In 1912, nineteen-year-old Chawa Złoczewer leaves Mława and heads for New York. She sets out to be a seamstress, but swiftly becomes active in the anarchist movement and a key figure in the arts and queer communities. She changes her name to Eve Kotchever, and later, to Eve Adams. She distributes radical magazines, establishes lesbian clubs in Chicago and New York, and writes and self-publishes her first book on love between women: “Lesbian Love.” This brings things crashing down on her and gets her expelled from the USA. She dies in Auschwitz and the memory of her courageous life is erased for many years.

Our show seeks to reconstruct her incredible story by presenting Eve Adams in all her complexity. Hers was a Polish identity, although Poland was not on the map when she was born; it was a Jewish identity, which was the cause of her death; an anarchist identity, which made her mistrust the law; a queer identity, for which she was stigmatised and sentenced; and perhaps even the identity of a nationless immigrant, protected by no laws and sent back to Europe. Although she was not afraid to seek her fortune and knew many cities and languages, she had no real place to call her own.

The creators of the show ask: What is the connection between the private and the political? What does a community need for a sense of security, which is every person’s right? What does the term “illegal” mean to us, now and in the past?

And finally – being so diverse, how can we still feel responsible for one another?