A debonair gent in a suit, wearing classic cabaret white face, red lipstick and a yellow crown, strides onto the stage, rips the yellow Star of David off his jacket and casually tosses it away. He is The King (Robert Jarman), one of the exaggerated comic characters in Prince Bettliegend, a satirical musical revue written by young Czech-Jewish prisoners in the World War II ghetto at Terezín (or Theresienstadt as the Germans called it).

^{Gideon Payten-Griffiths, Kevin Hunt (accordion), Winston Weng (bass), Yana Taylor in Prince Bettliegend. Photograph © David Goldman}

The show originally featured a libretto by Josef Lustig and Jiri Spitz while František Kovanic wrote lyrics to accompany existing popular jazz melodies from the 1930s by Czech composer Jaroslav Ježek, who was known for composing songs for revues and films. The songs have survived, thanks to the fact that a Terezín survivor called Josef Bor donated a script containing the lyrics to the Jewish Museum of Prague where it has been preserved.

The plot, however, has largely been lost to time though survivors from the camp had a few fragmentary recollections. Using these, researchers and dramaturgs Lisa Peschel and Joseph...