Staging History from the Shoah to Palestine: Three Plays and Essays on WWII and Its Aftermath 3030840085, 9783030840082

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Staging History from the Shoah to Palestine Three Plays and Essays on WWII and Its Aftermath

Inez Hedges

Staging History from the Shoah to Palestine

Inez Hedges

Staging History from the Shoah to Palestine Three Plays and Essays on WWII and Its Aftermath

Inez Hedges Northeastern University (Emerita) Boston, MA, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-84008-2 ISBN 978-3-030-84009-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84009-9 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: Kathrine Andi/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

For my mother, Janice Neipert Hedges

Acknowledgments

Theatre is a collaborative art. I want above all to express my thanks to the Northeastern University Department of Theatre for their years of support, beginning with the staging of my play Children of Drancy in 2007. Professor Nancy Kindelan, who directed the play, demonstrated how dramaturgy, imagination, and the contribution of a wide array of artists can work their magic to create an experience that is shared with audiences. Theatre@First in Somerville selected The Eagle and the Cactus for a staged reading in 2016 directed by Jess Viator. Professor Janet Bobcean from Northeastern’s Department of Theatre, who produced Children of Drancy, organized a staged reading of Kafka in Palestine at Northeastern in Boston, followed by an Actors’ Equity staged reading with Playhouse Creatures in New York in 2017. Morgan Flynn directed a table reading of Kafka in Palestine in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sponsored by TC Squared Theatre Company, and a staged reading of the play at the Community Church of Boston in 2018. My thanks to Dean Stevens, administrator of the 100-year-old Community Church, for this latter event. The Boston Playwrights Platform selected a major scene of the play, directed by Avriel Hillman, for production as part of their festival in 2019. For these readings and performances, directors, producers, stage managers, actors, musicians, and lighting/costume/set designers generously donated their talents. I am eternally grateful to each and every one of them.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank Northeastern University for release time from courses to complete Children of Drancy, and for hosting the Website https:// drancy.sites.northeastern.edu; the Jersey Heritage Trust for the opportunity to read Claude Cahun’s prison diaries and for allowing me to print stills from their archives; and the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center for a supportive environment during the writing of Kafka in Palestine. My thanks go to Mark Catalano and Johanna Fernandez who allowed me to use their photographs. I am especially grateful to Israeli Playwright Motti Lerner who generously shared unpublished plays, materials, and advice. Numerous friends offered useful comments as the plays were taking shape: Michael Löwy, Linda Dittmar, Debra Wise, Nancy Kindelan, Margaret Gullette, Holbrook Robinson, Christiane Cutter, Martha Kingsbury, Carole Seligman, Maren Stange, my sister Kristin Hedges, and my loyal resident editor and spouse, Victor Wallis. Diana Hale produced beautiful poster art to accompany several of the staged readings. To all of you, many thanks. I am deeply grateful to Srebernik, my editor at Palgrave Macmillan for her unfailing commitment and support, to my production editor Jack Heeney, and project manager Shukkanthy Siva. A note on translations: unless otherwise indicated, all translations from French and German are mine.

Contents

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Introduction Western Drama: From Social Concerns to Social Change Theatre in the University and Beyond

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Staging the Shoah: The Persecution of Jews in France Under German Occupation Bearing Witness: Charlotte Delbo Armand Gatti and “Concentration Camp Culture” Liliane Atlan and the “Theatre of Cruelty” Children of Drancy: A Montage of Voices Children of Drancy Bibliography: Sources and Further Reading on the Shoah in France

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Theatre of and About the German Occupation of France and the French Resistance Theatre as Resistance? The Question of Sartre Jeanne D’Arc in Occupied France: Claude Vermorel Turncoats and Angels: Henry de Montherlant and Gilles Segal Theatre About the Resistance: Jean-Claude Grumberg and Charlotte Delbo Art as Resistance: The Eagle and the Cactus The Eagle and the Cactus

1 8 16 19 22 25 31 40 42 67 71 73 77 80 84 89 94

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Bibliography: Sources and Further Reading on the German Occupation of France and the French Resistance, 1940–1944 4

Theatre of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Israeli Theatre—The Early Years Israeli Theatre After the Six-Day War (1967) Israeli Theatre After the Yom Kippur War (1973) Israeli Theatre and the Lebanon War (1982–1985) Israeli Theatre and the First Intifada (1987–1991) Israeli Theatre in the New Millennium The “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” on the International Stage Kafka in Palestine Bibliography: Sources and Further Reading on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

128 131 135 136 138 141 143 145 153 157 206

Afterword

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Index

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List of Images

Image 2.1

Image 2.2

Image 3.1 Image 3.2 Image 3.3

Image 3.4 Image 4.1 Image 4.2 Image 4.3

The Drancy apartment complex (location of the WWII concentration camp outside Paris) (Photograph by the author, 2007) Children of Drancy. Still from the 2007 production directed by Nancy Kindelan, The Department of Theatre, Northeastern University (Photograph by permission of Mark Catalano, 2007) The memorial train car outside the Drancy apartment complex (Photograph by the author, 2007) Claude Cahun, “Je Tends Les Bras” (I Stretch Out My Arms), 1931 (Copyright Jersey Heritage) Lucy Schwob (Claude Cahun, left) and Suzanne Malherbe (Marcel Moore, right) walking. Undated double image (Photographer unknown. Copyright Jersey Heritage) Claude Cahun, “Self Portrait with Nazi Badge Between Her Teeth,” 1954 (Copyright Jersey Heritage) Theodor Herzl in 1900. Wikimedia Commons (public domain) Franz Kafka in 1923. Wikimedia Commons (public domain) Ottla Kafka in 1941. Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

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42 82 90

91 93 132 133 134

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Image 4.4

A watchtower on the separation wall in Bethlehem (Photograph by Johanna Fernández (with 2016 prison-abolition delegation led by Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi))

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

If, as Shakespeare writes, “all the world’s a stage,” one might turn the phrase around and ask how much of the world can be shown onstage. The question becomes acute for playwrights whose works address defining moments of history where human society takes a dramatic turn. Plays about historical events have been written almost since the beginning of the dramatic form. The action in Aeschylus’ “The Persians,” one of the oldest surviving Greek tragedies (472 BCE), centers on the battle of Salamis and the Greek victory that pushed back Persian advances in 480 BCE. In Renaissance England, Christopher Marlowe wrote “Edward II” and William Shakespeare authored “Julius Cesar,” “Coriolanus,” “Anthony and Cleopatra,” as well as eight plays covering the monarchy between the reigns of Richard II and Richard III. In late eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Germany, Friedrich Schiller wrote several historical plays: his Wallerstein trilogy, about events during the Thirty Years War; “Don Carlos,” about the conflict between King Philip of Spain and his son; and “Maria Stuart,” about the execution in 1586 of Mary, Queen of Scots during the reign of Elizabeth I. George Bernard Shaw wrote “Saint Joan,” one of many plays dramatizing the story of Joan of Arc, in 1923. The French Revolution has inspired numerous

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Hedges, Staging History from the Shoah to Palestine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84009-9_1

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plays, from Georg Büchner’s “Danton’s Death” (1835) to Peter Weiss’ “Marat/Sade” (1963).1 The Shoah in France, the French resistance to the German Occupation of France 1940–44, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 1948 have been historical watersheds, and dramatists have grappled with the problem of bringing to audiences some understanding of what such moments have meant to those who personally experienced them. Some have argued that one shouldn’t even try to write plays about the Holocaust, that any effort will fall short and that any attempt to represent these horrors is a form of disrespect. Despite this, powerful work has emerged in many of the countries that were directly or indirectly affected. The German-Jewish Peter Weiss, whose family had to flee to Sweden during the war, wrote “The Investigation, an Auschwitz Oratorium” in 1965, based on the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials of Nazis in the same year. Weiss, using court documents, puzzles over what turns some people into butchers and others into victims. His five-hour-long play is intended to made audience members question how they might have acted in the historical situation of Nazi Germany.2 British playwright Peter Barnes’s one-act play “Auschwitz” (1978), on the other hand, asks the audience to identify with Nazi bureaucrats and to be drawn into a complicit identification with them.3 A stage version of survivor Primo Levi’s “Se questo è un uomo” (translated by Stuart Woolf as “Survival in Auschwitz”) was produced in Italy in 1966.4 Dozens of plays dealing with the Holocaust have come out of Europe, the United States, Canada, Israel, the Soviet Union, South America, and other places.5 As Robert Skloot, the editor of two volumes of Holocaust plays, suggests, “Imaginatively searching out

1 See Freddie Rokem, Performing History: Theatrical Representations of the Past in Contemporary Theatre (Iowa City: Univ. of Iowa Press, 2000). 2 Gene A. Plunka, Holocaust Drama: The Theater of Atrocity (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2009), 124–26. 3 Ibid., 31–32. 4 Helga Finter, “Primo Levi’s Stage Version of ‘Se questo è un uomo’,” in Staging the

Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance, ed. Claude Schumacher (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press,1998), 234. 5 For a select bibliography of Holocaust plays, see Schumacher, Staging the Holocaust, 298–334.

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possibilities, and finding a form in which to express them, is nowhere more painful or demanding than in the theatre of the Holocaust.”6 In France, writers who survived concentration camps or forced labor camps like Charlotte Delbo or Armand Gatti, or who grew up with survivor stories like Liliane Atlan, have turned to dramaturgy out of an inner compulsion. As Skloot comments, the historical facts are knowable: “What is far more difficult is to make sense of these events so that we can achieve some sort of meaningful relationship with history.”7 In the case of Holocaust plays, he says, the task is unfinished. This is especially true of the Shoah in France. The arrest, deportation, and murder of nearly 76,000 Jews during the German Occupation of France—11,400 of them children—have received less attention than other World War II tragedies. Partly this is due to the reluctance of the French Republic, after the end of the war, to acknowledge the role that the French police had played in the roundups and deportations. For instance, though the German authorities in 1942 ordered only the arrest of adults, the collaborationist French government ordered that children be rounded up as well. This led to the forcible separation of children from their parents—the parents were deported while the German authorities decided what to do with the children. Most of the children then passed through the camp of Drancy, outside Paris, before meeting their fate in Auschwitz and other death camps.8 How can drama contribute to this “making sense”? As I discuss in Chapter 1 (“Staging the Shoah: The Persecution of Jews in France under German Occupation”), one of Charlotte Delbo’s plays presents the character of Françoise, who undergoes the trauma of being allowed, in prison, to visit her husband and fellow resistance fighter one last time before he is shot as a hostage—an event from Delbo’s own life. Once in the concentration camp, we see Françoise grapple with the temptation of suicide so

6 Robert Skloot, “Introduction,” in The Theatre of the Holocaust: Four Plays (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 21. Rokem in Performing History also discusses three Holocaust Plays. 7 Robert Skloot, “Introduction,” The Theatre of the Holocaust: Four Plays, 9. See also Robert Skloot, The Darkness We Carry: The Drama of the Holocaust (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1988); and Edward R. Isser, Stages of Annihilation (Teaneck: Fairleigh Dickenson Univ. Press, 1997). 8 Inez Hedges, “Living Memory: Representations of Drancy,” in World Cinema and Cultural Memory (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 11–30.

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as to avoid further suffering, set against the responsibility to survive and bear witness, and then with the uncertainty as to whether or not anyone will believe her: “They’ll think that since we have returned, it was not as terrible as we say. By returning we will deny our own story.”9 Delbo’s plays present her protagonist’s dilemmas in wrenching detail, encouraging audiences to relive the experiences alongside her, to imagine themselves in her situation. In “Les Hommes” (“The Men”), a play unpublished during Delbo’s lifetime, Françoise comments “We knew that we were risking our lives in the Resistance. But is anyone really ready for it? Never. You are never ready to be torn from what you love, to imagine life without the person you love….you can’t feel the blood coursing in his wrists and tell yourself that in the next moment it will no longer flow. You can be ready to die, but how can you tear the love from your heart?”10 Both a resistance fighter and a concentration camp survivor, Delbo brings her personal experience to her plays. If Delbo embraces a somewhat traditional form of playwriting that encourages us to empathize with her characters, her compatriot Armand Gatti tries to express the impossibility of representing the concentration camp experience through normal language and the conventions of theatrical representation. As George Steiner has written, “The world of Auschwitz lies outside speech as it lies outside reason.”11 Gatti ended up abandoning the commercial theatre in favor of radical experimentation. His characters, who exist in the twilight of a remembered “concentration camp universe,” often seem caught in a nightmare of traumatic memories as they try to adopt multiple identities to escape their psychological entrapment. They end up in the circus, the fairground sideshow, even on a distant planet. The work of Liliane Atlan is impelled by her fierce identification with the survivor accounts she grew up hearing about in France. Her plays became ways of working through those vivid impressions and serve to commemorate both suffering and heroism as she explores how community can be re-forged after the Shoah. In 1999, she was awarded the French Prix Mémoire de la Shoah. 9 Charlotte Delbo, “Who Will Carry the Words?” in Skloot, Theatre of the Holocaust: Four Plays, 291. 10 Charlotte Delbo, “Les Hommes,” (“The Men”) in Qui rapportera ces paroles et autres écrits inédits (Paris: Fayard, 2013), 540. 11 Quoted in Plunka, Holocaust Drama, 14.

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Together, these plays perform many of the important tasks that Skloot sets out for Holocaust drama: to pay homage to the victims; to educate audiences; to provoke emotional responses; to raise moral questions; and to draw conclusions about the possibilities of human behavior.12 As Gene A. Plunka comments, “Drama seems to be an ideal medium to represent these eternal conflicts and dilemmas. Theater affects us emotionally, subliminally, or intellectually (sometimes simultaneously) in a direct way that poetry and fiction cannot. The theater also possesses a powerful immediacy effect between actor and audience that no other art form can match.”13 My play, “Children of Drancy,” is composed entirely of written testimony and documents, including the letters of arrested and doomed children to their families, teachers, and other adults outside the camp. Its seven performances at Northeastern University in 2007 (directed by Professor of Theatre Nancy Kindelan) elicited powerful audience responses. The French consulate became involved in post-production discussions, and a Drancy survivor came and met with the actors after one of the performances. The “talk-backs” after the play demonstrated the usefulness of theatre in stimulating audiences to learn about and reflect on a historical trauma. While plays about the Holocaust are inevitably tragic, plays written during and about the French resistance to German Occupation, as discussed in my third chapter, (“Theatre of and about the French Résistance”) can tell inspiring stories of fighters who opposed injustice; or can question the attitudes of citizens who were averse to taking any risk. After its defeat by the Germans in 1940, France became the only country to collaborate actively with the German occupiers. The country was divided into a northern and western “occupied zone” and a southern so-called “free zone” governed from the city of Vichy by World War I French military hero Maréchal Philippe Pétain. Theatres continued to put on plays, but they had to be approved both by the Vichy government and the German occupiers in the north. Any political comments in plays had to be disguised so as to escape the censors. Whether some of the plays actually contained veiled messages urging French citizens to resist the

12 Robert Skloot, “Introduction,” in The Theatre of the Holocaust, Vol. 2: Six Plays (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1999), 8. 13 Plunka, Holocaust Drama, 16.

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occupiers is still open to question. For instance, Jean-Paul Sartre’s play “Les Mouches” (“The Flies”) revisits the classical Greek myth of Orestes and his revenge for the murder of his father Agamemnon. In Sartre’s play, Orestes, after dispensing justice by killing his mother and her lover Aegisthus, takes upon himself the burdens of regicide and matricide in order to liberate his people and show them the way to freedom. There is still debate about whether this was a call for French resistance to the German authorities. Long after the war, the silence surrounding French participation in the deportations of Jews continued to be examined by playwrights. JeanClaude Grumberg’s “Zone libre” (“Free Zone”) illustrates the heroism of French peasants who risked their lives to hide Jews from persecution and death. On the other hand, Gilles Segal’s humorous and satirical “Le Temps de muets” (rendered in English as “All the Tricks but One”) illustrates how some Frenchmen and women tried to play it safe during the Occupation by pleasing both sides. My play, “The Eagle and the Cactus,” is based on the letters and prison writings of the surrealist photographer and resistance fighter Claude Cahun who, along with her stepsister and lifelong partner, Marcel Moore, outsmarted the German occupying forces on the Isle of Jersey. Some of the play is humorous and reflects the creativity and ingenuity the couple evidenced in their resistance tactics. Once caught and condemned to death, the two women refused to ask for a pardon and held out until the war was over and they were liberated. I imagine Claude creating a surrealist sculpture in her cell to retain her sense of identity and to keep hope alive. As discussed in my fourth chapter, “Theatre of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” one of the greatest challenges to playwrights in recent years has been to dramatize the situation of Palestinians in Israel/Palestine. Some of the earliest plays turned to satire: Hanoch Levin’s “Queen of the Bathtub” imagines the live-in Arab cousin of a Jewish family being denied use of the bathroom (a satirical comment on the physical separation of Jews and Arabs); Jacob Shabtai’s 1974 “The Spotted Tiger” reimagines the new Jewish State as a circus. Others create characters who come to grief because they are caught in the net of irreconcilable realities: Yosef Mundy’s title character in “The Governor of Jericho” struts about with a fragile and ultimately doomed authoritarianism while the people around him are not at all what they seem. A decade later, after the first war on

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Lebanon, Joshua Sobol in “Shooting Magda” portrays a company of bickering actors trying to make a film that will give a true picture of relations between Jews and Palestinians living within Israel. After the first Intifada in 1988, Israeli playwrights turned their sights on trying to explain the pressures that gave rise to protest and violence. Ilhan Hatzor’s “Masked Faces,” set in 1990, dramatizes the choices faced by three Palestinian brothers—resistance or collaboration. With the outbreak of violence in the West Bank and Gaza, it became more difficult for Israeli playwrights to stage their plays in Israel, with the result that some of the most important plays had their premieres in the United States and Europe. Motti Lerner’s “The Admission” revisits the trauma of the killing and displacement of Palestinians in 1948, an event that still has the power to affect the descendants of both Palestinian victims and Jewish perpetrators half a century later. Although completed in 2006, the play was not staged until 2014 at Theatre J in Washington, DC. However, even there a conservative Jewish group lobbied against it so that it was presented as a workshop rather than a full production.14 It was finally produced in Jaffa, Israel in 2017, with both Jewish and Arab Israeli actors. Israeli-American director Guy Ben-Aharon ran the Israeli Stage in Boston, Massachusetts, from 2010 to 2019. Over the course of its existence, the Israeli Stage presented over a dozen plays dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, often with audience “talk-backs” after the plays. British playwright Naomi Wallace’s three short plays in Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East (2009), which dramatize personal stories that explore the tragedy of violence from both sides of the conflict, were performed by Central Square Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2010. My play “Kafka in Palestine” is inspired by the famous writer’s youthful dream of emigrating to Palestine with his sister Ottla in search of a simpler lifestyle based on manual work and farming. After the death of both siblings (Kafka in 1924 from tuberculosis and Ottla in 1943 in Auschwitz), they materialize in modern Israel and the West Bank as dybbuks (ghosts). As in Motti Lerner’s and Naomi Wallace’s plays, “Kafka in Palestine” imagines that mutual empathy and understanding can emerge. 14 Lisa Traiger, “The Night of the Walking Wounded: In Its Second D.C. run, ‘The Admission’ Reveals Its Characters’ Battle Scars,” Washington Jewish Week, May 18, 2014.

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Western Drama: From Social Concerns to Social Change From the outset, the theatre of the western tradition has often been used to voice social concerns. In the Oedipus plays of Sophocles and the “Oresteia” of Euripides (fifth-century Athens BCE), the protagonists Oedipus and Orestes end their tragic journeys at Athens, finding welcome in a holy grove (Oedipus) or justice and forgiveness at court (Orestes). Their epic suffering was cast as a necessary progression toward the founding of the Athenian State and thus served the political purpose of helping to forge a sense of identity and civic pride in the dominant classes of Athenian society. (Though the plays served to strengthen civic consciousness, the Greek theater festivals were undemocratic: the audience was limited to free citizens, while the leaders of the community, who also governed the Polis, decided on the plays and the prizes. The plays themselves highlighted the fates of exceptional individuals, while the opinions of the common people were expressed by the chorus.)15 During the European Middle Ages until the fifteenth century, churches and guilds performed biblical scenes and “miracle plays” in front of a population that did not have access to literacy and books. These examples illustrate that most early western drama respects, or even buttresses, existing power relations and cultural norms, what the Italian Marxist critic Antonio Gramsci has called “hegemony.” Gramsci defines hegemony as “the ‘spontaneous’ consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group […and] the apparatus of state coercive power which ‘legally’ enforces discipline on those groups who do not ‘consent’ either actively or passively.”16 This situation began to change in the sixteenth-century Elizabethan Age in England. William Shakespeare addressed ethical and civic questions in his dramatizations of the Roman Empire and the fates of English kings, yet by now changes in society—the establishment of a more stable political order under Elizabeth I and the rise of the middle class—made for a radical transformation of the audience and, consequently, the stage. 15 Arnold Hauser, The Social History of Art, Vol. 1 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952),

98. 16 Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith (NY: International Publishers, 1971), 12.

