Natalie H. Rogers: Preserving Memory Through Theatre, Therapy, and Poetry
Natalie H. Rogers is a first-generation Jewish American whose life and work reflect a deep commitment to the arts, education, mental health, and the preservation of memory. A former professional actress and acting teacher, she and her husband Harold Herbstman served as Artistic Directors of the Dove Theater Company in New York City. Their work received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts. Early in her career, Natalie performed alongside Pasach Bernstein and Lilly Lux in productions such as The Rebitsen From Israel and My Mother The General, experiences that strengthened her connection to Yiddish theatre and Jewish cultural expression.
Natalie is also a behavioral psychotherapist with a Master of Social Work from Columbia University. She is internationally recognized for her pioneering work in overcoming fear of public speaking and stage fright. She founded and leads TalkPower, a program that helps people speak confidently, and TalkPower Stop That Stutter, which eliminates stuttering in five sessions. Through Zoom seminars and workshops, she has worked with professionals, students, and young people preparing for Bar or Bat Mitzvahs, giving them the skills to face audiences with confidence. Her methods, detailed in her book TalkPower: The Mind Body Way to Speak Without Fear, are based on unique exercises and routines that engage memory and performance skills.
As a lifelong poet, Natalie writes to preserve the memory of the Holocaust and to tell the stories of families affected by it. Her father was orphaned at ten in Amdura, Poland, and much of his family perished during the Holocaust. Her mother immigrated to the United States at age three and became a concert pianist and legal secretary. Natalie’s poetry, including works such as The Package, reflects her family’s experiences, Jewish cultural identity, and the resilience of those who survived. Her early education in Yiddish and exposure to Jewish cultural life also enabled her to perform in the Yiddish theatre.
Today, Natalie continues to combine her passions for theatre, poetry, and education. She celebrates her family and Jewish identity through her writing and teaching, nurturing the next generation of performers and speakers. Her daughter Colette and son-in-law Alex maintain Jewish cultural traditions with their children. Through her work in the arts, therapy, and poetry, Natalie H. Rogers preserves memory, empowers others, and ensures that the stories of her family and the Holocaust endure for future generations.
Cousins
Natalie H Rogers
I wish I had cousins
A thought draped in longing.
Squeezes itself
Into awareness and
I am so missing
Those sweet invitations for
Birthdays And Chanukahs,
Weddings, and funerals
Brises, Bar -Mitzvas
And Pesach time invites
I’ll never receive
Fantasy Is all that I have
As i picture us sitting
The cousins and I
At a round wooden table
With laughter arising from memories recalled
Like the uncle who’s yarmulka fell
In the Chicken soup
Sipping our tea
We dip the sweet bisquets
I baked for the visit
I show off the photos of
My darling grandchildren
Leo Bamitzvad
At thirteen a soccer star
Eleven year Ben
Selling Brownies he baked
I kvell when embarrassing showers of praise
Fly by Oos” and the ahs” all repeatedly sounded
Safe in the USA
Labe the original Leo my father
Calls out to twelve
Brothers and sisters he left
In tiny Amdura a shtetel in Poland
Desperate he writes letters on letters
Begging them “follow me”
Save yourselves “ Follow me “!
Now comes the roll call
I’ll call out my family
All of the
Brothers and sisters my
Cousins their babies and
All of my aunties and uncles my
Grandfathers’ grand mothers
Brides and their Chusens (Grooms)
And mothers and fathers in lawsi
I never met
Stunning atrocities,
Then there was Leib
It’s April again
Time for the Matza ,
Time for my mourning
For I am so missing
The sound of those cousins
Now crowding my brain
Now haunting my Pesach
With ghostly Hadgada’s and
Memories still born
I reach out to you
Cousins that might have been
Where you are safe
Saved in my dreams
Skin of our family
Our beautiful family
Aill tiny flakes of ash
Safe in my dreams
The Package
A memory from my childhood
Natalie H. Rogers
Let me tell you of that day
Back then
My mother crying at the kitchen table
My father so immersed in sorrow
And the package sitting there between them
Just a brown and lumpy parcel
Tied with string
And covered with so many stamps
And foreign words in blackened letters
Sitting on our kitchen table
Oh the pain the tears …the grief…
This strange unwelcome package brought
This package lovingly assembled
Only last month
Filled with candles ,sugar wine and jellies
Matza, matza meal
And caned gefilte fish
Mother wrapping , double wrapping
Humming to herself
Praying hoping dreading
Will the family have a Pasach?
