Survivor: Anton Berezin as Eddie Jaku. Photo: David Hooley
‘Happiness is a choice. Even on bad days, we are lucky to be alive.’ These are among the closing remarks made by Eddie Jaku (enacted by Anton Berezin) as he relates his story of persecution, imprisonment and escapes, torture and near death experiences – a story that is no work of fiction: it is about one man’s survival of The Holocaust.
This is the Australian premiere of The Happiest Man on Earth, a play written by Mark St Germain and adapted from Eddie Jaku’s best-selling memoir of the same name. It has already enjoyed acclaimed seasons in North America and the UK, so it is fitting that it has at last arrived in Sydney, the city where Eddie Jaku eventually found a home and lasting peace after trauma and losses that we struggle to comprehend.
He arrived here in 1950. ‘Australia,’ says Jaku/Berezin, ‘welcomed refugees.’ There was no ironic sigh from the audience on opening night, but there could well have been.
Born Abraham Jakubowicz in Leipzig, Germany in 1920, Eddie Jaku’s life was irrevocably altered on 9 November 1938 – Kristallnacht. Young Abraham had already changed his name; when he was 13, his father managed to find him false papers that proclaimed the teenager to be a Gentile called Walter Schleif and which allowed him (as a non-Jew) to study engineering at a premier university. Walter/Eddie’s big mistake was to go home after graduation to tell his parents the good news. Instead of joyous celebration, he was sent to a concentration camp. Kristallnacht was the day he “stopped being proud to be German”.
The recounts of Eddie Jaku’s imprisonments in Buchenwald and Auschwitz, his ingenuity in trying to escape, his resilience – and that of a fellow inmate and friend called Kurt – are remarkable in themselves. His strength in enduring the loss of his parents (both killed in the camps), disease, last-minute reprieves from gas chambers, an encounter with Josef Mengele and surviving one of the Death Marchs are almost unbelievable, except this is all true. Eddie Jaku become “an economically useful Jew”, not an accolade he wanted but one which kept him alive – just. When he was eventually rescued by Allied soldiers in 1945, he weighed 28kg and was suffering from cholera and typhoid.
On the economical set (credits shared by Jacob Battista and Sophie Woodward), buildings and props serve several purposes. A metal structure is a hanging tree, an electrified fence and later a good old Hills Hoist; a ladder is not just a ladder, it becomes a latrine and a border between Belgium and Germany; a garden shed becomes a prison and a place to hide. Finnegan Comte-Harvey’s lighting gives us blue skies as well as those tinged with red, not so much sunsets but fires presaging death.
As you would expect, this is a deeply moving story and Berezin, directed by Therèsa Borg, tells it extremely well, with clarity and flashes of black humour. He draws his audience (his new ‘friends’) into his confidences. This play is, by its verisimilitude, deeply uncomfortable to hear but Eddie Jaku’s resilience was truly remarkable and a powerful reminder of our shared responsibility to remember, to bear witness, and to choose humanity over hatred. In his own words: ‘It is hard to tell my story. Sometimes it is very painful. But I ask myself what will happen when we are all gone? Will our story fade out of history? I feel it is my duty to tell my story. I know if my mother were here, she would say: “Do it for me. Try to make the world a better place.” ‘
The Nazis took Eddie Jaku’s family, his friends and his country – but they could not take his spirit. He went on to dedicate his life to sharing his story, educating future generations and championing kindness, tolerance, and compassion.
Eddie Jaku was awarded an OAM in 2013; he died in 2021.
The Happiest Man on Earth has only a short season – it’s on at the Playhouse until 17 May – so be quick.
Prices: $42.90 – $119.90
Bookings: sydneyoperahouse.com
