Inside Auschwitz: Kaufman Explores Moral Reckoning in “Here There Are Blueberries”

The lights dim and the story unfolds onto a grey void. Two figures walk out towards each other, meeting in the center. One of them, Marrick Smith, plays an eerily joyous tune on the accordion, and the other, Folami Williams, turns to confront the audience. Behind them, a series of photos flash over the grey screen: Germans in airy summer clothing, enjoying the beach, reveling in leisure activities, all while Williams continues throughout with her chipper narration describing life as a non-Jewish German to the audience.

In a sharp turn of events, the audience is presented with images of children wearing swastikas and hordes of people heiling Hitler, an extreme juxtaposition to the shallow but upbeat mood of the actors. Suddenly, a camera flashes, and the room goes dark. 

The narrative then shifts to U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum archivist Rebecca Erbelding (Delia Cunningham), who receives a mysterious phone call from a man claiming he has found and been safeguarding a never-before-seen photo album from Auschwitz. His call reopens the search for the album’s original owner, drawing the audience into the investigation.

Based on true events, Here There Are Blueberries, directed by Moises Kaufman and produced by TeenTix partner organization Seattle Rep, is a poignant unraveling of events and an exploration into accountability and complicity, as told through an almost monologue-like investigation into the newly discovered album of photos. 

The play feels less like watching a performance and more like stepping into the archivists’ office yourself; Erbelding speaks to the audience through a series of rhetorical questions to emulate each step of her investigation. Behind the actors, images are projected onto the walls of the stage and onto smaller screens balanced on easels. The audience follows along with Erbelding’s story uncovering who is in the photos and where they are from, though the focus is really on the images themselves. The set is simple: a few desks with lamps, wooden chairs, and easels to display photos. The story doesn’t rely on technical aspects, but rather the content of the images and the performances of the actors as they switch between each character. It was clear that the audience was moved nonetheless by the audible “mmm” that would ripple through the audience once a particularly startling photo was shown. 

The title “Here There Are Blueberries” references what is described as the most significant series of photos in the album. It is the caption scribbled under six photos, all depicting Karl Höcker and women employed in the administrative field at the concentration camp eating blueberries. They are shown receiving bowls of blueberries from Höcker, him sitting among the women as they eat them, and finally, them showing their empty bowls with laughter. Often, when one thinks of the concentration camps like Auschwitz, they think of the men who have come to be known as the faces of the genocide, like Josef Mengele and Rudolf Höss. The show challenges these beliefs, with the title serving as a reminder of the women who did administrative work and received messages about the killings through their offices. While it acknowledges how the bigger, more noticeable acts of violence can lead to genocide, the title recognizes that, at the end of the day, genocide is systematic, and isn’t possible without the people involved in that system who refuse to take accountability. 

The cast mimics the laughter of the people in the photos, and accompanied by the recurring accordion music, make these pictures come to life. It’s like we, the spectators, are sitting among the women, eating blueberries. Erbelding contacts the families of the women shown, and all of them claim that they had no idea about the genocide, despite messages about the killings being relayed through their offices. In Erbelding’s words, “No one feels responsible.” The audience is encouraged to reevaluate what they know about humanity. By labeling people as completely evil, we are making their actions more palatable. Fully acknowledging these individuals’ humanity through the light-hearted nature of these images helps communicate just how terrible this moment in history truly was. It’s harder to come to terms with it all if you see these people for their humanity, and how despite being regular people, they were complicit in these acts of hatred and violence. 

Here There Are Blueberries is a compelling exploration of events, forcing the audience to reevaluate their understanding of humanity and complicity through a series of photos. The lessons of this story remain thematically relevant today, as dehumanizing language and beliefs become more commonly used among politicians to push harmful ideas about certain racial groups. Kaufman teaches that cruelty escalates quickly if we are complacent in a system that allows it, where everyone is willing to sideline issues for the sake of their comfortability. This is a danger that we are still confronted with today when we allow language like “aliens” and “illegals” to be used as descriptors for real people. I’ll leave you with this quote from “Blueberries”, which sums up what I took away from the story: “No genocide starts with the killing. Every genocide starts with words.”

Lead photo: Marrick Smith and Folami Williams in Here There Are Blueberries. Photo by Morgan Sophia Photography.

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