"How can you grapple with the number 6 million?" Edie Naveh asked members of the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre at the company studios on Monday.

Naveh, director of the Holocaust Center of the United Jewish Federation of Pittsburgh, was helping PBT to begin preparation for "Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project," a work by Austin Ballet's Stephen Mills that will have its local premiere Nov. 12-15.

It will be the culmination of a series of 15 community collaborations beginning Oct. 6, including Maurice Sendak's production of "Brundibar" (Opera Theater of Pittsburgh), a Henry Koerner art exhibit, films, lectures and a program of Jewish composers by the Carnegie Mellon Philharmonic.

Given the importance of the subject matter, PBT instigated an unprecedented two-day workshop to allow the ensemble to perform in-depth research on the Holocaust. PBT artistic director Terrence Orr wanted the company to experience the activities together in order to infuse their upcoming performance.

Executive director Harris Ferris agreed, noting that it was time to once again "take the arts into an arena that's compelling for its social consciousness."

On Monday, the PBT group began to grapple with that number -- 6 million Jews who were slain in the Holocaust. They listened to the 1982 Academy Award-winning documentary "Genocide," narrated by Elizabeth Taylor and Orson Wells. It provided an introduction to the standard of pre-World War II Jewish life throughout Europe, the rise of Adolf Hitler, subsequent book and synagogue burnings, the establishment of concentration camps and graphic film treatment of the prisoners, which not only included Jews, but also Russian prisoners of war, Poles, political "enemies," homosexuals, mentally and physically disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses and Gypsies.

Following a "needed" break, Naveh introduced Holocaust survivor Sam Weinreb. Using simple and honest words, he told his tale: As a 13-year-old in Czechoslovakia, he came home from a lesson for his bar mitzvah and found that his family had disappeared. A neighbor told him that soldiers had come to take them away.

What followed was a story of survival, in which he traveled to other cities in search of family, lived outdoors for six months, searched through garbage cans for food and, finally, exhausted, went to the police. They ordered him to report weekly; often they would beat him.

He was finally put in a camp and forced to move in a death march, where he made his escape and came to America. Still only a teenager, he was put in an orphanage where a kindly visitor found relatives in McKeesport. Weinreb was reunited with a girl that he had met many years ago. He married Goldie, who accompanied him to PBT, but he never did have his bar mitzvah.

The next day the company, accompanied by staff members, flew to Washington, D.C. Even corps members Gabrielle Thurlow, who broke four bones in her foot on Monday, and Hiroyuki Nagasawara, who had taken a fall from his bike the same day, came, using crutches and wheelchairs.

The dancers felt the importance of the journey. All were aware of the Holocaust, having studied it at one time or another in school, even those from foreign countries. Filipino dancer Christopher Ouellette related how his grandfather was involved in the Bataan Death March during World War II. Korean dancer Kwang-Suk Choi told of the Japanese invasion of his homeland at about the same time, with resulting atrocities.

Allison Kappes expressed the sentiments of the other dancers when she said, "Just being able to meet and hear Sam, it makes it more personal."

Arthur Berger, senior adviser at the Holocaust Museum, greeted the Pittsburgh group.

"Every time I walk through the permanent exhibition, I see something different," he told them. PBT costumier Janet Groom later remarked, "Once you're in here, you don't notice anybody else."

The group was escorted onto two packed elevators, simulating the crowded conditions on the trains. On the top floor they were immediately confronted with enormous black-and-white photos tracing Hitler's rise to power during 1933-39.

The next level presented the next five years and the "final solution," or concentration camps, where they walked through a railcar and saw a miniature depiction of the gas chambers.

The final exhibit focused on the liberation, rescuers and survivors. One of them, Louise Lawrence-Israels, spoke to the group following the tour. Her story took place in Holland, when she was just a toddler. She told how her father was able to find landlords and pay them many years' rent just to protect his family. They lived on a high floor and weren't allowed to look out the window.

"We only ate when we had something," she said.

But they celebrated -- her tiny wicker chair, a second-birthday present, is a part of the Holocaust exhibit.

"I have very good memories of the life that we had -- it was all I knew," Lawrence-Israels said.

But at the liberation, when her mother finally took her outside to a park and told her to play, she cried. She didn't know how to play in the grass.

Afterward, each of the dancers saw something different. For Stephen Hadala, it was standing in the train car. "It really drove it home," he said.

Eva Trapp noted that "visually I think the shoes will haunt me for the rest of my life," referring to a glass case filled with thousands of shoes.

Erin Halloran recalled the gallery of children's artwork from Brundibar, the topic of the Opera Theater of Pittsburgh's presentation in November.

"It could be any one of us, any one of our kids," she stated quietly but firmly.

"The scope of it all was so amazing," said Julia Erickson. "But I liked hearing two different survivor stories -- it puts a human side to it."

Alexis Kochis thought that it was "so much to process. But I'll take away the resilience of the people."

Her husband, Christopher Budzynski, added, "It will give us insight into what Stephen Mills had in mind."

"It was really important for all of us to see it," Elyssa Hotchkiss concluded. "Now it gives us time to digest it before the performance."