New York City based Actor shares play and background in collaboration with Holocaust Resource Center

By Christian Grullon|Published by April 26,2021

The University’s Holocaust Resource Center had a presentation with Roger Grunwald as the speaker on Friday April 16 titled “The Mitzvah project.” Director of the organization Dr. Adara Goldberg hosted the event.

Grunwald is the child of a Holocaust survivor. His mother and his parents migrated due to the horrors of the Holocaust. In 2013, he was honored with a grant from the New York Foundation of the arts for the development of his play “The Mitzvah.”

Grunwald shared his Holocaust-based play on the Zoom website where he played different characters. At times, Grunwald switched his characters quickly and he also co-wrote the play.

After his play, Grunwald started to give background on his life and family, he was born and raised in San Francisco, CA and went to college at UC Berkeley and is now a performing artist.

“In the three of those decades when I was acting, I was also a community organizer,” Grunwald said.

In the late 1930’s, Grunwald’s father and his grandmother fled from Germany to the Philippines because of Anti-Jewish attacks, but then during their stay at the Philippines, the country was under an invasion by the Japanese so Grunwald’s dad and grandmother had to go into hiding. Grunwald’s mother and her family tried to secure visas to the United States but they had closed their doors on accepting Jewish refugees during World War II.

Grunwald also explained that Hitler and the Nazis ideologies were influenced by the United States when the country enforced racially motivated laws such as segregation and redlining.

Grunwald said that he was ‘fairly young,’ when he first learned of his mother’s suffering at the internment camps at Auschwitz. When he became a teenager, Grunwald learned more in depth of the suffering his mother endured at the internment camps. Grunwald also shared pictures of his family.

“I never really knew the details of my mother’s experience growing up; not until my late teens,” Grunwald said.

At the end, Grunwald answered different questions and comments about his background and his presentation. He also briefly talked about the importance of having a democracy.

Grunwald said that “Democracy is fundamentally fragile and that the only way we can protect it is to conserve it and make it more and more inclusive.”

Roger Grunwald is a New York City-based film, theatre and voice actor. More of his work is available on his website rogergrunwald.com.

 

 

 

 

 

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