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Arnold Hauser, in The Social History of Art, argues that Shakespeare’s plays evidence a progressive attitude: “In spite of his sympathies for the ruling-class attitude to life, Shakespeare always stood on the side of healthy common sense, justice and spontaneous feeling, wherever these middle-class virtues came into conflict with the obscure motives of an irrational knightly romanticism, of superstition and turbid mysticism.” As an example, he mentions the character of Cordelia from King Lear as “the purest embodiment of these virtues in the midst of her feudal milieu.”17 Shakespeare’s plays move toward a counter-hegemonic ethos. This openness to middle-class values takes a step back in the authoritarian seventeenth-century court of Louis XIV in France, where Jean Racine celebrates civic virtues in his dramatizations of Greek mythological figures. As Hauser comments, even the comedies of Molière, which can make fun of social norms, take care not to attack the social hierarchy.18 Later, in eighteenth-century Germany, the cult of Shakespeare and the new spirit of Romanticism open the avenues to a more liberal spirit in theatre. Friedrich Schiller explores the limits of rebellion in his play “The Robbers” (1781) while Goethe’s “Egmont” and “Götz von Berlichingen” dramatize the fates of two freedom-fighters. Later in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen creates dramas of personal rebellion against social strictures, for instance exploring women’s roles in “A Doll’s House” (1879) and “Hedda Gabler” (1890), while the Russian Anton Chekhov portrays the sterility of the upper classes in “Three Sisters” (1901) and “The Cherry Orchard” (1903).19 With the twentieth-century playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956), we move explicitly from a theater of social concerns to a counterhegemonic theater of social change. In a series of conversations between 17 Hauser, The Social History of Art, Vol. 1, 405. 18 However, Hauser remarks that Molière should paradoxically be reckoned “as one of

those writers who, in spite of all their subjective conservativism, have become the pioneers of progress by their unmasking of social reality.” Hauser, The Social History of Art, Vol. 1, 456. 19 Hauser writes of Ibsen’s “gospel of individualism”: “Ibsen owed his European fame

to the social message of his plays, which was reducible […] to a single idea, the duty of the individual towards himself, the task of self-realization, the enforcement of one’s own nature against the narrow-minded, stupid and out-of-date conventions of bourgeois society.” See Hauser, The Social History of Art, Vol. 2 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1952), 916.

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a philosopher and a dramaturg (with other comments by actors), Brecht laid out some principles for plays that, the dramaturg says, “raise questions without knowing the answers.” “All knowledge,” the philosopher insists, “manifests itself in knowing better, i.e., in contradiction.”20 He argues that theatre is, by its very nature, suited to this dialogical way of considering important questions. Through the performance (or staged reading), the audience can experience the various positions and opinions on an issue as brought forth by the different roles and actors. Brecht’s “epic theatre” is an extension and refinement of this basic concept. In his essay, “Modern Theatre is Epic Theatre,” Brecht sets up a series of contrasts between “epic” and “dramatic” theatre. The “epic,” unlike the “dramatic” entertainment theatre, will emphasize reason over emotion, narration over action; spectators will be invited to distance themselves from the play’s narrative in order to study it and reach conclusions about the social circumstances portrayed.21 Brecht, along with producer and director Erwin Piscator, espoused a theatre where ideas, including political ideas, could be effectively dramatized. In an essay contrasting entertainment theatre with educational theatre (“Lehrtheater”), Brecht (referencing Karl Marx) writes “Theatre became the concern of philosophers—the kind that want not just to describe the world but also to change it.”22 In the same essay he credits the existence of the historical crisis he lived through (the rise of Nazism in Germany) for the impetus to create a theatre that will deal with important moral questions.23 Brecht’s theatre eschews the spectator’s identification with the protagonist and relies instead on a distancing, or what he called the “Verfremdungseffekt.” Important historical plays by Brecht include “Fear and Misery of the Third Reich” (1935–1938), “Mother Courage” (1938–1939), “The Days of the Commune” (1948–1949, about the revolutionary socialist Paris Commune of 1871), and “Life of Galileo” (1937–1939). Another approach was developed by Brazilian playwright and theorist Augusto Boal (1931–2009), who wrote his seminal book, Theatre of 20 Bertolt Brecht, The Messingkauf Dialogues, trans. John Willett (London: Methuen Drama, 1978), 17 and 85. 21 Bertolt Brecht, “Das Moderne Theater ist das Epische Theater,” in Schriften zum Theater (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989), 19–20. 22 Bertolt Brecht, “Vergnügungstheater oder Lehrtheater?” in Schriften zum Theater,

64. 23 Ibid., 72.

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the Oppressed, in exile in 1974. He outlines a theatrical practice, inspired by the radical educator Paolo Freire, of a theatre where the audience becomes the actor and creator and works out the social problems dramatized in the play. Boal held that Brecht’s theater did not go far enough in involving the spectator: Aristotle proposes a poetics in which the spectator delegates power to the dramatic character so that the latter may act and think for him. Brecht proposes a poetics in which the spectator delegates power to the character who thus acts in his place but the spectator reserves the right to think for himself, often in opposition to the character. In the first case, a “catharsis” occurs; in the second, an awakening of critical consciousness. But the poetics of the oppressed focuses on the action itself: the spectator delegates no power to the character (or actor) either to act or to think in his place; on the contrary, he himself assumes the role of protagonist, changes the dramatic action, tries out solutions, discusses plans for change —in short, trains himself for real action.24

Boal pushes the dialogic to an extreme. One practice is that of “Invisible Theatre” where the actors create a situation in a public space that is calculated to draw in bystanders and then compel them to act. Another is that of “Forum Theatre” where the audience is invited to take the place of actors dramatizing a controversial situation (worker/boss or domestic conflicts, for instance) and then try to work out a solution. Above all, Boal’s theatre is participatory. He comments: “Perhaps the theatre is not revolutionary in itself, but it is surely a rehearsal for the revolution.”25 Tony Kushner, one of the most socially committed contemporary American playwrights and the author of “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes” (1991), has acknowledged his debt to Brecht.26 He emphasizes the idea of the dialogic, where competing views of the world and ideas are set forth on the stage for the audience to experience and ponder. He writes: “I think it is my job to write about paradox 24 Augusto Boal, Theatre of the Oppressed, trans. Charles A. and Maria-Odilia Leal

McBride (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1985, 1979), 122. 25 Ibid., 122. 26 Tony Kushner, Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, revised

edition (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2013), 329. See also the interview with Carl Weber, “I Always Go Back to Brecht,” in Tony Kushner in Conversation, ed. Robert Vorlicky (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1998), 105–24.

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and contradiction, and not to try always to resolve conundrum.”27 In “Angels,” the character Louis, who has strong liberal politics, is sexually attracted to Joe, a Republican conservative who frequents the power circles dominated by corrupt kingmaker and lawyer Roy Cohn. On his deathbed, Roy in turn is alternately mocked and consoled by his victim, Ethel Rosenberg, whom he helped send to the electric chair (for alleged leaking to the USSR of documents relating to the atomic bomb). Louis finds himself unable to do the right thing and remain with his partner Prior after Prior comes down with AIDS. Joe, torn between his Mormon upbringing and his homosexual inclinations, can’t connect with his wife Harper, who takes refuge in escape fantasies. Meanwhile, in the overall arc of the play, the world threatens to come to an end. At the conclusion of Part One (“The Millennium Approaches”), the Angel of America proclaims Prior, as he dies of AIDS, to be a Prophet. Critic Alice Clapie notes that the 2017 revival of “Angels” at the National Theatre in London was an interesting combination of the Brechtian idea of “epic theatre” and comedy. Describing the Angel character who descends from the ceiling of Prior’s apartment at the end of “Millennium Approaches,” she writes: The poetic choreographic performance of this character derived from both the phantasmagoric and the organic as her motion was hybrid, made of machine and actors. The dancers carrying the Angel would manually activate the beating wings and synthetic sound would raise or modify her voice. By representing the Angel of America as a weak, wounded, and aggressive angel […] the performance also presented the connection of characters with religion as one that is dwindling. The actress’s performance was faithful to Kushner’s openly acknowledged reverence for Brecht. In addition to the Angel’s gestus and sets emphasizing alienation and alterity, the production used distanciation effect (Verfremdungseffekt). Acting was, to some extent, exaggerated so that identification could not be possible. It relied on stereotypes which were also a great part of the comic tone of the production.28

27 “How Do You Make Social Change?” in Theater 31, no. 3 (Fall 2001): 63. 28 Alice Clapie, “Poetry, Politics and Popcorn: Angels in America at

the National Theatre,” Miranda 15, 2017. https://journals.openedition.org/miranda/ 11084. Kushner, in his interview about Brecht, defines the actor’s “gestus” as “finding the visual motif that will help to string ideas together for an audience.” See Tony Kushner in Conversation, “I Always Go Back to Brecht,” 111.

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Kushner’s play achieved worldwide success and managed to address the AIDS crisis, homophobia, anti-communism, Reaganite conservatism, and the ongoing climate crisis, among other pressing issues. Kushner comments: If you’re telling a story it has to be full of all the twists and turns and crannies that people’s stories are full of. If you’re really committed, and you want badly to see the world change, because you believe it’s very screwed up right now and people are in great danger, and you’re engaged in the struggle in your own life, you can trust more that it will come across in your writing.29

In the United States, Anna Deavere Smith has been one of the most preeminent playwrights to explore the idea of the dialogical. In her oneperson performances she impersonates dozens of people whom she has interviewed in order to juxtapose their different opinions, leaving the audience to draw its own conclusions (though guided by her choices). Prominent examples have been the 1992 “Fires in the Mirror” (dealing with the clashes in Crown Heights [Brooklyn] between the Hasidic and African-American communities) and the 1993 “Twilight Los Angeles, 1992” (dramatizing the disturbances in Los Angeles after the acquittal of the police officers who beat up Rodney King). As critic Anthony Jackson writes, “the dialogic can be (should be) at the heart of any theatre experience that is powerful, moving, and educationally provocative.”30 Recently, Ezra Brain, a spokesperson from the 10-year-old Howlround Theatre Collective in New York, has argued for a recommitment to the kind of political theatre advocated by Brecht and Boal: “The nature of political theatre is to be disruptive […] I want visions of liberation for the oppressed and visions of solidarity from the privileged.”31 On the other hand, the Aristotelian theatre of catharsis, which depends on the spectator’s emotional investment in the fate of a character, remains an effective vehicle for expanding audiences’ understanding of the wider

29 Adam Mars-Jones, “Tony Kushner at the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain,” in Tony Kushner in Conversation, 27–28. 30 Anthony Jackson, “The Dialogic and the Aesthetic: Some Reflections on Theatre as a Learning Medium,” Journal of Aesthetic Education 39, no. 4 (Winter 2005): 106. 31 Ezra Brain, “Towards a Marxist Theatre,” Howlround Theatre Commons, April 15, 2021, https://howlround.com/towards-marxist-theatre.

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social world, especially if the hero(ine) is someone not usually cast in a major role.32 In August Wilson’s 10-play Century Cycle, the AfricanAmerican protagonists revisit the twentieth century decade by decade. Wilson has created memorable characters such as Harold Loomis (“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone”), Ma Rainey (“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”), and Cory Maxson (“Fences”).33 Israel’s Motti Lerner, who has worked tirelessly to bring rapprochement and mutual understanding between Israelis and Palestinians, relies on catharsis in order to encourage identification with his characters. He comments on his play “The Admission” (which is discussed in my fourth chapter): I want to believe that the accumulation of plays, of films, of novels, of poems, that deal with the great questions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, can create a meaningful public discourse. I want to believe that this public discourse might possibly influence politicians. Therefore, I want to hope that a play like “The Admission” can at least convince more artists—writers, poets, playwrights, screenwriters—to be more committed to exploring the conflict through their art, and to internalize the idea that they owe it to the people around them, who are the victims of this conflict, the people who are the society that enables them to become the artists they are.34

The experience of reading, performing in, or being a spectator at plays that address social questions can stimulate participants to examine their own positioning within the social, a positioning that involves multiple factors, among them race, class, gender, age, sexual preference, and historical understanding. How do these add up to create our sense of identity, our attitudes, and beliefs? Drama can offer what Kathleen Berry calls a

32 Freddie Rokem usefully widens the concept of catharsis to include “the emotional, intellectual, moral, or even physical energies that may be experienced by spectators while watching a performance or as a result of it.” Rokem, Performing History, 189. 33 For a good summary of August Wilson’s plays, see Regina Naasirah Blackburn, “Erupting Thunder: Race and Class in the 20th Century Plays of August Wilson,” Socialism and Democracy 33 (Winter-Spring 2003): 339–58. https://dev.sd.brechtforum. net/content/erupting-thunder-race-and-class-20th-century-plays-august-wilson. 34 Motti Lerner, “Facing the Trauma of 1948 as a Step Toward Reconciliation,” International Conference: Writing, translating and staging the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Paris VIII University, September 27th 2019 (unpublished talk).

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“ludic dance with ideas and possibilities. […] a safe, experimental haven for reimagining the social world.”35 It should be mentioned that social engagement is the explicit agenda of many theatres across the United States and internationally; a few examples are New York City’s Public Theater, People’s Theater Project, Tectonic Theater Project, Unexpected Theatre, and New York Theatre Workshop; Central Square Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts; Company One and Theater Offensive in Boston; the San Francisco Mime Troupe; Penumbra Theatre in Minneapolis, Vermont’s Bread and Puppet Theater; and Rimini Protokoll in Berlin, Germany.36

35 Kathleen Berry, The Dramatic Arts and Cultural Studies: Acting Against the Grain (NY: Falmer Press, 2000), 41 and 65. 36 The Public Theater Web site states that it is “a civic institution engaging, both

on-stage and off, with some of the most important ideas and social issues of today.” https://publictheater.org/about/About-The-Public/; The People’s Theatre Project is “an ensemble-based theatre to amplify and humanize the immigrant experience in the United States.” https://peoplestheatreproject.org/ptp-company/; Tectonic Theater Project stresses “courage and risk taking, innovation, theatricality, social & political change, and egalitarianism.” https://www.tectonictheaterproject.org/; Unexpected Theatre seeks to “to illuminate the lives and amplify the voices of women in fresh and unexpected ways, to offer a forum for women to share their stories and explore their collective history,” http:// www.unexpectedtheatre.org/about.htm; New York Theatre Workshop “strives to empower artists to make the space for audiences to contend with our pasts, our shared present, and to collectively envision our future.” https://www.nytw.org/accountability/; Central Square Theater “is dedicated to the exploration of social justice, science and sexual politics through theater,” https://www.centralsquaretheater.org/about/; Company One uses “art as a tool to work toward justice,” https://companyone.org/; Theater Offensive seeks “to present liberating art by, for, and about queer and trans people of color that transcends artistic boundaries, celebrates cultural abundance, and dismantles oppression,” https://the theateroffensive.org/; Penumbra Theater “creates professional productions that are artistically excellent, thought-provoking, and relevant and illuminates the human condition through the prism of the African American experience,” https://penumbratheatre.org/ mission/; the San Francisco Mime Troupe “seeks to “to create and produce theater that presents a working-class analysis of the events that shape our society, that exposes social and economic injustice, that demands revolutionary change on behalf of working people,” https://www.sfmt.org/; Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont is known world-wide for its political activism and visual presence in anti-war and pro-democracy demonstrations, https://breadandpuppet.org/about-b-ps-50-year-history; Rimini Protokoll ) “has expanded the means of the theatre to create new perspectives on reality,” https://www. rimini-protokoll.de/website/en/about.

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Theatre in the University and Beyond “Children of Drancy” grew out of an Advanced Learning Community experience at Northeastern University in 2006-7 which involved a consideration of the German Occupation of France 1940-44 and the activities of the French collaborationist government and French police in the arrest, deportation, and murder of Jewish men, women, and children. The Learning Community linked four different courses in the Department of Theatre, the Honors Program, the Program in Cinema Studies, and the Department of Modern Languages, and also enjoyed collaboration with the Program in Jewish Studies. These collaborations culminated in several performances of the play and post-performance “talk-backs” with audiences. The project thus combined research-based performance with performance-based research, two emergent approaches to participatory learning that are gaining ground in the academy. In Staging Modernist Lives (2017) Sasha Colby, who has been instrumental in advancing these approaches, comments “Theatre is good at showing people, events, and situations. It has power. It allows for the possibility of simultaneous collective experience. Drama provides a physical, visceral complement to the textual. It is an intimate modality, cultivating knowledge through a detailed investigation of the personal.”37 As an example, Northeastern University Professor of Theatre and director Nancy Kindelan devised a set that appeared to open up into an imaginary museum displaying enlarged drawings of the French Drancy camp by the artist Georges Horan, photographs of the victimized children, and reproductions of artifacts from the camp. Ladders represented the various staircases in the housing complex where the camp was located, including the staircase along which deportees were lined up on their way to the trains that would convey them to their deaths at Auschwitz. A model of the boxcar was based on the actual boxcar that is still on display at the site today. The play complemented students’ own classroom readings and papers. They researched the history of the Shoah in France, and the French reluctance after the war to acknowledge the role that the collaborationist Vichy government and the French police had played in the arrests and deportations—a reluctance that continued to fuel antisemitism in France even after 1945. In the groundbreaking 37 Sasha Colby, Staging Modernist Lives (Montreal: McGill-Queens Univ. Press, 2017),

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work she subsequently published, Artistic Literacy: Theatre Studies and Contemporary Liberal Education, Kindelan comments: Critical inquiry, open discussion, and collaborative problem-solving occur through the production of plays, and students have opportunities to engage both in traditional as well as in creative research methodologies […] Such was the case in the Drancy project as the student actors, designers, and members of the production team began their creative process by building on the faculty’s traditional as well as more creative research.38

The practice of linking theatre performance with textual studies in the humanities has since been developed at the Mellon School of Theater and Performance Research at Harvard University and the Yale World Performance Project. Educators are talking more and more about “integrated learning” that pulls resources from many disciplines. In a hallmark statement that appeared from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in the 2005 Peer Review, the co-authors stress that “the capacity for integrative learning—for connection making—has come to be recognized as an important learning outcome in its own right, not simply a hoped-for consequence of the mix of experiences that constitute undergraduate education.”39 I suggest that students in the social sciences fields could also profit from the linkage between performance and scholarship, as exemplified in the essays and plays that follow. In Theatre & Politics, Jen Harvie and Dan Rebellato write: “Over the past fifty years, theater and performance have been deployed as key metaphors and practices with which to rethink gender, economics, war, language, the fine arts, culture and one’s sense of self.”40 Beyond the classroom, there are multiple opportunities to explore, through theatre, Brecht’s idea of “raising questions without knowing the answers.”

38 Nancy Kindelan, Artistic Literacy: Theatre Studies and a Contemporary Liberal Education (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 131. 39 Mary Taylor Huber, Pat Hutchings, and Richard Gale, “Integrative Learning for Liberal Education,” Peer Review 7, no. 4 (2005): 5. 40 Jen Harvie and Dan Rebellato, “Series Editors’ Preface,” Theatre and Globalization, ed. in Dan Rebellato (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2009), vii.

CHAPTER 2

Staging the Shoah: The Persecution of Jews in France Under German Occupation

Many people still do not know about the French concentration camp of Drancy outside Paris, which was the gathering point during the German Occupation of France for the deportation of Jewish children, women, and men from 1942 to the end of the war. After France’s defeat in 1940, German forces occupied the north and west of the county, while a collaborationist government headed by the World War I war hero, Maréchal Philippe Pétain, was established in the south. The two regions were referred to, respectively, as the “zone occupée” (occupied zone) and the “zone libre” (free zone). In fact, however, there was close collaboration between the two zones. The occupied zone had Paris as its capital, while the French State (no longer called a Republic) had its main administrative offices in the town of Vichy. On October 3, 1940, the Vichy government passed The Statute on Jews which excluded Jews from the administration, the armed forces, entertainment, arts, media, and certain professions, such as teaching, law, and medicine. On July 16–17, 1942, Germany had ordered the roundup of adult Jews in the occupied zone. René Bousquet, secretary general to the Vichy regime police, met in Paris with the German authorities to organize the roundup while the Vichy government extended the order to include children under the age of 16. At the camp in Pithiviers in north-central France, parents were separated from their children, since the German forces had made no provision for the arrest of children. In the end, © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Hedges, Staging History from the Shoah to Palestine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84009-9_2

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Image 2.1 The Drancy apartment complex (location of the WWII concentration camp outside Paris) (Photograph by the author, 2007)

whole busloads of children arrived at Drancy without their parents or any adult supervision. Many had forgotten their last names. Some of those who escaped the first roundup tried to flee to the “free zone” where they had to go into hiding. Both in the occupied and “free” zones, there were heroes who helped the persecuted, endangering their own lives. Despite this, most of the nearly 76,000 detainees died in the camps or in deportation.1 The town of Drancy now has a museum and memorial to its tragic past, across from the apartment complex (Image 2.1) which had been 1 See Julian Jackson, France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944 (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press,

2001), 362: “A total of 75,721 Jews were deported from France if one includes those from the Nord/Pas de Calais, which was attached to Belgium, and those deported individually as resisters. About another 4,000 Jews died in French camps or were executed in France. This gives about 80,000 victims of the Holocaust in France—of whom about 3.5 per cent (2,500) returned alive.”

