Afgang 04.00

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Afgang 04.00

On 12th October 1943, 175 people were taken to Elsinore Station, from the nearby internment camp in Horserød.

They were Danish Jews, and Jewish refugees from countries throughout Eastern and central Europe, the Baltic countries and Scandinavia. They were the ones who had not managed to escape with the majority of Jews in Denmark fleeing through Elsinore in fishing-boats to Sweden during October 1943; they had instead been rounded up in the German occupation. At the station, Danish rail staff locked them into a waiting room. These 175 women, men and children waited here through the night, until a special train ordered by DSB arrived, to transport them the first part of their journey to the concentration camp in Theresienstadt.

The sound-theatre piece AFGANG 04.00 mixes audio-visuality, documentary drama and site-sensitive elements, in an artistic speculation on the question of how people react and interact under such conditions, on a night like this. Through headphones and loudspeakers, the auditory space of the waiting-room blends with sonic imaginaries based on victims' and witness accounts and archive material. Sounds, voices, memories, thoughts and dreams collide in an intimate sound-drama.

Premiere: 2nd November 1943, at Elsinore Station
Presented by Aber Dabei & Helsingør Teater

Directed by Petra Berg Holbek
Music by Juliana Hodkinson
Set design and Video by Igor Vasiljev

Suitable for age 16+