Rachel Goldman Miller is familiar to members of the St. Louis Jewish community as one of the most active survivor speakers for the St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center. Her incredibly tragic life story which is nonetheless inspirational, is the subject of a powerful and unique production, Beyond Me: A Song Cycle in the Key of Survival, an original composition, arranged and performed by Harvard-educated Suzanne Tanner Meisel.

The production was performed twice last weekend at the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park to an appreciative audience in the museum’s theater.

Beyond Me is described as “the true story of a woman’s quiet instinct to survive unfathomable loss,” a touring multimedia biography that uses a filmed backdrop of extensive interviews of Miller, along with personal testimony, documentary footage, modern dance, contemporary art and dramatic song into a musical tapestry of emotion, surrounding Miller’s life journey surviving the Holocaust, the loss of her parents, beloved sister and two brothers, her later move to America, a happy marriage and the loss of one of her two beloved sons to AIDS.

The complex, highly emotional multi-media production required the talents of an incredibly gifted artist. Meisel, who had been a friend to Miller’s late son Mark is exactly that person. She has incredible stage presence, a haunting, powerful singing voice, and the ability to remain on stage for the entire two-segment production which details Miller’s incredible life’s journey. Meisel combines her passion for music, poetry and stories of character in the multi-media production. She borrows from her background in music psychology while at Harvard, and her career in character licensing while at Warner Bros.

Meisel says, “I first met Rachel Miller when I organized a group at Warner Bros. to design and create an AIDS quilt panel for her son, my good friend Mark Miller, after his passing. Rachel shared her life story with me, inspiring a wellspring of thought, compassion and song. May all who share in this memoir be inspired by the faith, love and resilience Rachel offers through her incredible, indelible being.”

We first meet little Rachel Goldman at the age of five, in 1938, living happily in Paris to which her father had escaped from Poland to avoid the invading Nazis. Later, when the Nazis invade and annex most of France, Rachel is forced to wear a yellow star and her father is taken away by SS guards who wear red and black swastikas. Rachel comes to realize that colors no longer represent happiness. Two days after Rachel’s mother sends her to the country to live with a Catholic family and to take the name Christine and hide her Jewish identity, the SS officers invade her home and deport her remaining family members to various camps.

Rachel’s older sister, Sabine, with whom she is extremely close was very beautiful. A young German soldier is smitten by her beauty and asks permission to marry her. Sabine’s mother reluctantly approves in the vain hope that she can be rescued by the soldier, but that does not come to pass. We learn that Rachel was awaiting her sister’s arrival in the country, but that her sister remained in Paris through her birthday. The day before the birthday, she is caught and deported.

Rachel’s abrupt transformation from innocent child who loves bright, vivid colors into the young woman who must survive the loss of both parents, her sister and two brothers is captured in the song, My Favorite Color, which depicts with graphics and words the bright yellow of the Star of David Jews are forced to wear, to the harsh, spider-like black of the swastika with its red and white background. No longer do colors bring cheer to the once happy child, but become reminders of the constant presence of danger in her young and tender life.

We also follow Rachel’s journey through the liberation of Paris and her eventual journey to the United States, where she lives in five different foster homes in New York City and later in Los Angeles and eventually in St. Louis where she begins a happy new life with her beloved husband, Milton Miller, and their two sons. We later learn that the day that Mark passes his bar exam to become an attorney, he comes out as gay to his parents, and later tells them he has AIDS, from which he soon dies.

Meisel performs The Best Years to depict Rachel’s happy marriage and parenthood; I’m Afraid, which expresses Mark’s fear of dying expressed to his loving mother; Beyond Me, which describes her inability to make sense of her youthful and later tragic circumstances, and The Survivor, which expresses her deep loss and determination in spite of everything to live a life of meaning.

Audience members who took in Beyond Me, expressed the hope that it could be brought back to St. Louis for a more extended run. Books, CDs, DVDs and other Beyond Me materials are available at [email protected].