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converted into a concentration camp. For many years after the war, however, France refused to acknowledge the role of the French police and Vichy authorities in the roundup and murder of its own Jewish citizens as well as of Jews who had fled from other countries to France for safety. In part this was due to the myth, perpetrated by Charles De Gaulle (who became president in 1958) to the effect that all of France had resisted the Germans. This became known as the myth of “résistancialisme” (resistentialism). De Gaulle’s famous speech upon marching into liberated Paris is a succinct expression of this myth: “Paris assaulted, Paris battered, Paris martyred—but Paris liberated, liberated by itself , liberated by its citizens with the assistance of the French armies, with the support and assistance of all of France.”2 Very few of the arrested and deported Jews survived. Hundreds of thousands of homecoming prisoners of war or men who had “volunteered” to work in Germany under the STO (“service de travail obligatoire” or “obligatory work service”) were welcomed back, to the great relief of their families and friends. Among the returnees, the number of Jewish survivors of the camps was minuscule, and their remembered experiences far more traumatic. Amid the general euphoria, their voices went mostly unheard and ignored. Out of the silence, two powerful women’s voices emerged. Liliane Atlan was 8 years old in 1940 and living in Montpellier in southwestern France. Born Liliane Cohen to a Jewish emigree father to France from Greece and a French mother, she was in hiding during the war years with her sister in the Auvergne region in central France. Her parents survived, but her mother’s entire family perished in deportation. Atlan’s family later adopted an Auschwitz survivor, Bernard Kuhl, who told the young girl about the death camps. His accounts, and her fixation on the fate of her mother’s family, became so traumatic to her that she became anorexic as an adolescent. Reclaiming her Jewish heritage and memorializing the Shoah became her lifelong project as a dramatist. In her plays she especially privileges the perspective of children. Charlotte Delbo, born in 1913, was a Resistance fighter who was arrested in 1942 along with her husband, Georges Dudach. Dudach was executed by firing squad and Delbo was sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Her 2 “Paris brisé, Paris martyrisé, mais Paris liberé, liberé par lui-même, liberé par son people avec le concours des armées de la France, avec l’appui et le concours de la France toute entière”.

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plays and other writings stress the importance of surviving to bear witness about the Shoah. A third witness to the Shoah in France is Armand Gatti, the son of Italian immigrants to Monaco. He joined the resistance at 17, was caught and sent to forced labor in Germany. He later became a prolific author of plays that focus on political subjects as well as his own concentration camp experiences.

Bearing Witness: Charlotte Delbo Upon her arrest, Charlotte Delbo was sent to the women’s camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau where she was interned for two years before being sent on to Ravensbrück. Delbo set herself the task of bearing witness to the atrocities of the camps. In Convoy to Auschwitz: Women of the French Resistance, she engaged several other survivors to research the biographies of the 230 Frenchwomen, mostly non-Jewish, who were deported with her from Compiègne to Auschwitz-Birkenau on January 24, 1943. After six months, only a quarter of them had survived.3 Most died from exposure to the cold (which brought on pneumonia), from beatings, from typhus and dysentery, or from exhaustion due to the hard outdoor work that involved “hauling bricks or sand, felling trees, pushing heavy handcarts.”4 Delbo and her French companions were later moved to a section reserved to non-Jews, a circumstance that she credits with saving her life: If our convoy had so many survivors…this was because we already knew each other…and had formed small, tightly knit units within a large, homogenous group, helping each other in all sorts of ways, often quite small: holding each other’s arms while walking, rubbing each other’s backs during roll call…Speech was self-defense, comfort, hope. By talking about who we were before, about our lives, we perpetuated the time before, we maintained our reality. Each of the survivors knows that without the others, she would not have returned.5

3 John Felstiner, “Introduction,” in Charlotte Delbo, Convoy to Auschwitz: Women of the French Resistance, trans. Carol Cosman (Boston: Northeastern Univ. Press 1997), xi-xii. 4 Delbo, Convoy to Auschwitz, 8. 5 Ibid., 9.

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Delbo’s play, “Qui rapportera ces paroles?” (“Who will carry these words?”), is about survival in the most inhuman conditions imaginable. It is a play that enacts Delbo’s own determination to bear witness. It was first performed in 1974 and later broadcast on the TV station France Culture in 1975. The play is set in Birkenau in the winter and spring of 1943, a time that corresponds with Delbo’s own imprisonment there. The women talk about the past, about their chances of survival, about the deaths that happen to members of their group. Talking is a part of surviving, of remembering who they were and who they are. In the first act, Françoise (one of only two survivors at the end of the play) is dissuaded from committing suicide; Claire, another deportee, argues that she has a duty to bear witness, if she should happen to survive. She tells Françoise that all their sufferings will have counted for nothing unless there is one person to return and speak of them: “None of us is alone; each of us owes a reckoning to all the others.”6 In another scene, there is a roll call. The 23 women, their heads shaved and covered with gray dust, wearing simple tunics in the snow and sub-zero weather, are forced to stand for roll call from 3 a.m. to sunrise when they are marched off to do hard labor. The presence of the SS officers is suggested by the reactions of the actors, who freeze and line up rigidly whenever the authorities pass by, looking for any weakness that will make one of them unsuitable for work and hence condemned to die. The women help one another, giving support to this one and concealing the illness of that one, holding the group together for yet one more day. During this ordeal, Claire breaks ranks and runs to defend a woman who is being beaten by a guard. The guard then turns on Claire and beats her to death. In the second act, the different ways of perishing in Birkenau are witnessed and commented on by the surviving women. Those sick or unable to work are sent to a part of the camp from which they rarely return. The women watch as the dead are carried out in the morning to the morgue. They talk about their families; one of the younger women worries that her father will not forgive her for her sister’s death in the camp. Others remember their husbands who were also resistance fighters 6 Charlotte Delbo, “Qui rapportera ces paroles,” in Qui rapportera ces paroles?: et autres écrits inédits. Paris: Fayard, 2013, 17. For an English translation of the play, see Robert Skloot, ed., The Theatre of the Holocaust (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 271–325.

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but were shot rather than being deported (like Delbo’s own husband Georges Dudach). One of the prisoners, Agnes, tells another that she is lucky that her mother is not with her in the camp: It would be so much worse if you could see your mother, if she were here, with you. Look at Helen, who is with her mother. Each suffers doubly, for herself and for the other. For the mother, it’s even worse because a mother always thinks that she can protect her child. And here, she can do nothing. She sees her child beaten and she has to lower her head. And for the daughter! To see her mother naked, tattooed, shaved, dirty.7

By the third act, there are only three survivors: Françoise, Gina, and Denise, a schoolgirl. Gina is selected for the children’s ward and realizes that her duty will be to prepare them for execution. She chooses to die rather than do this, and runs toward the barbed wire fence. Predictably, the guards shoot her dead. Françoise and Denise are left alone on stage and face the audience, explaining that words like “cold, thirst, hunger, exhaustion, fear, life, death” had a different meaning in Birkenau; the suffering is beyond what can be conveyed in words.8 The critic Colette Godard remarked, “On stage, they are twenty-three, pressed against each other, who speak as they would speak today if they had survived; who calmly describe how they prolonged their existence from minute to minute, how they clung to a mythical past; who portray their fear of an unlikely future. At the end, they are two, who address the spectators in the present […] The play does not cry out. It oscillates between reflection and the recalling of everyday dramas, moving between two times, two moments of telling. Everything is contained in the words, even the knowledge that words cannot make anything known. The words draw their power from this admission of impossibility.”9 At the end, the play doubles back to Françoise’s opening poem: Because I returned from where no one returns You think I know things And you gather around me Heavy with questions

7 Delbo, “Qui rapportera ces paroles,” 45. 8 Ibid., 66. 9 Colette Godard, “Qui rapportera ces paroles,” Le Monde, March 20, 1974.

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Questions you can’t put into words, You think I know the answers, I only know what is self-evident Life Death Truth. I have returned from truth. Back there everything was true Everything was true with a mortal truth Clear, cutting, without shadow or measure, Pure cruelty, pure horror.10

Delbo’s plays are remarkable in that they lift the veil of silence around the experience of those arrested and detained in concentration camps, and do so two decades before any official acknowledgment by the French government. Nicole Thatcher comments on Delbo’s writings about the war: Delbo’s contribution to the official and cultural memoirs is particularly striking in view of the period during which her writings are published; she testifies to a remarkable independence of mind. Her representations do not follow the national model in reconstructing the war past; they emphasize not the military struggle but the violence suffered by the civilian population, particularly by women and children. Breaking with cultural myths, they locate courage not in combat but in the suffering endured and in death; they shed light on the roles and experiences of women in war; finally, they recall the Jewish genocide as a distinct fact among the horrors of deportation.11

Armand Gatti and “Concentration Camp Culture” Like Delbo, Armand Gatti, the son of Italian immigrants to the tiny principality of Monaco, was imprisoned for resistance activities, which he began at the age of 17. At 18 he was arrested and sent to a labor camp in Germany where he had to work underwater in a diving bell, constructing underwater submarine shelters in the port of Hamburg. 10 Delbo, “Qui rapportera ces paroles,”12. 11 Nicole Thatcher, “La Mémoire de la Deuxième Guerre mondiale en France et la

voix contestataire de Charlotte Delbo,” French Forum 26 no.2 (spring 2001): 108–109.

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From there, he managed to escape back to the same French maquis (resistance group) where he had previously served. There he assisted parachuted missions from England and eventually joined the French unit of the 4th SAS division.12 After the war, he found employment as a journalist and traveled to South America, China, and Siberia, collaborating in one instance with renowned documentary filmmaker Chris Marker on “Letter from Siberia.” In 1955, he visited the former concentration camp of Mauthausen in Austria, and found several survivors living there because they had nowhere else to go. This encounter revived his own traumatic memories of the labor camp and ultimately led to his abandonment of journalism in favor of politically engaged theatre. Jean Vilar, director of the Théâtre National Populaire and founder of the Avignon theatre festival, directed his first play, “Le crapaud-buffle” (The Buffalo Toad) which satirizes an imaginary Central American dictatorship. Gatti went on to write and direct plays about the Shoah, about Vietnam, about the fascist Spanish dictator General Franco, about the Sacco and Vanzetti executions in the United States, on the liberation struggles of Che Guevara, on the civil rights activist Rosa Parks, on the events of May’68 in Paris, and on the Irish Republican struggles, among other political topics.13 Gatti describes his theatre as “théâtre éclaté” or “exploded theatre.” His characters shift between different spatial and temporal frames, and even identities. Aesthetically he is closest to the surrealists whom he encountered in Paris after the war. Another influence was the Chinese theatre, in which space/time is often fluid. His approach is uniquely suited to the unhinged realities of the concentration camp, a topic he treated in five major plays: “L’enfant rat” (“The Rat Child,” 1960); “Chroniques d’un planète provisoire” (“Chronicles of a Provisional Planet,” 1962); “La Deuxième existence du camp de Tatenberg” (The Second Existence of the Tatenberg Camp,” 1962); “Les 7 possibilités du train 713 en partance d’Auschwitz” (“Train 713,” 1987); and “Le Chant d’amour des alphabets d’Auschwitz” (“The Love Song of the Alphabets of Auschwitz,” 1989).

12 Dorothy Knowles, Armand Gatti in the theatre: Wild Duck against the Wind (London: Athlone Press, 1989), 6. 13 Joseph Long, “Introduction,” in Armand Gatti: Three Plays (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 9–17.

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Gatti’s Shoah plays are characterized by “black humor,” an aesthetic principle advocated by the surrealists. The surrealist painter Max Ernst once wrote that the quantity of black humor in a work of art is in inverse proportion to the possibilities for human happiness.14 In “The Rat Child,” survivors and former administrators of a concentration camp spar over their memory of past cruelties. Each character is identified by numbers, as in a camp, as well as by their names. The narrative frame takes place in a circus, while the different episodes are titled after passages from the Old Testament. In the end, one of the women gives birth to a rat, described as the only kind of child that is likely to survive in today’s world. In another play, “Chronicles of a Provisional Planet,” astronauts from earth travel to another planet where Hitler and his cronies from the Third Reich are still wreaking havoc. In this play, Gatti presents several reallife episodes from the Holocaust, such as Himmler’s (rejected) proposal in 1944 to exchange a million Hungarian Jews for 10,000 Allied army trucks for the Reich’s campaign in Russia. The astronauts eventually set up a tribunal similar to the Nuremberg trials. The extra-terrestrial setting is intended to revive the experience of the Holocaust for a generation that might otherwise just dismiss it as past history.15 In “Tatenberg,” Gatti was inspired by his discovery that some former inmates of the Mauthausen camp in Austria who had nowhere to go after 1945 continued to squat near the former site of their incarceration as late as 1955. The play is partly set next to the façade of a fake railway station that had been built during the war to trick the deportees. The squatters are reduced to eking out an existence as fairground attractions in various towns along the Danube, eventually reaching Vienna. In addition to the former camp inmates, Gatti’s play includes Hildegard Frölick, the widow of a German soldier shot for desertion in the steppes of Russia. She has set up a puppet theatre where she regularly reenacts the execution of her husband and two of his comrades-in-arms. Other characters include Manuel Rodriguez, a Spanish Republican fighter; Ilya Moïssevich, a Jew from the Balkans; the Ukranian boxer and former inmate Grigori Kravchenko; Abel Antokokoletz, a Jew from Cracov and former Kapo (an inmate charged with overseeing the other prisoners and often making life and death decisions); Guinguin, a child who masquerades as a robot, and the child’s mother, Solange Valette, who has lost her other two children 14 André Breton, Anthologie de l’humour noir (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1966), 17. 15 For an extensive summary of “Chronicles of a Provisional Planet,” see Knowles,

Armand Gatti in the theatre, 78–89.

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through deportation. The characters quarrel and spar, moving between the past and the present, realizing that they can never escape “the concentration camp in their minds,” which has become their point of reference and their universe. Despite this, there are moments of hope and optimism. Near the end of the play, Moïssevich and a musical robot recite the “Ballad of the Everyday Challenge”: THE ROBOT: Moïssevich bore on his shoulders The horror of his age (his forty years or the century) like a patched-up jacket, gone beyond use that evening; along the edge of a waterway old as the world he had felt a stir in his heart. Yes. MOÏSSEVICH: (I had seen that the leaves were smiling.) THE ROBOT: The wild potato blossom spoke. The fresh blood of the earth Was rising beneath the tree-bark. Every look in Hildegard’s eyes Was saying: the man I am waiting for will come Along that line of water old as the world. He will cry: “Beware of the foxes, The foxes that ravage the vine.” The wild vines were in bloom. MOÏSSEVICH: I had come to understand along the edge of the waterway old as the world that in spite of Tatenberg the leaves had always smiled. They were smiling still.16

After the play’s premiere in Lyon in 1962, a critic in Le Monde praised it as Gatti’s most accomplished work to date, commenting “‘The Second Existence of Tatenberg Camp’ leaves us with the flavor of a polished work: the

16 Armand Gatti, “The Second Life of Tatenberg Camp,” in Armand Gatti: Three Plays, trans. Joseph Long, 80.

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beauty of the language, the careful placement of all the dramatic elements, the firm design of the characters.”17 Unlike Delbo, who sought to preserve the memory of individual women victims in her book Convoy to Auschwitz, and whose play sharply delineates individual characters and their personal issues, Gatti often groups his characters by nationality, age, and type. His play “Train 713” is populated by blind Auschwitz survivors who are unable to find a home, and who traverse Europe in their desperate search for a country that will take them in: Spanish Republican fighters who can’t go back to Spain, gypsies who are not welcome anywhere, Jews (“people of the book”) who view each of the train cars as one letter of an alphabet strung together in a futile search for meaning. The train engineer’s only goal is to keep his train running even if it’s on a trip to nowhere. Gatti’s translator Teresa Meadows Jillson describes how the playwright, who in the 1960s was the most performed French language author, nearly disappeared from the public stage once he began to write these difficult, lengthy, philosophically oriented plays: Gatti’s theater had become largely invisible…because it began to speak not only of, but also through people rendered invisible and speechless by History (with a capital H) and contemporary society. Its political struggle is defined within historical and social patterns of exclusion, marginality and alienation, attempting to give critical and poetic voice to marginal groups and to their equally marginalized histories.18

Gatti’s 1989 Shoah play, “Le Chant d’amour des alphabets d’Auschwitz” (“The Love Song of the Auschwitz Alphabets”) addresses the incommunicability of the concentration camp experience, “a meeting of alphabets in search of the reason for the defeat of the Name, and the vagaries of the Word in the swamps of Auschwitz I, II, and III.” A prefatory note from the author remarks that the very word “Auschwitz”

17 Robert Butheau, “La plus achevée des pièces d’Armand Gatti ‘La Deuxième existence du camp de Tatenberg’ a été créée à Lyon,” Le Monde, April 17, 1962. https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1962/04/18/la-plus-achevee-des-pieces-d-arm and-gatti-la-deuxieme-existence-du-camp-de-tatenberg-a-ete-creee-a-lyon_3135563_181 9218.html. 18 Teresa Meadows Jillson, “Introduction,” in Gatti: Three Plays, 20.

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suggests the span of the alphabet from A to Z.19 In lieu of characters, the play presents ten “Alphabets,” each representing an author and survivor.20 For the performances, Gatti created an immersive theatre marathon in which the audience was required to move around the city for the various scenes. The performance lasted ten hours (with a short break for refreshment). The first scene was performed at a school in Drancy, near the location of the former concentration camp. The audience then had to move to other locations: a museum, a psychiatric hospital, two libraries, and the University of Paris VIII.21 In 1993 Gatti performed an expanded version of the play in Marseille, “Adam quoi?” (Adam who?) which ran over two days. The play called attention to the arrest of 804 Jews living in Marseille and their deportation to the death camp in Sobibor, Poland, in 1943.22 For this performance, Gatti recruited 100 actors and musicians, among them several homeless people and unemployed juveniles living on the margins of society. He asked the cast members to collect objects that they could associate with the more than 800 deportees. As an accompaniment to the play, the objects were placed in an exhibition hall: broken mirrors, faded photographs, keys. A mailbox for each of the deportees was nailed to the columns in the hall, along with a display of correspondence addressed to each of the victims. The letters had been sent through the French post office and returned to the sender, an operation intended to emphasize the fate of the victims. The exhibition also featured a map of Marseille, highlighting the train station from which the deportees were sent to Sobibor. After this exercise, the cast was asked to use their bodies to find equivalents for the words of the play, creating physical ideograms inspired by martial arts, what Gatti called “a fusion of 19 Armand Gatti, Le Chant d’amour des alphabets d’Auschwitz (Lagrasse: Editions

Verdier, 1992), 12. 20 Dorothy Knowles suggests that the “Alphabet of Hope” represents the philosopher Ernst Bloch, author of the multivolume work “The Principle of Hope,” who was able to escape to the United States during the war, while the “Alphabet of the Question” represents survivor Primo Levi, author of “Si c’est un homme” (“If This is a Man.”) See “The Silence of the 1059 Days of Auschwitz,” in Staging the Holocaust: The Shoah in Drama and Performance, ed. Claude Schumacher (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 207. 21 Knowles, Armand Gatti in the Theatre, 208. 22 Ibid., 209; and Claude Faber, Armand Gatti, La poésie de l’étoile: paroles, textes

et parcours (Paris: Decartes et Cie, 1998), 249. Knowles attended both marathons and provides a fascinating account of them, 203–215.

