Two Remain • Synopsis
ACT I “KRYSTYNA”
Her Jewish identity hidden, Krystyna Zywulska was a political prisoner at Auschwitz-Birkenau. In secret, she composed lyrics to inspire fellow prisoners, even as she carried out her harrowing job in the Effektenkammer: cataloguing the personal effects of thousands of women and children before they were murdered in the ovens next door. She told her story in the book I Survived Auschwitz, published in 1946.
Many years after the war, Krystyna is asked by a journalist to share her stories and record them on a tape player. Haunted and helped by the ghosts of her past — Zosha, Manfred, and her younger self, Krysia — she struggles to find the words.
ACT II “GAD”
Gad Beck’s story illuminates the Nazi persecution of homosexuals during the Holocaust. Beck’s first true love, the poet Manfred Lewin, was 19 when he and his entire family were murdered in Auschwitz. It is estimated that more than 100,000 men and women were imprisoned for homosexuality during the Holocaust; it is not known how many thousands were killed. Even after the war was over, Paragraph 175, the German law prohibiting homosexuality, remained in effect until 1969.
In the many years since the war, Gad has tried his best to forget what happened, but he keeps the book of Manfred’s original poems close by. As an old man, he is visited by Manfred’s ghost one night. As Manfred implores Gad to remember and celebrate their love, the painful truth of their stories and fates emerges.
Synopsis courtesy of The Atlanta Opera