The indispensable work of the Hotel Modern company, which has been touring for over twenty years, uses thousands of puppets to depict the unimaginable.
"Kamp" follows the thread of Auschwitz-Birkenau.
The advantage of puppets is that when they wear out or break, they can be replaced without too many qualms or ego conflicts. The thousands of figurines in Kamp, a performance that has been touring for over twenty years and continues to evoke amazement and emotion, do not decay. Few have been replaced. And rightly so: they are already on the verge of breaking.
Kamp: how to depict Auschwitz-Birkenau accurately and in detail on a theatrical stage, radically escaping the obscene. It is in Charleville-Mézières (French Ardennes), where the very rich twenty-third edition of the World Puppet Festival takes place, that we discover this creation by the Dutch company Hotel Modern, founded in 1997.
Three performers on stage, dressed in light gray, are not acting in this instance. But daily life in Auschwitz is depicted on a large scale model by puppets the size of tin soldiers. They are pulled by strings. They move them while, with small cameras, they introduce different areas of the camp and remain stunned by the incomprehensible, the reenactment, their gestures, their uniqueness in the crowd. The sounds of stones being crushed by the figurines, the crunching, the arriving and departing trains.
Dismay. We hear the birds, the water being used as soup, drunk down to the last drop, the scraping of a ladle stirring an empty container. It all begins with the density of the sound, audible even before it enters the space. Strange, hyperrealistic sounds that are difficult to identify, even if you recognize them. The composition is by Ruud van der Pluijm. Live sounds, as the cars move, small microphones placed under the rails. A sudden silence. A leaden silence broken by a bird. The cloudy light becomes an uncertain atmosphere. This mass of figurines, like Munch's The Scream, with wide-open mouths, gripped by nameless fear. So expressive, both dreamlike and hallucinatory in the literal sense: they reveal the unimaginable.
Crouching, or moving with the skill of felines on stage, taking care never to bump into the precious sculpted groups, the three artists have the concentration and seriousness of children playing with Lego. The live projection on a screen multiplies the scale of the small figures. Greenish-gray images, as if discolored, the camera focuses on a small piece of purple tweed suit among a mountain of clothing. Despite the lack of realism, the piece gradually becomes more and more horrific in the beginning. You'd almost believe that fragments of film have been found, that these depths of the camps were indeed filmed. From barracks to forced labor, the piece avoids nothing, but gradually moves towards horror: first, at the beginning, there's the opening of a small door that releases a devouring flame. Have we seen what we saw? At the end of the performance, silhouettes that have become transparent are led under the shower and then thrown into the ovens. The light goes out. A body, more imposing than the others, emerges from the pile. Still alive...
What makes the work of Pauline Kalker, Herman Helle, and Arlène Hoornweg absolutely necessary and timeless? How does it escape all debates about the impossibility of representation? The sculptures, as well as the three artists on stage, introduce a distance that allows space and movement for the imagination, protects against horror, but allows us to face it head-on. No words in this performance, which avoids any explanation, dialogue, or commentary and clings to the abstraction of a silent cry.
Before conceiving this performance with her company, Pauline Kalker long sought legitimacy. Her paternal grandparents never returned from Auschwitz, nor did their own parents, while an uncle survived and others still survive. She needed their support and permission. All three developed their play by listening to the survivors, reading and rereading Primo Levi's If This Is a Man, and watching Lanzmann's Shoah. Their company, founded in 1997, offers three other puppet performances, most of which explore history: a musical comedy with shrimp. A second about the little-known colonization of Indonesia by the Netherlands, and a third about the First World War, which has also been touring alongside Kamp for decades. In a slightly different genre, the trio has also created a shadow play about life in the Kingdom of Granada. The three artists, who are trained as actresses, are on stage.
An exchange of words.
The performance hasn't changed since its inception. "Why should it change?" asks Pauline Kalker, who sees it as "a book that can be reread." On the other hand, current events can enrich or blur perception. At the exit, an audience member vehemently rebukes Pauline Kalker in Dutch. "What's your opinion on the genocide in Gaza? Why don't you want to say anything about it?" The actress restrains herself: "What's happening in Gaza is genocide, but I'm not going to stop commemorating the victims of the Holocaust because of the genocide in Gaza. We won't stop commemorating the genocide in Rwanda or the massacres of the Uighurs." Visibly moved, she tells us: "I'm absolutely against Netanyahu's policies, but why should I have to justify myself?" An older German woman asks if the exchange can be translated for her. The onlooker continues her questions: "Do you have any relatives who were deported? Why were they deported?" The artist remains cautious. The German onlooker hugs her before abruptly walking away: "I'm sorry. My grandparents were on the other side." •
(Photo caption) Kamp's figurines are fantastically expressive, both dreamlike and literally hallucinatory.
ANNE DIATKINE for Le Libération
in Charleville-Mézières
September 30, 2025