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the Kabbalah and the Tao.” An enthusiastic critic remarked: “Names are fused together, Biblical references, anecdotes…one can only listen with fascination.”23 Critic Robert Butheau comments that Gatti’s theater constitutes a “refusal of a psychological theater, a refusal of a theater of action and characters, a refusal to create an illusion that opens to a poetic process of knowledge, in the mutations of character-words, characterconcepts, character-particles. If Gatti’s work resembles any theater, it is that of medieval mystery plays.”24 One might also say that Gatti and Liliane Atlan (who is discussed in the next section) were pioneers in the immersive, experiential theatre that has informed much of experimental twenty-first-century theatre practice, as seen in the documentary theatre of the Berlin group Rimini Protokoll.25

Liliane Atlan and the “Theatre of Cruelty” In her Holocaust plays, Atlan projects a theatrical situation that seeks to create empathy in the audience for the shattering experience of the Shoah. Her characters seamlessly integrate Jewish ritual and history in their attempt to make sense of their tragic destinies. At the same time, they reenact violent and often grotesque imagery that recalls the 1938 theatrical manifesto of Antonin Artaud, The Theater and its Double. In his manifesto, Artaud correctly presaged a world that was about to erupt in a conflagration. He proposed a “theatre of cruelty” that would 23 “L’été festival Marseille Gatti, L’Anar de Dieu, une centaine de stagiares, chômeurs, acteurs, musiciens évoquent la rafle de huit cents juifs à Marseille en 1943,” Le Monde (anonymous), July 15, 1993. https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1993/07/15/lete-festival-marseille-gatti-l-anar-de-dieu-une-centaine-de-stagiaires-chomeurs-acteurs-mus iciens-evoquent-la-rafle-de-huit-cents-juifs-a-marseille-en-1943_3951743_1819218.html. 24 Robert Butheau, Le Monde, April 17, 1962. 25 Dorothy Knowles reports that “L’enfant rat” was first staged in Vienna in 1961, and

later in Montreal. “La Deuxième existence du camp de Tatenberg” was staged in Lyon in April 1962; in Strasbourg at the Institute of Theatrical Research at Strasbourg University in 1967; and was broadcast by France Culture in 1971. Subsequent performances were in Essen, Germany (1965) and Bradford, England (1967). “Chroniques d’un planète provisoire” was performed in Toulouse in 1963 and again in 1967 (in the second reprise, Gatti directed the play himself), while “Les 7 possibilités du train 713 en partance d’Auschwitz” was performed in English translation as “Train 713” at the University of Rochester in 1988. See Knowles, 73, 78–79, 288. In Gatti: Three Plays, Teresa Meadows Jillson also mentions performances in Toulouse and Vienna.

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have a cathartic and cleansing effect on its audience. By the enactment of (simulated) violence, disrupted language and assaults on the senses though sound and lights, the audience would be “cured” of the ills of the time. He writes about “breaking language apart in order to attain to life.”26 In one of his essays, “The theatre and the plague,” he argues that theatre can externalize and expose the sickness of an era and thus help to purify it: “It seems that the plague collectively empties out a gigantic moral as well as social abscess; like the plague, the theatre is made for the collective emptying out of abscesses.”27 Artaud’s “theatre of cruelty” is meant as a warning: “We are not free. And the sky can still fall on our heads. The theatre is there to tell us about that.”28 To this end, he writes “I propose a theatre in which violent physical images grind and hypnotize the sensibility of the spectator trapped in the theatre as in a vortex of superior forces.”29 Artaud’s visionary writings can help to explain the extreme situation that Atlan portrays in her best-known play, the 1967 “M. Fugue ou le mal de terre” (“Mister Fugue or Earthsick”). A band of four child ghetto survivors (who also carry a doll with them that represents the dead fouryear-old girl Tamar) is captured after the destruction of a Jewish ghetto by German soldiers and thrown into a truck that will take them to their deaths in a concentration camp. These are not children as we have ever seen them portrayed. Hardened by persecution and the horrors they have witnessed, they are wise to the cruelty of the world. Toward the adults they deploy sarcasm, even toward the lone German soldier Grol (Mister Fugue) who decides to join them in the back of the truck and share their fate (this character is said to be based on Janosh Korczak who voluntarily chose to accompany children to their deaths in Auschwitz—a gesture that was also made by Franz Kafka’s sister Ottla). Among themselves they playact, grotesquely mimicking the behavior of their elders. In their short ride toward death, they pretend to marry, to found a family, to grow old. Even as they enact their escapist fantasies, Christopher, the German officer in charge of the transport, leaves them no peace. He is offended by their

26 Antonin Artaud, Le Théâtre et son double (Paris: Gallimard, 1944  1938),

13. 27 Ibid., 33. 28 Ibid., 85. 29 Ibid., 88.

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laughter and games. When Iona, the most religious of the children, acting as a rabbi, performs an imaginary marriage ceremony between Yossele and Raissa, Christopher stops the truck, commands the child to dig his own grave, and shoots him. The extreme violence perpetrated against children in this play can be understood in light of Artaud’s concept of the theatre of cruelty.30 Atlan’s play exposes the spectator to outrage and pain while avoiding the trap of realistic representation, which must always fall short when attempting to comprehend the Shoah. Grol (Mister Fugue) tries to tell them stories, but at first they reject them. YOSSELE: You sure we couldn’t break down these bars? MISTER FUGUE: They’re watching us, they’d shoot us. YOSSELLE: And later, it’ll be different? MISTER FUGUE: No. Not necessarily. War or no war, at the end they put us in the earth and it’s this earth you can’t escape, whether you die in bed or in a valley! What counts is to have done something before that, whether or not it does any good. Let’s do something. Right here. […] YOSSELE: I wanted to live, for real. MISTER FUGUE: For real, what’s that, for real? Here is all we’ll ever want, right here. ABRACHA: The old people, in the trucks or the trains, I know they bawled or went crazy. MISTER FUGUE: So let’s cry, let’s go crazy. RAISSA: That’s stupid too. MISTER FUGUE: So let’s do nothing. Beat. IONA has moved closer to him, with TAMAR [a doll representing a dead child] RAISSA: Tell us about shame, the black-doll-that-eats-your-heart. MISTER FUGUE: You don’t want to play at living? RAISSA: No.31

30 Atlan talks about the influence of Artaud in Bettina Knapp, Offstage Voices (Troy, NY: Whitston Publishing Co., 1977), 124. 31 Liliane Atlan, “Mister Fugue or Earth Sick,” in Theatre Pieces: An Anthology, trans. Marguerite Feitlowitz (Greenwood, Florida: Penkevill Publishing Company, 1985), 37.

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In the end though, the children do mimic marriage and old age, running through an imaginary life course in their few remaining hours. As the truck lurches through the mud, Mister Fugue tells them about the ocean (which they have never seen) and about seasickness. The children invent the term “earthsick” in its stead, the subtitle of the play. Abracha, imagining his adulthood, laments that he will never finish his opera (a theme that reappears in Atlan’s later work, “An Opera for Terezin”), Yossele acts out an incurable cancer, while Abracha taunts Yossele and Raissa about their disintegrating “marriage.” When the children are ordered out of the truck at their final destination at the “Valley of Bones,” Yossele comments, “It wasn’t so great, living.” The officer Christopher now tries a final trick: he tells Grol that he will let Abracha and Raissa live if Grol acts like a dog. The desperate Grol complies but the children are wise to the ways of the world now. Shuffling to the truck as though very old, they collect Grol and go to their fate. In the end, their imagination triumphs over the German soldiers’ attempts to control and terrify them—they have removed themselves from a world whose terms they neither acknowledge nor accept. There is humor as well, but it is of the dark kind, the kind exhibited by Goya’s grotesque imagery in his caricatures or in his “Black Paintings” (for instance the image of Saturn devouring his son). The children play at the triage prevalent in concentration camps, where being sent to the left or the right can mean instant death. Their games are full of arbitrary violence: RAISSA: Look, there’s a big city with trains and lots of lights. Lots of noise, Iona, you’re the train. Mister Fugue you’ll be the garbage can. Abracha, you’re the sea, make sea sounds. ABRACHA: In a city? RAISSA: Idiot! It’s a port! Yossele, you don’t exist, you’re ugly. Tamar, you’re the cat, go meow. Got it? Good. I need a rope. Well, all right, Yossele, be the rope. Ok, so the cat and me, we’re digging through the garbage, picking out things we can eat. I’m the owl, the bat the hyena and God in heaven, it’s all the same, I’m digging through the garbage. A banana skin. I pull it out, prowl around with it and come back, I’m digging through the garbage. YOSSELE: If you hurt Mister Fugue, I’ll scratch out your eyes. RAISSA: Go ahead, let’s see if you can (They fight).

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RAISSA: You’re not smart, Yossele. Just a frayed rope. I’ll put a match to it. That way, human beings, you won’t be able to call me by tugging on it. And if you do tug on it you’ll burn.32

Grol, the soldier who decides to share the fate of the children, tells them his village nicknamed him “Fugue” because he was always leaving his village to get away from all the dirt. At the same time, the play might be compared to a musical fugue, with the four children’s voices playing out each successive theme, punctuated by their harsh laughter (characterized as “barking”) or chanting. On the occasion of the play’s performance in 1971 at the Théâtre Populaire Jurassien, critic Colette Godard remarked, “The play avoids the easy pathos attached to children’s suffering. Liliane Atlan does not show resigned, helpless victims, but strong characters who want to live in spite of everything […] the show remains powerful through the emotions it portrays and its message of life.”33 Music plays an even greater role in Atlan’s most ambitious project, the 1989 “An Opera for Terezin,” a multi-layered epic intended to last from sundown to sunrise.34 Based on the Jewish Seder, the traditional Passover meal and ritual in which families and communities get together to recall the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, the opera focuses instead on the death and destruction of the thousands of artists, musicians, and writers who perished in the Terezin (Theresienstadt) transition camp or in deportation from Terezin to Auschwitz. The opera is intended as a multimedia event involving the participation of people across the globe through Internet and streaming projections—a production that would be more feasible today than it was in 1989. All the same, on July 22, 1989, France Culture staged an open space radio performance in Montpellier that lasted from sundown to sunrise. Here again, the frame is provided by children. Set in time three million years from now, four children—Amandine, Socratine, Romarin, and En Trop (“One Too Many”) discover the ancient manuscript of an opera in 32 Ibid., 47–48. 33 Colette Godard, “‘Monsieur Fugue’ de Liliane Atlan,” Le Monde, October 4,

1971. https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1971/10/04/monsieur-fugue-de-lilianeatlan_2472539_1819218.html. 34 Liliane Atlan, “Un opéra pour Terezin,” L’Avant-Scène du Théâtre, 1007/1008 (1997), 1–147.

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a vault unsealed by a recent earthquake. The opera purports to commemorate the death and destruction of thousands of people at Terezin and is said to have been re-enacted every year in the spring. Miraculously, despite its prehistoric provenance, it’s in a language that can still be read. It is accompanied by films, cassettes, and other forms of storage that are more difficult to access, though some of the music is eventually decoded and played. The children enlist the help of an adult, Bernard Bouquet, who operates a retro printing press—the printed word is obsolete in this society—and decide to perform the opera. They have to build replicas of violins and pianos to reenact the performance of Verdi’s “Requiem” at Terezin. For the stage set they build a large wagon, pulled by humans, to serve as a hearse. The wagon is based on charcoal drawings by artists who depicted the reality of the camp.35 Like the traditional Jewish Seder, the opera proceeds from the drinking of the first cup to the fourth cup of wine, with recitations, music, and traditional questions by the four kinds of children—the wise child, the naughty child, the simple child, and “the child who does not even know how to question.” These four questioning children parallel the four children from three million years later who interject their comments as they read the discovered manuscript—Socratine the wise one; Amandine the simple one; Romarin the naughty one; and En Trop (“One Too Many”), the one who does not even know how to question (these four children are anticipated by the four children in “Monsieur Fugue”). At each table, there is a “Récitant(e),” a male or female Speaker. As the opera begins, a Speaker explains that in place of the traditional celebration of liberation, the opera commemorates the destruction of the people at Terezin. Here they are not identified as Jews but as “Cyclists” who were forced to wear the symbol of a small yellow wheel on their clothing. The ceremony begins as each participant affixes one of these symbols to their clothes. As the ceremony of the drinking of the first cup concludes, a Speaker comments “To the child who does not even know how to question, you will say: Here is the history of the musicians of Terezin who played until the moment of their death, or almost, who played, their hearts broken but free.” Each Speaker represents a composite of several artists and musicians

35 See Gerald Green, The Artists of Terezin: Illustrations by the Inmates of Terezin (New York: Hawthorn Books, 1978). Such hearses are depicted on pages 58 (drawing by Karel Fleischman), 59 (drawing by Bedrich Fritta) and 61 (drawing by Malvina Schálková).

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who passed through Terezin on their way to death camps or who perished there; their real names are recited at the end of the opera. Each of the four sections, delimited by the drinking of a cup of wine, is divided into “movements” accompanied by music. The drinking of the second cup of wine is accompanied by the singing of Verdi’s “Requiem,” especially the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) section. Other music includes Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” and sections of Smetana’s “Bartered Bride,” passages from Dvoˇrák’s “New World Symphony,” from Mozart’s opera “The Magic Flute,” and from Beethoven’s piano sonata 23 (opus 57), the Appassionata. This second section includes a lullaby: “My child, when you are born/It will be raining, it will be cold/ like all babies you won’t see anything/lucky for you.//You won’t see when I sew/ a black mark on your diapers/ the transport number/ assigned to you at birth.”36 Different “Speakers” recount how they were fired from their jobs as singers, conductors, and musicians because they were Cyclists. The Cyclists are packing their belongings, wondering what to take with them and very much unaware of the real conditions they will have to endure at Terezin. To the audience who knows what awaits them, their frivolous concerns are overlaid with ominous foreboding. Once at Terezin, many of the residents are deported to make room for waves of new arrivals. Children without parents arrive from Bialystock (Lithuania) and are then deported again. Emil, a composer, starts his new opera without hope of ever finishing it. Children enact Brundibár, the opera by Jewish Czech composer Hans Krása that was performed by children at Terezin. While all this is happening, the hearse drawn by the internees travels back and forth with the bodies of the dead. Vaclav, an internee who has escaped from Auschwitz after being deported, returns and tries to warn the others about their eventual fate in deportation37 (in the end, only 5% of Terezin internees survived). This section references the infamous visit of the Red Cross, whom the Germans fooled into thinking that Terezin was a benign Jewish settlement where people enjoyed art, music, and leisurely days sitting in cafés. The play describes how the chorus for the 36 Atlan, “Un opéra pour Terezin,” 37. 37 Atlan (through the chorus) gives the following figures: 200 children were born

in Terezin and all but the last two were put to death. Of 15,000 children only 93 survived. 150,000 passed through Terezin; 33,000 died there and 90,000 were deported to Auschwitz, Sobibor or other death camps. Atlan, “Un opéra pour Terezin,” 85.

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Requiem has to be continually refreshed with new bodies since many are deported. When they arrive, the officials of the Red Cross fail to understand that internees’ special performance of Verdi’s “Requiem” is a cry of despair and an appeal for help.38 The drinking of the third cup moves on to the published testimonials of actual internees of Terezin, and of the very few survivors. The music comprises compositions created in the ghettos and at Terezin, and songs of Auschwitz survivors. Among other testimonials, Atlan includes the last poem written by the French poet Robert Desnos, who died of typhus in Terezin after being transferred from camp to camp. She raises the fraught question of the way the Terezin artists were made to fool the Red Cross, with catastrophic consequences. One of her Speakers says: “While playing and creating music they resisted, but at the same time they unknowingly became the instruments of the fraud that made it possible to carry out the extermination to the very end.”39 Through Vaclav, who has returned from Auschwitz, Atlan also warns that the oppressed can be tempted to become oppressors in turn: “Most of us, to avoid the risk of being exterminated again, have armed ourselves; those who do so pour their genius not into books but into wars, and the logic of war leads them to dominate and to kill.”40 The drinking of the fourth cup is accompanied by projections of the charcoal drawings depicting the conditions of the camp made by three artists, all of whom were tortured and killed by the authorities: Bedrich Fritta, Otto Ungar, and Léo Haas. Traditional music of the Haggadah, the text of the Passover Seder, accompanies this section. The ten plagues of Terezin are recited (recalling the ten plagues of Egypt): “sand, vermin, typhus, flies, killers, hunger, thieving, people, fear, massive death.” Despite this litany of suffering, the singers intone a final chorus: “Musicians played quartets and opera, almost without instruments; they often had to reconstitute their choruses because of deportations; they went to their deaths singing the ‘Requiem’ for themselves […] By creating they awoke the heart’s wisdom, the appetite for life, the capacity

38 Ibid., 79. 39 Ibid., 83. 40 Ibid., 106.

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for love.”41 The participants in a reading or performance of “An Opera for Terezin” are then invited to sing whatever songs they like until sunrise. Atlan conceived of any performance of “An Opera for Terezin” as a “rencontre en étoile,” or star-shaped encounter that would unite celebrants simultaneously in many parts of the world. She comments: The ceremony celebrated by families in their homes begins at sundown. Each person knows that the same rite is being celebrated at the same time by other families, in other places, in other languages. We (the performers) become these musicians at Terezin in the process of composing an Opera for Terezin, despite the fact that the libretto has disappeared. We become these musicians who went to their death singing the Requiem for themselves. We become these musicians who saw their brothers die, and are recounting these moments, including names, numbers, statistics. We infuse these artists—now vanished in smoke throughout the earth— with our breath, once a year, during an entire night, we let truth cry out. Because we are unable to endow those who have vanished in smoke with new life, we bend over their drawings together—their only remains— drawings found after the war in cracks in the wall where the artists had left them. Because we are living their story together, we feel the need to see and speak with each other as if space did not separate us. The interactive image, having become the handmaid of speech, impacts on beings and events, and in time becomes legend.42

Bettina Knapp, who has written eloquently about the work of Atlan, comments “Her oeuvre is an excavation. She digs with knives, pickaxes, and shovels, without sparing herself from the pain which ensues. During this expedition, she rejoices in attaining the heights of mountains and

41 Ibid., 146–147. 42 Liliane Atlan, “Synopsis,” in French Theater since 1968, ed. Bettina Knapp (New

York, NY: Twayne Publishers, 1995), 136.

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skies, as well as the depths, while listening in passing to voices whose richness, musicality and rhythm is at once bewitching, distressing, and shot through with an energy that pushes her to climb back out of the slope of despair and cures her of the sickness of being, this ‘earthsickness’ that afflicts her […] The luminous quality of her works is all the more striking because she plays with shadows.”43 The French newspaper Le Monde commented on “An Opera for Terezin” in 1994: “With this monumental work, Liliane Atlan has managed to ‘say the unspeakable’ about the destruction of the Jews, even while the idea of any artistic transposition seemed unacceptable to her: she conceived it as a ritual that can be celebrated at the same time by families from all over the world.”44 Critics have also remarked on the effect of Atlan’s plays on audiences. Daniel Cohen, writing in 2007, comments “It is rather singular that Atlan’s plays arouse, when the curtain is closed, a collective silence, a profound distress, mingled with stupor and strange joy, soon broken by an almost embarrassed applause.”45

Children of Drancy: A Montage of Voices Charlotte Delbo stresses the burden and responsibility of bearing witness. Her protagonist Françoise in “Who Will Carry the Word” and in another play from 1978, “Les Hommes” (“The Men”) recounts Delbo’s personal experience as an internee who was arrested for Resistance activities and who suffered the loss of her husband, shot in retribution for actions carried out by the Resistance. In her plays she stresses the importance of retaining one’s identity and forming relations of solidarity between prisoners. Armand Gatti, in contrast, explodes the idea of a fixed identity or of any secure moorings in the nightmare world of the concentration camp universe. Victims and victimizers are caught in a surrealist world of 43 Bettina Knapp, Liliane Atlan (Amsterdan: Rodopi, 1988), 8. 44 Le Monde (anonymous), “L’Été festival Avignon 94 parcours dans l’écriture

contemporaine avec Liliane Atlan Les contes cruels,” July 22, 1994. https://www.lem onde.fr/archives/article/1994/07/22/l-ete-festival-avignon-94-parcours-dans-l-ecriturecontemporaine-avec-liliane-atlan-les-contes-cruels_3818364_1819218.html. 45 Daniel Cohen, “Liliane Atlan et les ambiguités d’une reception,” Voix plurielles, 4.1 (May 2007): 3.

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shattered and kaleidoscopic vision, forced to endlessly reenact their roles in many different guises. In his most radical plays, there are no more personalities—only groups of victims or, at the most extreme, contrasting “alphabets” which dramatize the way that the seismic traumas of the Holocaust are, in the end, unspeakable. Here there is no hope of reestablishing a firm ground. Liliane Atlan lies somewhere in between, seeking to exorcise an empathy that threatens to destroy hope by reaching out to community and shared rituals of remembrance. “Children of Drancy” is a montage of the written accounts of survivors, of compassionate witnesses of the Drancy camp outside Paris, and from the hundreds of letters written by children who had been separated from their parents. Against that, I include missives from the German commandants, the Berlin authorities, and the French Vichy collaborators who speak with callous authority, cruelly issuing orders that resulted in the deportations and assassinations of Jewish civilians. The “montage of voices” that became the play “Children of Drancy” constituted itself out of these many sources. The history recounted in the play ineluctably heads toward the vortex of destruction, pulling in luminaries like the theatrical impresario René Blum (younger brother of the former prime minister Léon Blum) and the poet Max Jacob; the quietly heroic Kitty, who refuses to abandon her mother; an eight-year-old boy trying to protect his threeyear-old brother; children who had forgotten their last names; and infants whose mothers had been sent ahead on earlier convoys. The voices in this montage have resonated by being performed in high schools and colleges from Maine to California, and in a Florida synagogue. The first performance was directed by Professor Nancy Kindelan at Northeastern University’s Department of Theatre in 2007 (Image 2.2). The play ends with the last letters of deportees as they leave for an “unknown destination.” We, of course, know what that destination is.

