The Cast Photo courtesy of McCarter Theatre Center

Here There Are Blueberries, a traveling production created by Moisés Kaufman's Tectonic Theater Project (in conjunction with La Jolla Playhouse), takes a novel approach to the subject, focusing on an album of photographs taken at Auschwitz, the most notorious of all the Nazis' concentration camps, where over one million people (the vast majority of them Jews) were murdered. Yet, unlike most of the images of this horrific locale, these photos don't depict the skeletal victims of Hitler's "final solution," but instead show the officers of the camp, and sometimes their wives and children.

The album arrives at Erbelding's office in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC, and immediately forces her to face a conundrum: the museum's charter is to focus on the victims of Nazi atrocities, not the perpetrators. Especially since in these photos the perpetrators are shown celebrating their "accomplishments," touring the camp, and even relaxing at a sort of vacation village established near Auschwitz for officers and soldiers who had earned the reward of a getaway there. Often their families, or stellar members of the Hitlerjügend joined them there.

Conceived and directed by Moisés Kaufman, and written by Kaufman and Amanda Gronich, Here There Are Blueberries is a sort of multimedia experience in which actors portraying staff members of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, former U.S. Army officers, as well as Nazi officers, take the audience on a journey through the album, with projections of the photos appearing on an array of surfaces (scenic design by Derek McLane, sound design by Bobby McElver, projection design by David Bengali, and lighting design by David Lander).

In this haunting 90-minute production, we hear first how compact cameras (at the time, a relatively new thing) opened photography to the masses. We then dive into the story of how the album came to the museum: it was discovered in the closet of an abandoned apartment occupied by a U.S. Army officer in 1946. After some back and forth between Erbelding, Judy Cohen (Barbara Pitts), who was the Museum's chief acquisitions coordinator, and other Museum staff, they decide to place the album into the collection. From there, the show begins its journey into the photographs, determining their provenance and veracity, and teasing out clues about life (and death) at the camp, and how it was possible for seemingly bland, ordinary folks–a bank teller, a clerks–became complicit in mass murder yet were able to justify their contributions to genocide with well-worn claims of "I didn't know what was happening," or "I was only following orders."

Here There Are Blueberries comes from the dichotomy of the gorgeous staging Tectonic Theater Project has created, the seemingly pleasant photos of men and women at work and play, and the underlying terror of the gargantuan atrocity committed by a nations–not merely its leaders, but its citizens. The people in the images often seem proud or satisfied. At times, they are smiling with pleasure, as in the image of a group of young women from the League of German Girls, the distaff arm of the Hitlerjügend as they enjoy a snack of, yes, blueberries. All the while, we in the audience cannot help but think of those other pictures, the searing images of horror that are impossible to un-see.

Here There Are Blueberries is an immensely powerful exploration of the ways in which evil becomes sadly commonplace.

Here There Are Blueberries runs through May 11, 2025, at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison Street, Berkeley CA. Shows are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays at 7:00pm; Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00pm. Matinees are Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00pm. Thursday, May 17, the show is a 1:00pm matinee. Tickets range from $25-$134. For tickets and information, please visit www.berkeleyrep.org, or call 510-647-2949.