Will they read from the Haggadah
Will the children ask Fir Kasha’s
Uncertainties hovering like vultures
Pecking at each breath
Now we stand here frozen
Looking, staring at this package
Father sinks into a chair
He holds his head between his hands
Mother white and trembling pulls me close
and I
I am so young so very young
And totally bewildered
Can they give an explanation
What does it mean
Locked in
Locked out
A million million
Flakes of ash
Floating in the wind
And gone and done , geharget (murdered)
On the other side of the Atlantic
No one to receive this package
This shlamazildika (unlucky) package
Sitting on our kitchen table
So it was returned
And then
Behind our house
My father made a shallow grave
He placed the package
‘IN the ground
And covered it with earth
And little stones .
And then
We stood there for a long
long time
Frages mir nishd (Do not forget me)
This was a moment frozen
Etched into our bones
And at that time
I was so young so very young
The firstborn child of two
Who ran and ran and ran away
Well actually
Barely escaped
We fooled the devil
So …
Triumphant would you say ?
Well no
Not totally you see
We are a trifle bitter
We are a trifle sad
And you might say
We are a trifle damaged
Damaged by our history
Fargess mir nisht
Etched deeply in our bones
Oh yes
Farges mir nished
Eternally rememberd
On The Other side Of OVER THE HILL
Natalie H. Rogers
(Meant to be read out loud even if you are alone.)
When a beautiful woman sees
Freshness fading
As shadows hover
over her glow
Softness ….. spreading to
Unwelcome places,
A name ……..forgotten ,
A thought misplaced ,
Perhaps two ,
One after the other
Eventually she might suspect
that she unknowingly
Has moved
And now lives
On the other side of over the hill
The old side…………
The slow side………
Where canes and walkers
Rest in closets that held rackets
skates and skis
What can she do
To stifle the screams
Of no…I didn’t think
Me ?
I never dreamed
So unfair and uncalled for
How DARE MY SPARKLE LEAVE
Without apology or
A note ……… at least
My youngness
Gone ?
Suddenly !
Shockingly !
Like a sudden squall
Out of the blue
That levels a town
Or a train just missed
You can barely see the outline
In the distance
Or the face you remember
You ! are excused from youngness
Oh no,…….. not exactly
Look in the mirror lady
You are EXEMPT
No such thing as
temporary wrinkles’
No transient aches
Or passing stiffness
You are EXEMPT
Exempt
From previous ambition
Hopes and dreams
Exempt from your obsessions
Passions and desires
Exempt from madness ecstasy and excess
Exempt from being ogled
in a short skirt
And sidelong glances
Someone’ s husband sent your way
Those fabulous legs?
Irrelevant
And mam
They call you mam
When did it happen
that young lady had
morphed into mam
You !
a mam?
In storage?
In the Archives ?
Living memorabilia
Now mature!
Sensible and wise
And out of step
The end of fun ?
“Hey ,
People you know are dying
They think you look great
‘They bless each day they are alive
You found a small brown spot on your wrist
And you complain””
“So “
“Oh my God
listen to me
Someone you went to school with is dying !”
Well yes that’s true
But I’ll tell you what really bothers me
On the other side of over the hill
When you’ve stepped into elderliness
It’s very quiet
That! bothers me !
Who, who can I talk to
without appearing ridiculous
Even narcissistic
Living here alone
On the other side of over the hill