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Image 2.2 Children of Drancy. Still from the 2007 production directed by Nancy Kindelan, The Department of Theatre, Northeastern University (Photograph by permission of Mark Catalano, 2007)

Children of Drancy A Montage of Voices by Inez Hedges

© Inez Hedges 2018 All rights reserved. Library of Congress PAu003505525 Info: Inez Hedges [email protected]

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Summary: Children of Drancy is a montage of voices built up from the testimonials by survivors and compassionate witnesses of the Drancy camp outside Paris where most of the 11,400 children who were deported to Auschwitz and other death camps were interned. Other voices come from reprints of the hundreds of letters written by children who had been separated from their parents. Against these voices, the missives from the German commandants, the Berlin authorities, and the French Vichy collaborators speak with unfeeling authority, cruelly issuing orders that resulted in the deportation and murder of Jewish civilians. VOICES: THE NARRATOR (fortyish) A FRENCH WOMAN sympathetic to the Vichy regime A FRENCH WOMAN critical of the Vichy regime A YOUNG WOMAN A MAN (Drancy internee) A SECOND MAN (Drancy internee) A WOMAN (Drancy internee) A SECOND WOMAN (Drancy internee) A BOY (Drancy internee) A GIRL (Drancy internee) STEINHOF, a Polish Jew (Drancy internee) BERNARD, a French Jew (Drancy internee) MICHAEL, a French Jew (Drancy internee) RENÉ BOUSQUET, Chief of Police under the Vichy collaborationist government S. S. OBERSTURMFÜHRER RÖTHKE MAX JACOB, poet A DOCTOR

Locations: The French concentration camp of Drancy, outside Paris, in 1942; as well as various French locations in 1942; and an indeterminate location in France in 1946 from which the NARRATOR, a Jewish survivor, speaks.

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THE STAGE IS DARK. A solitary light gradually illuminates a man who is off to stage left; during the play, this man will function from time to time as the NARRATOR. THE NARRATOR In January 1945, as the Red Army approached, I was evacuated from Auschwitz. It was then I swore that if I ever managed to get back to France, nothing would stop me from crying out the terrible truth I had learned: I would make it known by every way I could, and I would dedicate myself to the task until my last breath. Such horrors should not remain unknown, or unpunished, or be forgiven, or else other madmen will wreak them again…but suddenly, I was struck by a terrible thought that had never occurred to me before: I won’t be believed, we won’t be believed, they will take us for people who have gone mad because of their traumatic experiences. In fact the truth was and is incredible, unthinkable for a sane and balanced mind. The Nazi period came close to taking all of humanity with it into the darkness. I hold that the only way to dissipate this darkness is to illuminate it with the stark light of truth, without exaggerating anything. Lights down on the NARRATOR; from the other side of the stage, lights illuminate the successive speakers. A MAN and a WOMAN enter from opposite sides. The WOMAN listens to the MAN arriving on the scene with evident indignation.

A MAN Montauban, January 26, 1942. Monsieur le Commissaire, General Commission for Jewish Questions: Your policies concerning Jews are ineffectual. I’m an employee of the railway and every day I see Jews taking the train at Montauban station to go to Toulouse without a permit. Why not demand an identity card before issuing a railway ticket…here the Jew is active in the black market, cheats everyone and threatens to become a menace after the war. Without any unnecessary cruelty, we ask for purification…

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A WOMAN (aristocratic air) Marseille, February 12, 1942: Monsieur le Maréchal, I am an Israelite. In the south of France our families have French ancestors that can be reliably traced to the sixteenth century, as can be shown by the family trees that we have had drawn up…therefore we think we can safely assert that we have always been French…do you not think, Monsieur le Maréchal, that a difference should be made between us, French Israelites, and the foreigners with whom we have nothing in common. It’s normal for you to take measures against all the foreigners, whatever their faith, that we have been too generous in allowing into France. But should we be included with them because we were born into a minority religion? A Second WOMAN Enters

A WOMAN (reading from a newspaper, Le Petit Parisien; her attitude should convey her approval of the article.) July 13, 1942. NOTICE: Jews are forbidden to frequent any public establishment: restaurants, cafés, theatres, cinemas, concerts, all places of entertainment, public phone booths, markets, swimming pools, breaches, museums, libraries, chateaux, sports events, camping grounds, parks. For a long time too many Jews—especially young ones—have been exhibiting in public places their provocative insolence. And, after the regulation concerning the obligatory wearing of the yellow star was passed, one saw too many Jews showing off with ostentatious arrogance the sign that marks their race. The Jews wanted the war, the evil machinations of their race have thrown the entire world into a horrible conflict. These last measures seem benign. RENÉ BOUSQUET, CHIEF OF POLICE UNDER VICHY To the Paris Prefect of Police, July 15, 1942 from René Bousquet, representing the Head of State: As you have been verbally informed, the German authorities have decided to transfer to the territories of the East Jews residing in the Paris region and belonging to the following categories: stateless, German, Austrian, Czechoslovakian, Polish, Russian, refugees from the Sarre…in the interests of humanity, and contrary to the initial German instructions, the Head of State has been able to obtain that

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children, including those younger than 16, will be allowed to accompany their parents… You are urgently requested to put this plan into action. S. S. OBERSTURMFÜHRER ROTHKE (German accent) S. S. Obersturmführer Rothke to S. S. Obersturmführer Lischka, July 18, 1942: The round-up organized against stateless Jews on July 16 and 17 has yielded the following definitive results: 3,031 men; 5,802 women; and 4,051 children. In toto there were 12,884 arrests. It was reported in more than one case that the French police gave advance warning to those whom they were supposed to arrest. We have asked those who passed on this information to give us concrete examples, but so far we have not had a single response. In more than one case the French population expressed its compassion for the arrested Jews and pitied them, especially the children…the Jewish children will not at first be separated from their parents, but transferred with them to the camps of Pithiviers and Beaunela-Rolande. The transport will be taken care of by the French railway company (SNCF) and accomplished by the French police. The representatives of the police have on several occasions expressed their dismay to see the convoys to the Reich include children. Light fades to black. The following letter is read entirely in the dark. There are also sounds of children and, at the end, the sound of a transport bus, very loud at first, then diminishing.

A YOUNG WOMAN Paris, July 18, 1942. Dear uncle, dear aunt and cousins, just a line to let you know that we were taken on Thursday at two-thirty, and conveyed to the bicycle stadium. We are very unhappy. Every instant there more people falling sick, there are pregnant women, blind people…we sleep on the floor. Yesterday there was a distribution of milk for children under ten, a piece of bread and jam, a square of chocolate, a cookie, some pasta. I don’t know whether we can stand it here much longer. Maman is exhausted. THE NARRATOR Pithiviers, August 15, 1942. Today I arrived at Pithiviers…just as I arrived, about one thousand children who had been separated from their parents and about two hundred and fifty mothers who hadn’t been

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deported yet were being sent off to Drancy. It was a terrifying scene and I have to admit my weakness: I couldn’t withhold my tears…the little children were crushed by the weight of their heavy loads. There were cases where the little sisters left for Drancy and their little brothers were left behind, forgotten by the gendarmes. I saw this with my own eyes…3,200 adults went deported in three shifts: the children up to the age of 14 haven’t left, that is to say those from the age of 2 to 14 were left behind in the camp. The fathers, the mothers, the children leave separately, as though one were separating the families on purpose. The three deportations happened on August 2nd, 5th, and 8th…children were torn from their mothers and everything you can imagine on this subject would be inferior to reality. As far as the adult deportees are concerned, you should know that everything was taken from them: they were not allowed to keep even a needle, a razor, a pencil, a ring, or any document whatsoever. Suddenly, the stage is flooded with stark light—a shock effect. We are in the Drancy camp on a bare stage, with the exception of several ladders that represent the staircases of the apartment complex transformed into a concentration camp.

A MAN Is that your little sister? A BOY No. A MAN Who is she? A BOY I don’t know. A BOY Have you had a piece of bread and jam? A BOY No. A MAN Go and get one.

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A BOY I can’t, someone told me to watch the little girl. I promised not to leave her. A MAN Is your mother here? A BOY No, she was deported. A MAN Who are you with? A BOY I don’t know. The stark light fades so as to allow for projections of images of the camp, created by survivors such as Georges Horan

A MAN Upon arrival at Drancy, secretary-internees record your identity, others search you and take your money, knives, pocket knives, cigarette lighters, cigarettes. The new arrivals cross a street and enter the little white door, leaving behind their normal life, their liberty. A WOMAN After being registered, each new arrival is assigned to a room off one of the six staircases. The room leader assigns a bunk bed, although sometimes there are two to a bed. Older people get the lower bunks, the younger ones sleep on top. There are supposed to be 50 persons to a room, but we were 72 and I saw rooms with up to 120 persons; in those cases many of them sleep on a straw mat on the floor. The beds are strewn with suitcases, packages, fur coats, dresses suspended from walls or from the beds on hangers, all kinds of washing hangs from clotheslines, pots and pans are heaped onto rusty garden furniture next to makeup and jars of jam.

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A YOUNGER WOMAN The new arrival, already terrified and overcome by the ambient odors, her throat constricted by the new situation in which she will have to exist and to adjust to, burdened by the cloak of oppression that bears down on her shoulders, stands paralyzed or advances gingerly, like a sheep taken to slaughter. A BOY (writing, then reading what he has written) Drancy, October 31, 1942. Dear Sir, I write to you as a poor Jewish boy. My name is Jacques Finkelstein, I am 12 years old. At the moment I am interned at Drancy. I have to take care of three young children who are my brothers and sisters: Léon, age 11, Marcelle, age 10, and Henri, age 6. Our parents, who are Polish Jews, were deported three months ago, along with my big brother and big sister. I don’t know anyone to whom I can send my coupons so that I can receive packages, so I have placed my last hope in you, as director of the school holiday camp. I beg you to do something for my little sisters and brothers. It tears me apart to refuse them bread, the bread they ask for and that I don’t have. Every day I share my portion with them, but it is not enough, because I have no provisions. Projection of images of children who were Interned at Drancy and subsequently deported and murdered. The boy gets up and exits the stage. On the other side of the stage, a girl of about the same age arrives, and sits in bourgeois comfort (the spectators should be made to understand that she is outside the camp).

A GIRL (writing, then reading what she has written) Monsieur le Maréchal Pétain, I have the honor of explaining to your distinguished self as well as to humanity the circumstances of my misery, my anxiety, and my tears, as follows: I am a poor girl of 12, left alone with a little brother, going to school, docile, obedient, and respectful, and most important of all, I love my country, my dear France. My parents are the same, and my brothers and sisters. Here is the proof:

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A. I have a brother who was killed in battle in the war of l939-40. B. Another brother is at present a prisoner of war in Germany. C. My father was wounded in the war of 1939-40, and lives without a pension. These are all proofs of our patriotism, but through a flagrant error, the police have interned my gentle and brave mother. Made ill by the sufferings of the war, she is presently at Drancy until further notice. It is under these circumstances that I appeal to your kind wisdom, Monsieur le Maréchal, and beg you to intervene, energetically and humanely in favor of my gentle mother, and with the Prefect of Police in order to rectify this error and liberate my mother before she is deported to an unknown destination. The YOUNG GIRL exits the stage. She is replaced by a bourgeois WOMAN, very well dressed.

A WOMAN St. Girons, August 30, 1942. Monsieur le Maréchal, we respectfully request you to hear the echoes of the pain we have suffered as a result of the drama that was played out in our little town on the morning of July 26. We were waiting for the bus to Foix that leaves around 8 o’clock: the bus didn’t come, and we waited for it until 10:30; but ten buses passed us, full of gendarmes and foreign Israelites who live in our region. they had been dragged from their beds, without warning, and had no baggage. There, we recognized a pregnant woman with a small child; a charming family who lived in the country and energetically cultivated a little farm in order to have vegetables this winter; we saw children who had played with our children. These ten buses were carts of the condemned. Everyone who witnessed this scene was overcome with shame and pity; even those who are the loudest in crying out “death to Jews” were in tears. But what everyone felt, was that FRANCE itself is condemned and dishonored by applying such a shameful and cruel treatment to those who had thought to find asylum in our country. We are ashamed of being French, of being Christian, of being human; and the veneration that surrounds the personage of the Maréchal is shaken, or even altogether swept away….

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The WOMAN Exits the Stage

A YOUNG MAN Drancy, September 30, 1942. Dear parents, the packages are very good and I thank you again. I made rice with sugar, chocolate and milk. I can tell you it was delicious! At the moment there are many people arriving from the non-occupied zone who are deported immediately. They only take the foreigners, those who are French are left alone for the moment. How is my dear little mother? I hope she hasn’t lost her smile, because when I return, she will have to smile at me. I am sending back the shirts you just sent me, because I don’t need them, imagine, I am going around in shorts! Here it’s hot so I’m saving on laundry and soap. In a month I will be 22, imagine that, the age of reason! A WOMAN At 11 am, bread distribution—each loaf is divided into seven portions. At noon, soup, often cabbage, one soup ladle per person. One sometimes has the agreeable surprise of finding a piece of potato floating in it. Once a week, a piece of cold meat, some salad leaves; once in while a piece of cheese or a teaspoon of jam, once in a great while a hard-boiled egg. The internees say this is a great improvement over the past: In September 1941, meals were served in trashcans and internees were seen searching through garbage to find hearts of cabbage or the peelings from cucumbers and squash. At this time, the daily ration was 1/7 of a loaf of bread per person, one soup ladle of water, and three pieces of carrot. A WOMAN (expressing consternation) O the mockery! The children are playing at being searched! In the following dialogue, there is a circle of light on the stage, which, however, remains empty. One hears the voices of two young boys who are playing at being searched.

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FIRST BOY Where are your diamonds? SECOND BOY I don’t have any diamonds FIRST BOY Hand me your jacket. SECOND BOY Yes sir. FIRST BOY You really don’t have diamonds? SECOND BOY No. FIRST BOY We captured a Dutch Jew and we found a hundred thousand Gulden in his shoe. SECOND BOY I don’t have anything. FIRST BOY If I find any you will be shot. Give me your shoe SECOND BOY Yes sir. FIRST BOY (Loudly, after a moment) Send in the next one!

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THE NARRATOR (comes onstage) Among the many comrades I knew during three and a half years of captivity, there were a great many that were remarkable for the quality of their character, their intelligence or their knowledge. But my memory attaches itself with especial fondness to the noble figure of René Blum, the younger brother of Léon Blum, former prime minister of France. At the time of defeat, in 1940, he was traveling with his ballet company in the United States. He felt it was his duty as a Frenchman to return to France and, after the armistice, he went back to Paris. In 1941, his friends begged him to leave Paris for the free zone, but he refused. Light on the figure of René Blum (this should be played by a physically imposing person)

RENE BLUM (turning toward the narrator) I am too well known and I belong to a family that is too well known for me to flee the Germans or to seek protection from the Vichy government. The Vichy people do not represent France, they are a gang of hoodlums. The Narrator One day, the 4,000 children who had been wrested from their parents arrived at Drancy. I had tried to do something for them, but very quickly I was seized by a feeling of impotence before this enormous monstrosity. One day when I was feeling particularly discouraged, I felt the need to go and see René Blum. As soon as I told him about my anxieties, he interrupted me energetically. René Blum Can you take me with you one day to visit one of the staircases of these children separated from their parents? THE NARRATOR Yes, I can, but why do you want to do it? RENÉ BLUM I want to see them with my own eyes, I want to speak to these children. THE NARRATOR One day, taking advantage of the absence of the Inspectors from the camp, I went to get René Blum. We traversed the courtyards and went up

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to the second floor of the second staircase. The room contained 110 children from the ages of 2 to 12. The sound of their cries and tears filled the room. The odor was unbearable. Two sisters were sitting on a mattress on the floor. The oldest was 12, the younger one 4 or 5. Lights on a young girl of 12 who is wearing a yellow star

RENÉ BLUM Hello! What is your name? THE GIRL (seeing the yellow stars of the two adults) Are you Jewish? Look at what they write about us in the newspaper (she holds out a copy of Le Cri du peuple, a right-wing newspaper) RENÉ BLUM You know very well that’s a German newspaper, little girl. You are French, aren’t you? THE GIRL I don’t want to be French! French people are mean and I hate them! RENÉ BLUM You shouldn’t say that. You know very well it’s the Germans who do all those things. THE GIRL That’s a lie! That’s a lie! It was French police who came to our place. They looked everywhere for my little sister, because my mother had hidden her. They found her because she cried…After that they came to my school to get me. At Beaune-la-Rolande it was the French border police who kept my mother and my father and who took us away, me and my sister. And here, it’s the gendarmes who are holding us. RENÉ BLUM My poor little girl, you are old enough to understand that all these French people are bad French people, that they sold themselves to the

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Germans and that they themselves have become like the Germans, worse than Germans. The real French people are as upset as you and me. Only, for the moment there is nothing they can do. THE GIRL Why can’t they do anything? They could have not gone looking for my sister! They could have left us with our parents! RENÉ BLUM Why don’t you want to understand that those weren’t real French people! THE GIRL Leave me alone! I want to sleep! Lights down on this scene; the NARRATOR, who has been a silent witness, remains illuminated

THE NARRATOR On September 22, 1942, René Blum was deported. The day before, they cut off his hair and his moustache. I went to see him in his room in the second staircase. He remained serene, joking about his shaved head and the disappearance of his moustache and he spoke about his son with great tenderness. The next day at dawn, I saw him in the courtyard behind barbed wire. When his name was read out, from all sides I heard murmurs: “There is Blum.” “He’s the brother of Léon Blum.” René Blum came up to me and we embraced. Then he continued on his way toward the exit, walking with his slow and sure step, holding himself straight and with a smile on his lips. Later, at Auschwitz, some comrades told me that René Blum had been taken aside all by himself by the Germans, from the moment the train stopped at Birkenau, and that no one had ever heard about him again. (pause) Ketty arrived at Drancy on August 18, 1942, with a group of women who had had the courage to protest in public against the decree that Jews were made to wear the yellow star. As the wife of an Aryan, she was classified as non-deportable. She had a little girl who was living with her father in the free zone and an old mother who lived in Paris. One day in April, her mother arrived at Drancy en route to being deported. Her name appeared on the deportation list on June 23. So Ketty wanted to ask to be deported along with her mother. She came to ask my advice.

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Brighter light on KETTY and THE NARRATOR during this exchange

THE NARRATOR Look here Ketty, haven’t you thought about your daughter and your husband? Have you considered that it is highly unlikely that you and your mother will be able to remain together? You are in danger of leaving without any hope of return. Think carefully! KETTY I’ve already thought it over. Since my mother arrived, there is nothing else I can do. THE NARRATOR And your daughter? KETTY There is no comparison: my daughter is safe and my mother is in danger! THE NARRATOR But your daughter needs you more in the future than your mother in the present. KETTY No, as long as I am in the camps, I can’t take care of my daughter, and, later, how could I live, knowing that I abandoned my mother in distress? You only live once! THE NARRATOR But it’s highly likely that your presence will not help your mother in any way down there. Your sacrifice will be in vain and you will have made it only for the few days that the trip takes. KETTY I know, I can’t do it any differently. Lights down on KETTY. THE NARRATOR addresses the audience

THE NARRATOR There were many, many Kettys in Drancy.

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Lights up on center stage; three men (the STEINHOF, A POLISH JEW; BERNARD, A FRENCH JEW; and MICHAEL, A FRENCH JEW. The spectator is made to understand that the men are in a dormitory room at Drancy. In the background, projections of images by survivor Georges Horan.

STEINHOF, A POLISH JEW You can go ahead and talk, you who’ve lived in the West! The blows you have suffered are insignificant! This is the first really hard one. And who suffers most of all? The Polish Jew! Always and forever! He flees the East because of persecution and now the West falls on top of him! MICHAEL, A FRENCH JEW Admit it Bernard! Often we didn’t even know we were Jewish! In the end, what’s the difference between a Jew and an “Aryan”? BERNARD, A FRENCH JEW Nothing, absolutely nothing, we are men just like any others. There’s not a single thing anyone reproaches us for that doesn’t apply to non-Jews as well! In the old days we had a religion based on the laws of nature. Think about the issue of pork, for example…once upon a time pigs carried epidemics, so their meat was prohibited…today, the observation of those precepts, which after all are totally inoffensive, enables us to keep up a sentimental link with tradition…but we keep being decried as dangerous Jews so that in a crisis we provide a security valve…. STEINHOF In the West Jews could work, do whatever they liked! But we in Russia, in Poland, in the ghettos, we were only allowed the professions of moneychanger, of usurer, of ragpicker, unless we wanted to spend our lives studying the Talmud! To be a doctor, you needed a special permit, and you could only get it if you were a doctor that the “goys” needed. Add to that the absolute and vital necessity to save money so you could flee when the pogroms inevitably returned! MICHAEL Yes, well Jews are just like other people! There are good ones and bad ones. Measures that are applied to all of us in general are mistaken and unjust.

