took place and she saw through a window her father being beaten and made to wash the streets, my grandma was so desperate, she went into the room where the piano was and she played ‘Clair de Lune’ by [Claude] Debussy in an effort to calm my mother.”
Golabek is well-aware that her presentation of the story and lessons of the Holocaust is likely the first time many of the middle school-aged audiences have heard about it. Her stage presence is dynamic and her storytelling abilities are captivating. And on top of that, Golabek is also a gifted pianist — taught by her mother Lisa.
“Remember, one person has the power to make a difference. One story — your story — can change the world.” — Mona Golabek
USC Shoah Foundation, Golabek’s Hold On To Your Music Foundation and Willesden READ for Texas were at the center of the massive Holocaust Education Event. One of the hallmarks of Golabek’s foundation is creating educational events based on her book about her mother’s experience, “The Children of Willesden Lane: Beyond the Kindertransport: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Survival.” Participating schools were supplied with free copies of the book, and students were encouraged to create projects including essays, poetry and short films around its universal themes. The program culminated with the live theatrical performance that Golabek showcased throughout Texas yesterday.
Act One of the performance began with a haunting, eerie piano solo. Golabek narrated, “It’s Vienna, 1938, a Friday afternoon. Lisa Jura is 14 years old and like every Friday afternoon, she’s preparing for the most important hour of the week: her piano lesson.” Sound effects of streets and trollies play as Golabek immerses the crowd into her mother’s pre-War life along the Danube River.
As the show continued, Golabek regaled the frightening sight that her mother saw while looking out of her window during what became known as Kristallnacht.
“On November 9, 1938, Lisa’s father didn’t come home at all,” Golabek said in the show. “Gangs of Nazis roamed the city; they smashed the windows of Jewish businesses and Jewish homes. They burned books and Torah scrolls. Lisa stood by the window waiting for her Papa. Then she saw him. The Nazis were beating him. They were forcing him down on his knees, making him scrub the filthy pavement while they laughed and yelled, ‘Juden Schwein’ — Jewish pig.”
The story continued, with Golabek highlighting that during the Holocaust, there were ordinary people around parts of Europe who stood up for the Jews.
“Far away in England, Jews and Christians alike, sensing tragedy, pressured their government to allow transports of thousands of Jewish children to come out from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and come all the way to England,” Golabek said to the audience, introducing the story of her mother on the children’s rescue operation, Kindertransport.
Several other organizations came together to make this event happen on a massive scale across the second most populous state in the U.S.
One of those organizations is Echoes & Reflections — a partnership between USC Shoah Foundation, The Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and Yad Vashem — which helps teachers and students to “understand, process, and navigate the world through the events of the Holocaust.” Over the last 18 years, Echos & Reflections has been to over 18,000 schools in the U.S.
Additional organizations that came together to make the event a success include the Holocaust Museum Houston, ADL Texas, Jewish Federation of Greater Houston, Holocaust Museum Houston, the Texas Holocaust, Genocide & Antisemitism Advisory Commission, The Morton H. Meyerson Family Foundation, the Milton and Tamar Maltz Family Foundation and Holocaust survivor Helen Zell. Discovery Education produced the virtual portion of the event to inform as many students across Texas as possible.
TRAILER FOR GOLABEK’S LIVE PERFORMANCE
Out of nearly 30 million residents, there are only about 100,000 Jews in all of Texas. But in 2019, Texas State Government passed SB 1828, which assigns the Texas Holocaust, Genocide, and Antisemitism Advisory Commission the task of approving resources that can be used in the classroom. Golabek’s book is one of the approved resources.
The participating school districts include Alief Independent School District (Houston), Houston Independent School District, the Austin Independent School District, the Dallas Independent School District, the Fort Worth Independent School District, the Northside Independent School District (San Antonio), the El Paso Independent School District and the Ysleta Independent School District (El Paso).
“Mona, your mother’s story and your performance of it are so powerful, it literally gave me chills,” Sophie, a middle school student , told Golabek after the performance
One student asked Golabek during the question and answer session why it’s important to study history and learn from the past.
“Doesn’t history repeat itself?” Golabek responded. “Aren’t we seeing today the chaos and the division in our world which harkens back to Lisa’s story?”
Another student, Chris, asked “how can students like me stand up to hate in my community?”
“Remember, one person has the power to make a difference. One story —your story — can change the world,” Golbeck replied. “When we look at our world today, the chaos, the fighting, social media pressure, pressure from your peers, in your schools … but deep down you know what is right and wrong inside your heart, inside your soul. So take that first step and stand up for what’s right in your world. I promise you if you dig deep inside and find that courage, you will make a difference.”
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