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Theatre

One actress performs another actress's personal survival

Six concentration camps and two death marches.

August 11, 2016 11:32
Zdenka Fantlova and Jane Arnfield

ByJohn Nathan, John Nathan

3 min read

Six concentration camps and two death marches. These are the milestones in the extraordinary story of Zdenka Fantlova, to be told on stage in London next week.

First Fantlova, now 95, wrote a memoir, My Lucky Star, about how she survived Terezin, Auschwitz, Kurzbach, Gross-Rosen, Matthausen and Bergen-Belsen. Then the BBC filmed her reunion with fellow nonagenarian George Leonard, one of the British soldiers who liberated Belsen.

The latest version of the epic tale takes the form of a one-woman play co-written and performed by actor Jane Arnfield at the Southbank, where The Tin Ring makes its London debut on Wednesday.

Arnfield was artistic director for Newcastle's Holocaust Memorial Day commemorations in 2011 when she first came across Fantlova, the event's keynote speaker.