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BERNARD That’s right…to explain away its defeat, Germany couldn’t find anything better than to blame the Jews, and that’s what started it. In France today you find the same thing, partly because it’s imposed by Germany. Why should we be different from anyone else? The tendency of the Jew to take himself for a superman is simply a reaction against persecution…Here at Drancy we don’t have any solidarity because we come from twentysix different countries, with twenty-six cultures and different educational systems. Nothing could be more normal…in the end we are not better than any other human being! STEINHOF Excuse me, excuse me. After all, the Jew has superior qualities. He knows how to make the best of any situation. BERNARD You poor sod, you are just falling into the usual trap. Why does the Jew know how to make out so well? Because he’s almost always an emigrant, he has fled destruction and takes refuge somewhere where the wind isn’t blowing too strong. Once he is safe, he still lives in fear of the next cataclysm, which always comes sooner or later; so he goes about accomplishing great things, because he never feels that the ground under his feet is stable; he assures his subsistence and saves for the day when he will have to flee again! STEINHOF So you deny that the Jew has any superior qualities? BERNARD I’m only denying that they are uniquely his! The qualities you describe are those that anyone in the same situation would develop, that’s all. Eliminate persecution, and anti-Semitism, and you’ll soon see how much the Jew resembles everyone else. MICHAEL To think that one always hears about “the Jewish problem” and that you could simply avoid it by eliminating persecution! STEINHOF How is that?

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BERNARD My God…what did most of us know about Judaism, before Hitler? Nothing….we only become special because of the persecution…it’s torture that prevents us from assimilating…we are wandering Jews, people who are reproached for not staying in one place, because we are always being sent into exile. The Jewish character is entirely formed by persecution! So, since you can’t deny the existence of persecution, it’s clear that the solution to the so-called “Jewish problem” has to do with eliminating cruelty, stupidity, intolerance, and injustice! MICHAEL So the “Jewish problem” doesn’t exist! BERNARD In principle it doesn’t, but in fact it does, because it has been created— artificially, it’s true, but it exists! And it exists for us, because we suffer! STEINHOF We still have hope! MICHAEL Hope? What hope? STEINHOF God! MICHAEL God? Maybe. But you have to believe in him…lucky you! STEINHOF Exactly. I know for sure that we are the chosen people. We have no reason to bow before a stupid majority, because we have nothing to be ashamed of! BERNARD But for heaven’s sake, doesn’t it come to the same thing, since you are treated as though you did have something to be ashamed of? STEINHOF It’s not the same thing, I have my conscience! BERNARD Oh sure. Conscience is for normal times. But what about in times of total insanity? When you are dying of hunger, in Drancy, are you less hungry,

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with your conscience? When you are rotting and you die of “physical misery,” is your conscience of any use? Conscience is nice, but it needs a certain normality. When you are fighting for your survival, what the hell does it matter whether you have a conscience or not? We are in the right; and so what? STEINHOF Do you know what Hillel answered when he was challenged to summarize all the teachings of the Torah into a single sentence? BERNARD No. STEINHOF He answered: Love thy neighbor as thyself. BERNARD And so? STEINHOF And so? They want to obliterate a people who taught this to the world? Lights dim; they come up on the solitary figure of the French poet Max Jacob

THE POET MAX JACOB (writing) February 29, 1944, Max Jacob to Jean Cocteau. Dear Jean, I am writing to you thanks to the good graces of the gendarmes. We are in a vehicle that is taking us to Drancy. That is all I can tell you. Greetings, Max Jacob. JEAN COCTEAU (writing) Jean Cocteau, to the German Consul von Bose, Paris, February 1944. I would call Max Jacob a great poet if that were not stating the obvious. What he should be called is “poet”—because poetry escapes from him, from his hand, effortlessly…he has invented a language that surpasses our own language and expresses its depths…French youth loves him, treats him like a friend, respects him and wants to live by his example…I salute his nobility, his wisdom, his inimitable grace, his secret prestige…may God help him.

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THE DOCTOR AT DRANCY (writing the death certificate, then looking up) Max Jacob, deceased on the 5th of March 1944, at the infirmary of Drancy. (pause) What one has to say above all, is that he wanted to die. He didn’t fight for a second. His abandon was total, calm, self-possessed. We humans could do nothing for him, nor could anything else, because his death was the only thing he still wished for. A MAN I have the sad privilege of lying in the infirmary at Drancy the day they brought in Max Jacob. He never stopped crying out during the entire day. During a short respite, he received the visit of a young man whom he greeted effusively. Then, until evening, he moaned so much that the other patients asked the doctor to give him a sedative. The doctor gave him a shot around 6 pm. An hour later, the nurse found him in a calmer state, but she had hardly left the room when he cried out: “Miss, Miss, would you call the Princess X at Passy to tell her I can’t come to dinner tonight.” After that, he became delirious. He screamed with pain. Finally, with his fist against his chest, he still had the force to exclaim: “They are sticking a knife into me here!” And that was the end. MAX JACOB Where are you going, swaying ducks? to swim like boats on the sea Where are you going, limping horse? to fetch the queen for a ride. The queen has shoes of silver, her umbrella is made of terry-cloth. Where are you going, naughty stray dog? To sharpen my teeth in the sun. You, where are you going, poor old man? to the city to get some lard, some lard, and some salt for my old head, I think it’s quarter past two and my death is for tomorrow.

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A WOMAN On June 22, 1943, at 7 am, those who are being deported line up between the rows of barbed wire. The men’s heads are shaved, afterwards everyone goes through the search barracks. Professional search personnel from the Police for Jewish Affairs look through all the packages and bundles. All jewelry and money is taken, as are all bottles or glass objects, knives, forks, razors, pens, pencils, and even aspirin. After the search, which lasts for hours in the hot sun or in harsh winter temperatures, the back of the deportee is marked with a cross in chalk, as though the people were packages going through customs. After that they are moved in alphabetical order of their name, to the staircase assigned for deportees, from which they are not allowed to move under any pretext. Men, women and children are made to wait in these bare rooms without an ounce of straw, without beds or benches and with only 10 waste buckets for 320 people. In the course of the tragic night the tears are soon replaced by singing. During one of these dramatic nights, a woman artist of the café concert, with a fresh and resonant voice, sang for hours in order to keep up the spirits of her companions in misery. She had them repeating the refrains of the Marseillaise and the Song of Departure. Onstage, people arrive, then leave left or right depending on their status (“to be deported” or “to be retained” The side that represents deportation is dark, the other side is lit.

WOMAN’S VOICE Wives of prisoners of war or war widows… MAN’S VOICE to be retained WOMAN’S VOICE Jewish widows or widows of a non-Jew… MAN’S VOICE To be deported WOMAN’S VOICE Women with a child less than 2 years old…

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MAN’S VOICE To be deported WOMAN’S VOICE Children under the age of 16, parents still at large… MAN’S VOICE To be retained WOMAN’S VOICE Children less than 16 years old, one parent deported, the other at large… MAN’S VOICE To be deported WOMAN’S VOICE Accompanied blind French Jews… MAN’S VOICE To be deported WOMAN’S VOICE Uncompanied blind French Jews… MAN’S VOICE To be retained WOMAN’S VOICE French Jews over 70… MAN’S VOICE To be deported WOMAN’S VOICE French Jewish children from 16 to 21, parents deportable or deported… MAN’S VOICE To be deported The light dims. Montage of overlapping voices of men, women, and children. Projection of lists of names of the deported. At the end, the totals and the small number of survivors.

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FIRST WOMAN This letter is to let you know our departure into the unknown. Be brave. Don’t cry. Here, we are all courageous. Don’t cry. Be brave. I send you this letter with a big kiss. SECOND WOMAN I’m leaving today for an unknown destination. I’m leaving with a lot of courage and in good spirits, because I hope that we will come back soon. I give you all a big hug. A GIRL Bad news my dear papa. After my aunt it’s now my turn to depart. But it doesn’t matter. I’m in good spirits, like everyone else. Don’t be upset papa. First of all, I’m leaving in the best of conditions. I ate very well this week. I want you to be as brave as I am. Dear papa, I kiss you a thousand times. A BOY Dear godfather, I am leaving with my brother. You won’t get any more news, because I’m leaving for an unknown destination. I’m in good health…I am resigned and I have a lot of hope… A SECOND BOY My dear ones, I write you this last letter from Drancy. It is 8 in the evening…we were just searched…I can never live long enough to thank you for everything you did for me. I say good-bye, not adieu. I kiss you all. Your son and brother who loves you… FIRST MAN It’s with a lot of sadness that I let you know that what I had feared is now happening. We are changing camps, so you will not get any news from us for some time, don’t be concerned for me, I’m in good health and I hope that we will all soon be together again as before. I kiss you a thousand and a thousand times with all my heart that…until the end…

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SECOND MAN My dear little wife whom I adore, when you get this letter, I will already have been deported. Be brave about this just as I am myself. What can we do, it was fated and so I am writing you before leaving, as we leave tomorrow morning at 5 in the morning for an unknown destination. Kiss Jacqueline, Monique, René, Marinette, and my aunts… THE POET MAX JACOB And tric and trac, faster and faster he sees the stream with its dense icepacks, the train! the train, without a stop, not one! like a bolt of lightning, and hot and quick, a little faster, faster! the train eclipses towns, towns and the horizon that stoops down low, the train! the fabled snow of villages, without a stop, a little faster and hot. Of hunger, cold, the night, the nights, the day, the days, the night, without a stop, not one! Like a boiling bolt of lightning it extinguishes, the lightning! the rounded horizons, the towns, the snow-piercing train! a little faster and faster, before in the midst of great cries, of great sorrows, Death arrives in the folds of an oncoming train, you! burn the coal, burn, without stopping, the coal into cinders! into the transparent folds of this train, a little faster and hot…high above, above, the black catastrophes are the Gods, burning Gods, crowned with patience. Only at their command will the tombs open. Let’s gird ourselves, you and me, with prayers before the watchful eye of Destiny, gird ourselves all along the lakes of hunger and rivers of cold: Sun! before Death arrives from afar in the folds of an oncoming train before all your fire has burned the coal, oh! before Death arrives. THE NARRATOR In 1944, it was my turn to be deported. I left Drancy on June 30, 1944, without the least suspicion about the real meaning of the deportations of Jews. In the camps, you almost never know what will save you or what will condemn you. With experience, you become a fatalist, because chance plays such an immense role and whoever is not lucky is lost beyond redemption. I had the good fortune to be employed in the hospital. Therefore I myself was spared the greatest suffering. In the ordinary regime of the camp, the most robust, the strongest, could not hold out more than six months.

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THE POET MAX JACOB Oh! I want to stretch like a tree. Oh! I want to be as bored as the Loire. Trodden down in the path, the stone speaks: “For centuries the one I cannot see is the same: I recognize her! I feel the clog of the pregnant peasant woman—it’s the same peasant since so many centuries! Me, I stretch my neck resignedly under the clogs of the wet earth.” The grasses speak: “Is it spring or autumn?” For it’s neither spring, nor autumn, nor any season, it’s the soup of nature. How the Loire stretches! It stretches like the sky. And, there were two children standing there: “I will be a soldier and I’ll kill everyone.” “As for me, I will be on the covers of magazines as a beautiful lady.” And on that cottony day those were the only words heard by the tree and the church of the Loire. The lights come up. Offstage, the poem “Cemetery” by Max Jacob. If you chase away my sailor, put me in the cemetery, white rose, white rose and red rose. My tomb is like a garden, like a garden red and white, On Sunday you will go, white rose, you will go walking, white rose and lily of the valley If my sailor ever returns, red rose and white rose, let him come to my tomb, white rose and lily of the valley. Remember when we were children, white rose, when we played on the quay, white rose and lily of the valley.

END OF PLAY

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Bibliography: Sources and Further Reading on the Shoah in France Adler, Jacques. The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution: Communal Responses and Internal Conflicts, 1940-1944. New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1987. Azéma, Jean-Pierre and François Bédarida. La France des années noires, vol. 2: De L’Occupation à la Libération. Paris: Seuil, 1993, repr. 2000. Brown, Frederick. For the Soul of France: Culture Wars in the Age of Dreyfus. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Calef, Noël. Drancy 1941. Camp de représailles. Drancy la Faim. Fils et Filles des Déportés des Juifs de France, 1991. [32, rue de la Boétie, Paris] Crémieux-Dunand, Julie. La Vie à Drancy. Paris: Gedalge, 1945, avec dessins de Jeanne Lévy. Delbo, Charlotte. None of Us Will Return, trans. John Githens. Boston: Beacon Press, 1978. Dunant, Ghislaine. “Writing the Deportation,” trans. Kathryn Lachman, The Massachusetts Review, 60.4 (Winter 2019): 601–618. Golsan, Richard. J., ed. Memory, the Holocaust, and French Justice: The Bousquet and Touvier Affairs. Hanover, NH: Univ. Press of New England, 1996. Grynberg, Anne. Les Camps de la honte: les internes juifs des camps français. Paris: la Découverte, 1991. Hilberg, Raoul. The Destruction of the European Jews. New York: Quadrangle Books, 1961. Horan, Georges. Camp de Drancy (Seuil de l’enfer juif). Estampes à eau forte. Paris: Pouzet, 1946. Isser, Edward R. Stages of Annihilation: Theatrical representations of the Holocaust. London: Associated Univ. Presses, 1997. Jackson, Julian. France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001. Joly, Laurent. “French Bureaucrats and Anti-Jewish Persecution: the ‘Jewish Service’ of the Paris Police Prefecture, 1940-1944.” Holocaust and Genocide Studies 33.1 (2019): 39–59. Lamont, Rose. “The Triple Courage of Charlotte Delbo: A Place without a Name.” The Massachusetts Review, 41.4 (Winter, 2000/2001): 483–497. Klarsfeld, Serge. La Shoah en France, 4 vols. Paris: Fayard, 2001. Vol 1, VichyAuschwitz: la solution finale de la question juive en France; Vol 2, Le calendrier de la persécution des Juifs de France, juillet 1940-auût 1942; Vol. 3, Le calendrier de la persecution des Juifs de France, septembre 1942-août 1944; Vol. 4, Le Mémorial des enfants juifs déportés en France. Lachgar, Lina. Arrestation et mort de Max Jacob. Paris: Editions de la Différence, 2004.

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Langer, Lawrence. The Holocaust and the Literary Imagination. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1973. Ousby, Ian. Occupation: the ordeal of France, 1940-1944. London: John Murry, 1997. Klarsfeld, Serge. Vichy-Auschwitz: la solution “finale” de la question juive en France. Paris: Fayard, (1983) 2001. Kurzweil, Edith. “French Anti-Semitism in France, 1940-1944.” Partisan Review, 63.4 (October 1996): 544–562. Laborie, Pierre. Les Français des années troubles: de la guerre d’Espagne à la libération. Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 2001. LaCapra, Dominick. History and Memory after Auschwitz. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1998. Lanzmann, Claude. “Seminar with Claude Lanzmann.” Yale French Studies, 79 (1991): 82–99. Marrus, M. and Roger Paxton. Vichy France and the Jews. New York: Basic Books, 1981. Nora, Pierre. Les Lieux de mémoire. 3 vols. Paris: Gallimard, (1987–92) 1997. ———. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations, 26 (Spring 1989): 7–25. Rajsfus, Maurice. Drancy. Un camp de concentration très ordinatire. 1941–1944. Paris: Le Cherche Midi, 1996. ———. Opération étoile jaune. Paris: Le Cherche Midi, 2000. Sabbagh, Antoine. Lettres de Drancy. Paris: Tallandier, 2002. Schiff, Tobias. Retour sur un lieu que je n’ai jamais quitté. Paris: Benoît Jacob, 2000. Seibel, Wolfgang. Persecution and Rescue: the politics of the “Final Solution” in France, 1940-1944. Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2016. Wellers, Georges. De Drancy à Auschwitz. Paris: Editions du Centre de Documentation Juive Contemporaine, 1946, avec dessins de Gottko. ———. L’Etoile jaune à l’heure de Vichy: de Drancy à Auschwitz. Paris: Fayard, 1973. Werth, Leon. Deposition, 1940–1944: A Secret Diary of Life in Vichy France. New York: Oxford, 2018. Wiedmer, Caroline. The Claims of Memory. Representations of the Holocaust in Contemporary Germany and France. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1999. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1993. Zuccotti, Susan. The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews. New York: Basic Books, 1993.

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Video Documentaries and Websites Children of Drancy website . This website documents the production at Northeastern University of “Children of Drancy” in 2007; directed by Professor Nancy Kindelan and produced by Professor Janet Bobcean. Excerpts from the production are included. https://drancy.sites.northeastern.edu/ Drancy: A Concentration Camp in Paris (55 min.). Dir. Stephen Trombley. 1994. Filmmakers Library, 124 E. 40th St. New York 19916. 212 808–4980. Distributed in France under the title “Drancy la honte.” Drancy: Dernière étape avant l’abîme (58 min.). Dir. Cécile Clairval-Milhaud. 2002.

CHAPTER 3

Theatre of and About the German Occupation of France and the French Resistance

During the German Occupation of northern and western France after the defeat of 1940 until Liberation in 1944, Paris theatres continued to stage plays, albeit under censorship and other restrictions.1 Directors and administrators were prevented from hiring Jewish actors and crew members, the prominent theatre named after the Jewish celebrity and star Sarah Bernhardt was renamed the “Théâtre de la Cité,” and theatregoers were subjected to 11 p.m. curfews (as re-enacted in François Truffaut’s 1980 film Le Dernier métro (“The Last Metro”). Far in advance of their intended performance dates, plays had first to be submitted to the censors residing in Vichy France. They were then submitted to the censors of the German Ministry of Propaganda (“Propagandastaffel”). The works of Jewish authors, translators, or of anyone who was under suspicion for one reason or another could not be performed; nor could Jewish-themed

1 Patrick Marsh writes: “The attraction of the theatre was due to several reasons; perhaps the most important one was that, in entering the theater, one was in the company of French people, one participated in an essentially French event which the horrors of the war could not affect, at least spiritually. Theatre was a way of escaping the harsh reality, a way of escaping into antiquity, heroic legend, an unreal world where France and the French could still be ‘great.’” Patrick Marsh, “Introduction,” “Le théâtre à Paris sous l’occupation allemande,” special issue of Revue de la société d’histoire du théâtre 33, no. 3 (July–September 1981–1983), 201.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Hedges, Staging History from the Shoah to Palestine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84009-9_3

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works (such as Jean Anouilh’s play “Judith,” based on the Biblical character who beheaded Holofernes, leader of the Assyrian forces against the Jews).2 Theatrical productions also had to deal with the rationing of paper, which became increasingly rare as the Occupation wore on; with limitations on the use of electricity; and with the scarcity of materials for building stage sets. Patrick Marsh, the major historian of the theatre of this period, comments “the most surprising thing is that people continued to stage plays.”3 He notes, in addition, that the difficulties forced many provincial theatres to close or become movie theatres; travel was impeded, so that plays from Paris could not go on tour in the provinces.4 Since theatre is tied to public performance, plays could not circulate clandestinely like Resistance novels (such as those published by the newly formed Editions de Minuit (“Midnight Press”)), poetry (e.g. by the surrealist and communist Louis Aragon), or the numerous broadsides and small newspapers that were distributed in secret like Combat, Les Lettres françaises, Cahiers de libération, and others. After Liberation in 1944, claims were made by several authors and critics that anti-German and anti-Occupation messages had been present in several plays, and that it had been up to their audiences to decode them. In the post-Liberation euphoria, some of these same plays were restaged to support the claim that their authors had been part of the Resistance all along. What is fascinating about these claims is that they rest on the issue of reception. In considering them, we can ask whether their audiences perceived covert messages during the Occupation or “read” them differently as historical and social circumstances changed, and how those readings meshed with the prevailing ideologies of the time. As previously mentioned, the French post-war period up to 1968 was characterized by “résistancialisme,” the widely held belief, encouraged by General (and later President) Charles De Gaulle, that all of France had resisted the occupiers.5 This myth made it easy for writers like JeanPaul Sartre and his admiring critics to claim that a play like the 1943 2 Ibid., 211–212. 3 Ibid., 216. 4 Ibid., 220. 5 A major breakthrough in the understanding of the French postwar ethos came with

Henry Rousso’s The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 1991; first published in 1987).

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“Les Mouches” (“The Flies”), a reworking of the ancient Greek Orestes myth, had, all along, made covert criticisms of the German occupiers in the north and the collaborationist Vichy government in the south. Similarly, after Liberation, critics praised the 1943 performance of Claude Vermorel’s Jeanne d’Arc play, “Jeanne avec nous,” as a veiled call to resistance, even though it had been written before the war in 1938. Critics also asked whether Jean Anouilh’s reprise of the Greek myth of Antigone in 1944 had incited to rebellion or resignation.

Theatre as Resistance? The Question of Sartre In any discussion of theatre of the French Resistance, the figure of Sartre looms large. After Liberation, Sartre and his partner and ally Simone de Beauvoir claimed that “Les Mouches ” had, in 1943, voiced a critique of the Vichy regime and appealed to the freedom-loving spirit of fighting France. Skeptics countered by recalling that Sartre had submitted the play (as he was required to do) to the German censorship board. They argued that the board would never have approved a play that urged resistance to the Occupation. In addition, they said, the play’s reworking of classical Greek themes made any intended contemporary references obscure to the point of invisibility. A possible “resistance” reading of Sartre’s play would go something like this: Orestes, the son of Queen Clytemnestra, returns to Argos to confront the current rulers—his mother and her lover Aegisthus—after their murder of Agamemnon, the former king and Orestes’s father. In this reading, the queen might be seen as the French nation that has entered into an unholy alliance with an intruder. Orestes finds his native city living under a terrible burden of guilt that Aegisthus mercilessly exploits in order to maintain control of the population. This guilt is represented by the swarms of pestering flies (the “mouches” of the title), and the dreaded annual festival, a day where the dead are said to return and walk among the people. Sartre later stated that the burden of shame and guilt that is laid on the people was a reference to the ideology of the Vichy regime, according to which the French nation was to blame for the failures of the French Republic and its defeat in the war. (In a message to the French people on June 17, 1941, Maréchal Philippe Pétain, the Head of State in the Vichy Regime, had declared: “You suffer and you will continue to

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suffer for a long time still, because we have not finished paying for all of our faults.”6 ). Orestes, spurred on by his sister Electra, who is being treated like a slave, murders his mother and Aegisthus. He then leaves the city, taking the plague of flies (and the peoples’ guilt) with him. Against Jupiter (the Roman name for Zeus) who intervenes and tries to control him, he asserts that as a free man he does not answer to any gods. He announces that as a free man he is a law unto himself, and that he will open the eyes of the inhabitants to their true human condition of absolute freedom of choice. “Human life,” he asserts, “begins on the other side of despair.”7 There is an echo here of Sartre’s earlier play “Bariona, fils du tonnerre” (“Bariona, son of thunder”). Sartre wrote it when he was confined for nine months in a prisoner-of-war camp in Trier. The play takes place during the birth of Jesus when Palestine is still ruled by the Romans. Bariona is a skeptic who derides those who are traveling to greet the Messiah (the newborn Jesus)—in fact he plans to murder the child whose announced birth, he fears, will encourage people to become passive and resigned to their fate. At the last minute he is converted and vows, instead, to fight against the Romans, announcing “The time for fighting has returned.”8 In 1968 Sartre said in an interview that “The text was full of allusions to the situation of the moment that were perfectly clear to all of us.”9 For a few discerning audience members and critics, at least, the import of “Les Mouches” was not lost. In an unsigned article in December 1943 in the clandestine Les Lettres françaises, the surrealist Michel Leiris celebrated Sartre’s Orestes as a “champion of liberty” and wrote that the real “flies” were the reviewers from the collaborationist press who criticized

6 Quoted in Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Ecrits de Sartre, ed. Michel Contat and Mich Rybalka (Paris: Gallimard, 1970), 90. 7 Jean-Paul Sartre, Huis clos suivi de Les mouches (Paris: Gallimard, 1947), 237–238. 8 Jean-Paul Sartre, Bariona (Paris: Editions Elisabeth Marescot, 1967), 111. Wolfgang

Babilas writes that this is Sartre’s first Resistance play. See Wolfgang Babilas, “Interpretationen Literarischer Texte des Widerstands,” in Literatur der Résistance und Kollaboration in Frankreich: Texte und Interpretationen, Vol. 3, ed. Karl Kohut (Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 1984), 100. 9 Jean-Paul Sartre, Les Ecrits de Sartre, 374.

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the play: “Orestes’ act of self-affirmation takes the form of revolution.”10 The great moral lesson of the play, he argues, is that “the city of Argos, rather than being an aggregate of masters and slaves, will be changed into an association of people who have become conscious of their responsibilities; freed from oppression, they will rise to their own level, beyond happiness and despair.”11 Privately, he had written to French philosopher and writer Georges Bataille on July 6 that “the subversive character of the play should not be ignored.”12 Jean Paulhan, before and after the war the editor of the influential Nouvelle revue française, in a letter dated June 23, 1943, writes “Cette cité de repentirs, on se croirait à Vichy.” (“In this city of repentance, one would think oneself in Vichy”).13 In the Geneva publication Messages : Domaine Français (in neutral Switzerland) the filmmaker and critic Alexandre Astruc wrote: “Orestes offers us a new type of hero, in some ways similar to the characters of [André] Malraux, who, like the combatants of Man’s Fate, can serve as models for the people of our time […] Orestes… constructs the basis for a new ethics, almost exclusively founded on the “act” and implying freedom and revolt […] He follows the path that freedom traces for him, a path of his own invention, his path, in order to discover, on the other side of despair, a new and authentic existence.”14 Sartre’s Aegisthus knows in advance he will be defeated and doesn’t even fight. This is quite provocative if Sartre meant this to apply to the German occupiers. The interchange between Jupiter and Aegisthus is interesting: JUPITER: It’s a painful secret known to gods and kings: that people are free. They are free, Aegisthus. You know it, and they do not.

10 Michel Leiris, “Oreste et la cité,” Les Lettres françaises, no. 12 (December 1943): 1 and 3. Reprinted in Sartre devant la presse d’Occupation: Le dossier critique des “Mouches” et “Huis clos”, ed. Ingrid Galster (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2005), 175. 11 Leiris in Galster, Sartre devant la presse d’Occupation, 177. 12 Michael Leiris, letter to Georges Bataille, July 6, 1943, reprinted in Galster, Sartre

devant la presse d’ Occupation, 94. 13 Jean Paulhan, Letter to Jan Fautrier, June 23, 1943, reprinted in Galster, Sartre devant la presse d’Occupation, 99. 14 Alexandre Astruc, “Signification de Sartre,” in Messages. Domaine Français (Geneva), August 23, 1943, 422–424, reprinted in Galster, Sartre devant la presse d’Occupation, 147.

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AEGISTHUS: By Jove, if they knew it, they would set fire to the four corners of my palace. For fifteen years I’ve been hoodwinking them to hide their power from them.15

Aegisthus claims that all his actions had one goal: to keep order in the realm—another possible reference to the policies of the German occupiers. But when Orestes confronts him he won’t defend himself. To Jupiter he confesses that he is tired (“Je suis las”). The timing of the performances of “Les Mouches” in the summer of 1943 is interesting, in that Germany had finally been defeated at Stalingrad in February of 1943, after a protracted battle that had begun in August 1942. In May 1944, Sartre followed up with the play “Huis clos” (“No Exit”). Here three characters—two women and a man—are confined in a small room of Hell, left to bicker among themselves to eternity. There is no respite—they cannot even close their eyes because their eyelids have been removed. The famous last line, “L’Enfer c’est les autres” (“Hell is other people”), has been said to refer to the German occupiers, who were often referred to by French people as “les autres” (“the others”). Sartre in 1948 opined that in “Les Mouches” he wanted to “extirpate this disease of repentance, this complacent acceptance of repentance and shame. It was necessary to fortify the French people. Orestes represents the small group of French who attacked the Germans and subsequently carried within themselves the anxiety of repentance, and had to resist the temptation of turning themselves in.”16 Nevertheless, the retrospective reading of Sartre as an important resistance figure has been energetically criticized. Ingrid Galster writes that the general public seemed unaware of the political import of the play.17 She comments that some German officials might have understood the possible political references in the play, but decided not to intervene so 15 Jean-Paul Sartre, Huis clos suivi de Les Mouches, 200. 16 Sartre, Les Ecrits de Sartre, 90 and 189. 17 Ingrid Galster, “‘Les Mouches’ sous L’Occupation: à propos de quelques idées reçues,” Les Temps modernes 46, no. 531–633 (1990), 851. See also her article, “Les Mouches: pièce résistante?” Lendemains 11, no. 42 (Jan 1986): 43–50.

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as not to call attention to the fact.18 Critics have argued that it is a form of “résistancialisme” to claim that “Les Mouches” is a Resistance play, a desire to claim heroic resistance to the Germans that is not borne out by the facts on the ground. Susan Suleiman has laid out the way Sartre came to be romanticized as a Resistance figure after the war though his actual activities were minimal.19 Some have even argued that Orestes’ murders of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra could be seen as supportive of fascism and violence.20 Critics, both German and French, were much more ready to see the Resistance allegory of Jean Anouilh’s “Antigone,” which premiered in Paris at the Théâtre de l’Atelier on February 4, 1944 (Paris was liberated in August of that year). Creon, like Sartre’s Aegisthus, represents order, while Antigone argues (and dies) for the right to bury her rebellious brother (who had led an attack against the city) with dignity. At the end, though, she chooses suicide—hardly a model for successful resistance, as some critics have said.

Jeanne D’Arc in Occupied France: Claude Vermorel In January 1942, Claude Vermorel presented his play on the French heroine Jeanne d’Arc at the Comédie des Champs Elysées (Théâtre d’essai). The parallel situations with the English occupation of northern France in the fifteenth century and the German Occupation are striking. The northern part of France at Jeanne’s birth (ca. 1412) was occupied by the English in league with the Duke of Burgundy; in 1420 the Queen of

18 Ingrid Galster, Sartre sous l’occupation et après : nouvelles mises au point (Paris: l’Harmattan, 2014), 31–32. 19 Susan Suleiman, “Choosing Our Past,” in Crises of Memory and the Second World War (Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 2006), 13–35. See also Serge Haddad, “Peut-on parler de ‘theâtre résistant?” Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 37, no. 1 (1990): 128–147. Patrick Marsh notes, however, that as of 1942, Sartre had joined a committee of nine resistance activists with connections to the theatre. The group was involved in the clandestine publications and was responsible for raining down leaflets from the National Front over the heads of theatre spectators all over Paris on July 14, 1944. See Marsh, “Le théâtre à Paris,” 368. 20 See the fascinating discussion by Andrew Ryder, “Sartre’s Theater of Resistance: ‘Les Mouches’ and the Deadlock of Collective Responsibility,” Sartre Studies International 15, no. 2 (2009): 78–95.

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France had signed the Treaty of Troyes leaving the rest of the kingdom to Henry V of England rather than to her son, the dauphin. One of Jeanne’s first campaigns, after she gained the confidence of the dauphin at the town of Chinon in 1429, was to lift the English siege against Orléans in May of that year; she then proceeded toward Reims, where French kings were traditionally crowned; the dauphin was crowned Charles VII on July 17, 1429. However, in May 1430 she was captured by the Burgundians at the siege of Compiègne and turned over to an ecclesiastical court that was sympathetic to the English. The play emphasizes the collaboration between the Burgundians and a foreign power (the English) against French national interests. Jeanne, as the spirit of France, is presented as forthright, truth-speaking, and unbendable. Jeanne appeals to the spirit of the “true France” that is not in league with the foreign power. From court records it appears that Jeanne was tricked into “relapsing” into “heresy” by donning male clothing after her signed abjuration and promise to wear female dress. She was burned at the stake and all traces of her body were destroyed so as to prevent any collection of relics. In the play, Bedfort, the Duke of Burgundy (who in the context of the play’s performance during the German Occupation might represent Pétain or at least the Vichy government) comments: BEDFORT: If I destroy the Bastard [Charles VII], France will become a harmonious landscape astride the isthmus—Burgundy extended from Holland to the Alps—and this illustrious entity will have had only one accident [Jeanne’s campaign to liberate France] during its centennial march toward the unification of our two peoples—peoples that everything unites—our alliance, our leaders, friends who are of our own stock, who share the same love of liberty, of the good life, of peace.21

Patrick Marsh writes that “For the Germans, she was seen as the heroine of the struggle against the English; for the French, more significantly, she was seen as the heroine of the struggle against the [German]

21 Claude Vermorel, Jeanne avec nous (Paris: Editions Balzac, 1942), 141.

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invaders.”22 Again, the audience’s horizon of expectations played a role: composed in 1938, the play was “read” differently during its performances in 1942. Marsh reports that the director Georges Douking “instructed the actors portraying the soldiers to click their heels in the Nazi fashion”.23 It should be said that the historical Joan of Arc was embraced by both the right the left during the Occupation. The Vichy government emphasized her campaign against the English and celebrated her as a martial heroine. On the other side, the Resistance adopted her symbol, the Cross of Lorraine, as the emblem of free France and drew parallels between Joan and Charles De Gaulle, who masterminded the Resistance from London.24 The Occupation also saw performances of George Bernard Shaw’s 1923 “Saint Joan,” Paul Claudel’s “Jeanne au Bûcher” (“Jeanne at the Stake”) with music by Artur Honegger, and Charles Péguy’s 1897 “Jeanne d’Arc,” an eight-hour play that was cut to under three hours by the writer’s son. However, it is only Vermorel’s “Jeanne avec nous” that was acknowledged after Liberation as a Resistance play, even though, as Gabriel Jacobs writes, “Almost nothing written about ‘Jeanne avec nous’ during the Occupation could lead one to conclude that it was taken by audiences to be anti-Nazi or anti-Vichy.”25 In contrast, Jacobs also makes the interesting point that this was the last Joan of Arc play to be approved by the German censors, suggesting that the subject had become “too weighted in favor of resistance to Occupation”26 and comments “Lemaître’s [the Inquisitor’s] long and detailed accounts of the physical torture inflicted by the Inquisition […] little of which was cut from the 1942 production […] were too close to reality not to have been taken as an indictment of the methods of the Gestapo or the Milice.”27 Like “Les Mouches,” the play was performed again after Liberation, with the Jewish actress Paula Dehelly in the title role (she had been 22 Patrick Marsh, “Jeanne d’Arc During the German Occupation,” Theatre Research International 2, no. 2 (1977): 139 and 143. 23 Ibid., 142. 24 Gabriel Jacobs, “The Role of Joan of Arc on the Stage of Occupied Paris,” in Vichy

France and the Resistance: Culture and Ideology, ed. Roderick Kedward and Roger Austin (London: Croom Helm, 1985), 107–108. 25 Ibid., 114. 26 Ibid., 119. 27 Ibid., 118.

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prohibited from appearing onstage during the Occupation). In 1945 a critic wrote that the play had been “a beautiful summons to revolt, an astonishing challenge to the occupiers and their heavy censorship. How can they have misunderstood and ignored the danger of these replies [Joan of Arc’s canny replies to her judges] capable of tearing up the cobblestones from the streets?”.28

Turncoats and Angels: Henry de Montherlant and Gilles Segal After Liberation there were several attempts at portraying the Resistance in the theatre. However, there were fewer plays written about the French experience in World War II than there were after World War I, when France was victorious against the Germans.29 Henry de Montherlant, at the height of his fame when the war broke out (he had been awarded the Grand Prix by the prestigious Académie Française in 1934), initially described the German victory as evidence of the superiority of a virile, conquering race.30 In “Fils de personne” (“Nobody’s Son”), first performed in Paris in 1943, Georges has contempt for the weakness of his son Gillou, born out of wedlock from his past relationship to Marie; he reproaches Gillou for being of “inferior quality.” The two parents then engage in the following exchange: MARIE: Poor little thing, above whom the horrific forces of death and misery are swirling; and to all this, his own father adds his contempt. With you, contempt is a kind of sickness. GEORGES: If only I could inoculate my nation with this sickness. I would like to be the master of contempt for my country […] I speak the language of men who are men, not the language of monkeys or lapdogs […] To save the honor of France today there can only be exceptional individuals. To think that a new day will break tomorrow, led by sons who will not be mine!31

28 Marsh, “Jeanne d’Arc,” 143. 29 See Susan McCready, “French Theater and the Great War,” Studies in 20th and 21st Century Literature 41, no. 2 (2017): 1–13. 30 Jean-Louis Garet, “Montherlant sous l’occupation,” Vingtième Siècle. Revue d’histoire 3 (July–Sept. 1991): 68. 31 Henry de Montherlant, “Fils de personne ou plus que le sang,” in Le Théâtre complet de Montherlant, vol. 2 (Neuchâtel; Ides et Calendes, 1944), 77–82 passim.

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Here, Montherlant expresses his admiration for the virility he saw in the German victors. Still, after Liberation he was not treated as harshly as those who openly and enthusiastically collaborated; the Committee for the Purification of Writers sentenced him in 1945 to only to one year of abstinence from publishing.32 In 1949, he wrote a sequel to “Nobody’s Son” which he titled “Demain il fera jour” (“A New Day Breaks”). In the new play, Georges is trying to discourage Gillou from joining the Resistance. Yet he does an about-face when he himself is threatened by a letter that denounces him as a collaborator. He calculates that having a son in the Resistance will strengthen his position after Germany’s defeat. Callously, he sends his son to this death by urging him to join the Resistance after all. Writing after Liberation, Montherlant seems to condemn his own blindness and complicity, although the review in Le Monde does not draw the parallel, stating only that the character George is “a traitor… one of those men who, in collusion with the occupiers, committed these villainies for which, ideally, they should have been punished, brought down by the storm of Justice.”33 In any case, Montherlant’s enthusiasm for German virility was soon forgotten: in 1960, he was elected to a lifetime position at the Académie Française. The break with the myth of “résistancialisme” in France was slow in coming. In 1969 Marcel Ophuls had tried to puncture the myth with his two-part documentary film, Le Chagrin et la pitié (“The Sorrow and the Pity”). In the film he confronts French citizens who are revealed as having been all too eager to collaborate with the occupiers and presents a picture of a few staunch Resistance fighters among a mostly compliant population. However, the film was only shown in a left-bank art house venue in 1971 and not shown on French television until 1981 (after the death of Charles De Gaulle). The French television station that had commissioned the film refused to release it for more than a decade. The head of the network Jean-Jacques de Bresson had commented at the time that the film “destroys myths that the people of France still need.”34 At Drancy, a train car similar to those used in the deportations was finally installed in 1988, 44 years after the end of the war (Image 3.1). 32 Garet, “Montherlant sous l’occupation,” 72. 33 Robert Kemp, “‘Demain il fera jour’” au théâtre Hébertot, Le Monde, May 12,

1949. https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1949/05/12/demain-il-fera-jour-au-the atre-hebertot_3045360_1819218.html. 34 Stuart Jeffries, “A Nation Shamed,” The Guardian, Jan. 22, 2004.

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Image 3.1 The memorial train car outside the Drancy apartment complex (Photograph by the author, 2007)

Several commemorative plaques were placed in the quadrangle of the apartment complex in 1993, though these were careful to blame the Vichy authorities.35 It was not until July 17, 1995, that French president Jacques Chirac acknowledged the role of the Vichy government in the deportation of Jews in France. In a ceremony held at the site of the roundups of Jews on July 16, 1942, he stated “the criminal folly of the occupiers was seconded by the French, by the French State.”36 The year before, the postwar friendship between French president François Mitterand and René Bousquet, head of police under the Vichy regime, had been exposed with no apparent harm to Mitterand’s reputation. The police official Maurice Papon, who had been directly in charge of

35 For a more extensive discussion of Drancy, see my chapter “Living Memory,” in my book World Cinema and Cultural Memory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 11–30. 36 Marliese Simons, “Chirac Affirms France’s Guilt in Fate of Jews,” New York Times, July 17, 1995.

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the deportation of Jews and the confiscation of Jewish property in the Bordeaux region, was not brought to trial until 1997. In the face of this decades-long official silence, theatre had allowed some voices to speak out. One of the strongest plays about the Occupation was written by Gilles Segal. Born in 1929, he was only 11 years old when France was defeated. His family had moved to France from Romania in 1934. After Liberation he studied with the famous mime artist Marcel Marceau and later worked with the renowned producer and the director, actor and mime artist Jean-Louis Barrault. In 1992 “Le Temps de muets,” translated by Sara O’Connor as “All the Tricks but One,” was translated and performed by the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre. The play was quite a feat to translate, since it depends on pantomime. The hero of the play, “Le petit Chelem” (“Little Slam,” named after the hand in bridge that holds all the tricks but one) is a stage artist in the provinces, billed as a vaudeville performer who has to communicate through pantomime because he has to hide his Yiddish accent. Ludovic, a small boy who is living with his grandparents and who develops a special relationship with the artist, is a key figure in the play. It’s near the end of the war, and Frenchmen who supported Pétain and Vichy are trying to develop some credibility as active Resistance activists. The theatre director is helping to hide the Jewish actor so that at the end of the war he won’t be called a collaborator (this is similar to Montherlant’s theme in “Demain il fera jour”). The mayor’s deputy wants to “buy” “Little Slam” from the director for the same reason. Everyone is looking for a Jew they can claim they helped, in order to avoid sanctions after the German defeat: DEPUTY: I entreat you…I beg you…I need him much more than you do… you know it very well! DIRECTOR: First of all, that’s far from certain…and then, even so…he belongs to me. DEPUTY: Of course, of course: who said otherwise?…But I’m not asking you to give him to me, I’m ready to pay…please!… DIRECTOR: But I can’t…I can’t!…I assure you…You don’t know everything…I need him at least as much as you do! DEPUTY: Ok, I understand that you won’t sell him to me, so rent him out!…one or two days!…one day a week! …a month! …just so the building supervisor can see him once or twice…to testify…just in case! …I beg you! … ask him at least! …he can’t refuse me…if you speak for me! DIRECTOR: But why don’t you find your own! After all, how hard can it be! At City Hall!

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DEPUTY: Are you kidding? … You never see any! … I don’t know where the bastards are hiding! … I haven’t been able to unearth a single one!37

The director goes on to promise the deputy to put him in touch with some people in the Resistance so he can build up his alibi. Later, he describes this conversation to his wife. “Little Slam” has been playing hide-and-seek with Ludovic and happens to overhear the couple when the whole family secret is revealed: the theatre director owes his present position to his denunciation to the Nazis of the previous director. He has also sent his own son as a conscript to forced labor (in a program called “Service de Travail Obligatoire” [STO] or “Compulsory Work Service”) in order to build up his credibility with the Nazi occupiers. Additionally, he has gained custody of his grandchild after falsely turning in his daughterin-law as a member of the Resistance. “Little Slam’s” stage performance, in which he pretends to be a marionette who collapses when his strings are cut, and who is pursued by a spotlight, takes on additional meaning with these revelations—he is a hunted individual manipulated by others. When the guilty couple are put on trial after Liberation, the adjunct, now mayor, has adroitly (and falsely, of course) managed to convince the townspeople that he was in the Resistance. He has become one of the main accusers of the director and his wife. “Little Slam,” who has miraculously survived his deportation to a concentration camp, is called to make a statement in favor of the couple who had temporarily hidden him—but he is rendered literally speechless in the face of so much perfidy.

Theatre About the Resistance: Jean-Claude Grumberg and Charlotte Delbo While France was separated by the “occupied zone” in the north and the so-called free zone in the south, the two regions were separated by the heavily guarded “ligne de demarcation” (“demarcation line”) which one needed the help of scouts (“passeurs”) to cross.

37 Gilles Segal, Le Marionnettiste de Lodz suivi de Le Temps des muets (Paris: Actes-Sud Papiers, 1992), 80–81.

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Jean-Claude Grumberg’s 1990 “Zone libre” (“The Free Zone”) highlights the drama of Jews who crossed the demarcation line and escaped to Vichy France where they imagined they could hide, escape by sea, or reach Portugal through Spain. The play was first performed in 1990 at the Théâtre d’Orléans. The English translation was performed by the Ubu Theater, New York, in 1993. In Grumberg’s play, a Jewish family has fled from occupied France to the “free zone” in 1942, the year of the roundups and deportations in the north. They are staying in the French countryside where, if discovered, they might be apprehended and sent to camps at any moment. Simon, the head of the family, pretends to the farmer Maury that they are from Alsace, and that the grandmother who might give them away by speaking Yiddish is in fact speaking an Alsatian dialect. He has changed his last name from Zilberberg to the more French-sounding “Girard.” Maury is not fooled, however, and calls them “my Jews” when conversing with others. Grumberg has written that he did not want to idealize his characters; as it is, they are far from perfect: “I wanted to show my Jews living as they must among others […] I wanted to honor simultaneously their courage and cowardliness, their blindness and perspicacity.”38 Simon and his wife Léa are constantly bickering. When Léa decides to go outside for a walk in the countryside after one of their quarrels, Simon sarcastically asks her to bring him some tobacco from the corner store. They have an extended argument about whether to circumcise the sister’s baby if it should turn out to be a boy—but then she gives birth to a baby girl! Henri, a 13-yearold nephew, has been taken along because his father is in a prison camp in Germany. He upsets everyone’s plans by running away to Paris. Simon has to go in pursuit at risk of his own life. Another Jewish citizen, Apfelbaum, has refused to change his name and consequently gets arrested. In the play’s most dramatic moment, the police come looking for the Zilberberg (“Girard”) family but Maury arranges for them to escape to a nearby

38 Jean-Claude Grumberg, “Introduction,” in The Free Zone/The Workroom, trans. Catherine Temerson (New York: Ubu Repertory Theatre Communications, 1993), xxii. In 1979 Grumberg had written “L’Atelier” (“The Workroom”) situated in a Paris sweatshop just after the war in 1945. The women workers discuss the fate of their loved ones who were arrested and deported during the Occupation.

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church. Grumberg’s play then has an amusing scene where the resourceful Maury manages to allay the suspicions of the police, or at least get them on his side with banter and alcohol: POLICEMAN #1: Girard family? MAURY: Gérard? Who’s that? There are no Gérards here. That’s a good one. You don’t even know whose place you’ve come to anymore? I’m Maury! Maury! POLICEMAN #1: (raising a hand to his visor) Hello, Mr. Maury. Say, it’s quite a climb to your place, eh? MAURY: And so why’d you bother? POLICEMAN #1: My colleagues and me we’re required. MAURY: Required? By whom? POLICEMAN #1: (after a pause in which he glances around at the disorderliness) We’re rounding up all illegal immigrants residing on county territory. MAURY: And here is where you’re hoping to round up foreigners? POLICEMAN #1: We got our reasons, maybe. MAURY: (unflustered): Any what are they? POLICEMAN #1: (lowering his voice) Letters and things like that […] POLICEMAN #2: (entering with a heavy tread) There’s no one in the surrounding area. […] MAURY: You want to see my I.D. papers? So you won’t have trekked up here for nothing! POLICEMAN #1: Come now, come now! MAURY: Then how about one for the road? […] Policeman #2 nods gravely, then collapses into a chair suddenly, declaring: POLICEMAN #1: O. K., I guess we can certify in writing that no one by the name of Girard or Gérard lives in these quarters, right? POLICEMAN#2: I’ve had it! MAURY: (looking at the policeman) Really, it’s a heck of a job they’ve got you doing… POLICEMAN#2: (pulling himself together) Hell, respect for the law must be enforced, or else… MAURY: As far as I’m concerned, under my roof, there’s only one law! To your health!39

39 Grumberg, The Free Zone, 79–81. For the original French text, see Jean-Claude Grumberg, Dreyfus – L’Atelier – Zone libre (Arles: Actes Sud, 1990).

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Grumberg’s point in this scene is that the police themselves are satisfied once they have fulfilled their duty; they too are part of the community, an aspect that Maury knows how to use to his advantage. In the midst of this scene, Simon resurfaces after his unsuccessful pursuit of Henri, but Maury is unfazed—he welcomes him as an “in-law” and the police are none the wiser. On the occasion of the play’s premiere, the French newspaper Le Monde commented “Jean-Claude Grumberg combines tact with compassion, humor with conscience. Grumberg says that the play ‘doesn’t say everything about crime, chaos, misfortune, and desolation.’ He is mistaken: all of this is recalled, brought back to life, almost every second, by action and by words.”40 Charlotte Delbo, who wrote many compelling plays about the concentration camps, also wrote a drama about the Resistance. In 1941, Delbo was touring in Latin America with famed theatre director Louis Jouvet. In November of that year, she returned to France to join the Resistance in which her husband Georges Dudach was also active. They were both arrested only three months later. Her husband was executed on May 22, 1942.41 Delbo’s “Ceux qui avaient choisi” (“Those Who Had Made a Choice”), a Françoise, a French woman, meets Werner, a German former soldier and classical scholar, at a café in Athens after the war. They exchange their experiences—Françoise was deported to Auschwitz after the execution of her beloved, who was in the Resistance; Werner’s beloved was arrested and killed for harboring Jews during the war. Françoise explains to him why they cannot become friends, given what has happened between France and Germany. Their interaction recalls the well-known Resistance novel by “Vercors” (Jean Bruller), Le Silence de la mer (“The Silence of the Sea”) which was published by the underground press “Les Editions de Minuit” during the Occupation and made into a film in 1949 by Jean-Pierre Melville. In that novel, a German officer who is billeted with a French family tries to express his admiration for French culture, but is met with silent resistance from his hosts, a man and his 40 Le Monde, “Si peu de vengeance… ‘Zone libre,’ de Jean-Claude Grumberg: souvenirs des temps de peur,” (anonymous review), December 8, 1990. 41 Olivier Véron, “Après tout,” in Delbo, Ceux qui avaient choisi (Paris: Les Provinciales, 2011), 78–79. https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1990/12/08/si-peu-devengeance-zone-libre-de-jean-claude-grumberg-souvenirs-des-temps-de-peur_3979520_ 1819218.html.

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niece. Delbo’s play is described in the preface to the published version as “an homage to her husband [Georges Dudach] shot at the Mont-Valérien for Resistance activities and to her comrades who died in deportation.”42 Delbo wrote the play in 1967. Portions had appeared with the Editions de Minuit in 1970, and one scene was presented onstage in 1977; yet the play was only published posthumously in 2011. “Ceux qui avaient choisi” presents a haunting scene in flashback as “Françoise” is granted a final interview with her husband “Paul” before his execution. One can imagine that this scene actually played out between the real Charlotte and Georges: PAUL: My love, you gave me six years of happiness. How many people die at sixty without having had as much. What counts is not the age at which you die, but the life you have had. Every minute of my life with you, I lived in joy. I don’t have regrets at having missed out on anything, of having lost out. I am fulfilled. I have been happy […] FRANÇOISE: (speaking to Werner in the café): The soldiers took me back to my cell along all those dark corridors. I walked between them and I know that I stood up straight. Then I felt a searing pain in my chest. He hadn’t called me “little girl.” In the morning, he always said, “Good morning, little girl.” I wanted to turn around, go back, run up to him, say “One more time, call me ‘little girl,’ like you used to.” I pushed against the soldiers, they held me back by force. I fell on the tiles and it seems to me that I stayed there for a long, long time, without consciousness, on the tiles. When I woke up, I saw the soldiers, who were waiting. Where was I? What were those soldiers doing, watching me? It took a moment for me to remember and I thought my heart would burst. They helped me up, I shrugged their hands off. I was ashamed of having shown my weakness in front of them. And I started to count the moments left to Paul by the rhythm of my heartbeats.43

At the café, Françoise is critical of the choice that Werner made to serve in the German army. In the end, she refuses his offer of friendship: WERNER: What was one to choose when an entire country was enmeshed in disorder, in the confusion between truth and lies?

42 Ibid., 7. 43 Delbo, Ceux qui avaient choisi, Ibid., 28–42.

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FRANÇOISE: To be for Hitler or against Hitler. To follow Hitler or to fight against him. WERNER: To die in a camp or at the front, is that a choice? FRANÇOISE: Between courage and shame. WERNER: No, we didn’t have a choice. Our destiny was: to die in the war or to survive in shame. We were caught, as in a trap that boxed us in. A whole people trapped and guilty of failing to imagine how far things would go once the infernal machine had started up. Every guilty survivor today asks how he should come to terms with himself. At least, I ask myself that question.44

The introduction to the play’s publication in 2017 by its publisher notes that “It is out of fidelity to her past that Françoise, steeped in political commitment and the solidarity of clandestine struggle, refuses to give in to the tenderness, the sensuality of this meeting […] she finally leaves the professor to his studies, incapable as he is, then or now, of transforming his knowledge into a force of action.”45

Art as Resistance: The Eagle and the Cactus “The Eagle and the Cactus” is based on a true story. Claude Cahun, a renowned surrealist photographer, lived with her partner Marcel Moore, an artist, on the Isle of Jersey during the German Occupation of the Channel Islands. Though Jewish, Cahun was not arrested until 1944 when she and her step-sister and life-long partner Moore came to the attention of the German authorities. Born Lucy Schwob, daughter of the publisher of venerable literary magazine Mercure de France, Claude Cahun had made a name for herself in Parisian circles as a writer and surrealist photographer (Image 3.2). In 1937 she moved to the Isle of Jersey with Marcel Moore (born Suzanne Malherbe) and their beloved cat. They lived in a house, La Rocquaise, in St. Brelade, right next to a cemetery on the coast, and only a short bus ride from the island’s main town of St. 44 Delbo, Ibid., 19. 45 Charlotte Delbo, Ceux qui avaient choisi (Paris: Flammarion, 2017).

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Image 3.2 Claude Cahun, “Je Tends Les Bras” (I Stretch Out My Arms), 1931 (Copyright Jersey Heritage)

Helier. From there they successfully flummoxed the German authorities for years with their endlessly inventive and satirical anti-war writings. They practiced collage by reassembling newspaper headlines, wrote poems, wrote on coins with nail polish, and produced tracts—these they would often distribute by bicycle, traveling around the island in their “disguise” of being two harmless middle-aged ladies out looking for berries or mushrooms (Image 3.3). Sometimes they would insert the messages

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Image 3.3 Lucy Schwob (Claude Cahun, left) and Suzanne Malherbe (Marcel Moore, right) walking. Undated double image (Photographer unknown. Copyright Jersey Heritage)

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in magazines that soldiers might typically buy; other times they would have the nerve to place them in officers’ mailboxes. They accomplished all this under the noses of the German officers who were quartered in their house! The two women pursued their Resistance activities for years before they were apprehended. Fortunately they were released when the Germans lost the war. Once found out, Cahun and Moore remained defiant. They refused to ask for a pardon and were condemned to death (though the sentence was never carried out). In my research at the Jersey Heritage Archives, I found letters and poems that Claude had sent to Marcel when they were confined in separate cells. I imagine her adopting some of the disguises documented in her photographs, enacting her rewritings of historical heroines, and creating one of her surrealist sculptures. Her prison cell becomes her studio. The in-depth biography of Cahun by François Leperlier led me to the Occupation Diary of the Baron von und zu Aufsess, an officer in charge of the civilian population of Jersey. He was a man of culture who did everything he could to save the island from starvation; over the objections of his fellow officers, he arranged for the arrival of Red Cross ships during the last months when the whole island had run out of food. In The Eagle and the Cactus the Baron (the German Eagle) and Claude Cahun (the “Cactus”) measure themselves against one another in a Promethean encounter—Cahun chained to her rock and taunted by the German “Eagle.” Their conversation, I allow, is an invention. In the end, Claude prevails when the Germans lose the war. Her imagination trumps German authoritarianism. A self-portrait she took upon her release shows her clenching a Nazi badge, depicting the German eagle, between her teeth (Image 3.4). In her writings, she compares herself to a cactus—hence the title of the play, “The Eagle and the Cactus.” Claude and Marcel continued to live on the Isle of Jersey until Cahun’s death in 1954. Today, her house bears a commemorative plaque. The German Baron served some time as a prisoner of war and gardener in England before returning to Germany and writing the memoir of his wartime experiences.

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Image 3.4 Claude Cahun, “Self Portrait with Nazi Badge Between Her Teeth,” 1954 (Copyright Jersey Heritage)

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The Eagle and the Cactus A play in two acts by Inez Hedges

© All rights reserved. Library of Congress PAu003827664 Info: Inez Hedges [email protected] Summary: Claude Cahun (Lucy Schwob) made a name for herself in Parisian surrealist circles as a writer and photographer before moving to the Isle of Jersey in 1937 with her step-sister and lifelong partner Marcel Moore (Suzanne Malherbe). After Jersey was occupied by German forces in 1940, Claude and Marcel successfully flummoxed the German authorities for years with their inventive and often humorous anti-German tracts. Both of them were arrested in July 1944 and imprisoned. The women remained defiant at their trial and eventually triumphed when the Germans lost the war. Claude’s prison cell becomes her studio, as she continues to practice art. CHARACTERS (in order of appearance): CLAUDE CAHUN (Lucy Schwob, 50s): Surrealist photographer and writer OTTO, German prison guard MARCEL MOORE (Suzanne Malherbe, 50s) Illustrator, step-sister to Claude, and her lifelong partner EDNA, Schoolteacher JEREMY, Bartender-owner of the ANGRY DOG pub NIGEL, Doctor TWO GERMAN SOLDIERS COLONEL KNACKFUSS, German Officer in charge of the island BARON VON AUFSESS, German Officer charged with the civilian administration of the island MRS. ISABELLA WETHERINGTON, British subject native to the Island PETER, Captured American pilot NIKKI, Imprisoned German soldier (offstage voice only)

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Note: The play can be produced with 5 actors (2 men and 3 women). Time: July 1944 to May 1945. Locations: the German prison on the Isle of Jersey, and the Angry Dog Pub on the island. ACT I Scene 1 Setting: A prison cell on the Isle of Jersey containing props that will allow CLAUDE to re-stage some of her famous photographs. CLAUDE is in her cell; OTTO the guard sits outside. MARCEL is offstage in another cell. CLAUDE (struggling with cloth manacles) I can be Houdini! My Jewish brother. Death-defying. No lock I cannot break. I’d like to see the Wehrmacht try and hold him! Watch this! (she sheds the manacles). They can’t hold me here! Not Houdini! I piss on your whole army—je vous conchie! Guard!! OTTO Was ist, My Lady? CLAUDE For the last time-- I am not a lady. Just a woman. Nur-eine-Frau. Tell me how my sister is. Did she eat anything today? Meine Schwester—essen? OTTO Your sister—better German than you. She eat—yes. A little. Here—letter from her. CLAUDE Danke. (she begins to read) MARCEL (voice from offstage) My dear little duckling, you always said that I was the braver one, the one with sang froid …the truth is I got a kind of euphoria during our exploits—it was as though we had a magic cloak of invisibility…imagine! Two old biddies like us confounding the entire Wehrmacht on the island for all those years with our messages to German soldiers! Even now it makes me smile.

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How brave we were! But what I cannot seem to bear, duckling, is my separation from you, the first long one since we were sixteen. I remember how overjoyed we were when our parents married. Sometimes I think we were happier together than even they were! I wish I could hear your voice again, we are so close and yet so far…the guard seems friendly enough— I’ll send you this missive through him. Courage mon petit. What an irony to be arrested at the last, when the Allies are already in Normandy and marching toward Paris. CLAUDE Oh bother! Bother! To lose out at the last! To miss the victory! Claude puts down the letter, walks over to the pile of clothes and begins one of her “heroines” transformations, dressing as “Eve”

The way I see it, Eve was the original victim of false advertising. “Don’t wait—as soon as you have had even a taste of this fruit, your eyes will be opened and you will be like a god, knowing both good and evil. Be sure to ask for this delicious fruit—by the way there is only one left. Ask for it now before it’s too late!” (she pretends to eat an apple) Oh but now I see the light! I see there is good and evil—but I can’t tell which is which. It depends which side of the apple you bite into. Here is an army of the left that bit into the left side of the apple, while the army on the right bit into the right side. But which is the right and which the wrong side? This apple—it’s the apple of discord! (she throws the imaginary apple away). ACT I Scene 2 Setting: the Angry Dog pub. NIGEL is seated. JEREMY and EDNA enter laughing.

EDNA Haha! I just can’t believe it! Tell the doctor the whole story all over again! JEREMY Yes but first witness the magic! Here, my good doctor, is a nice side of roast pig for you and yours! Something that even money can’t buy!

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NIGEL Good heavens! Now you do owe me a story. I know very well that all livestock is requisitioned by the Germans! EDNA That’s just it—as long as it’s “live.” Do tell, Jeremy—don’t keep the good doctor waiting. JEREMY Well it’s like this: every piglet born has to be registered with the Jerries. Later when it’s ready to eat they come round and pick it up. But say one dies…then they come by to certify its death. EDNA But say you then quickly move that dead piglet to the next farm, and then the next… NIGEL Brilliant! So in the end you have three or even four chances for bacon and pork chops! JEREMY See, my sister is married to a farmer so they got this friend of theirs, Robin, he has this special way with pigs, killing them in a real gentle way you know. He just pets them and scratches them under the chin and then flash! Before they even know what’s coming and have a chance to squeal. So this fifty-pound pig was all ready to be divided up but then come some German officers knocking at the door…. EDNA You know you can go to prison for hiding livestock—plus losing the pig! (giggles) What would you do? NIGEL That requires some quick thinking to be sure. On with it man! What happened! JEREMY Well my sister has a good head on her shoulders all right. Quick! She says! Haul the animal upstairs and put it under the covers! We do as we’re told though we don’t know what she has in mind—“just do it!” she says.

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EDNA What kind of recipe is that? Pig in a blanket? (giggles) But go on, Jeremy, go on. JEREMY (acting out on a table; throws his apron over his stomach) Then my sister crawls in to bed with the pig and pulls even more covers over her. And she starts to moan like she’s giving birth. Well we catch on soon enough! Is it time to fetch the midwife? We ask her. “No, no, too soon yet. But it won’t be long now,” she says and goes on moaning. The Germans take one look and beat it. (general laughter) JEREMY Then we go downstairs and roast the thing! Luckily the Germans don’t come back because the cooking odors alone are food to our starved stomachs! NIGEL Seeing you I believe we’ll get through the coming winter yet. A toast to our appetizing pig friend! (glasses clink; the pub grows dark) ACT I Scene 3 Setting: The prison office; Colonel KNACKFUSS behind a desk. Mrs. Wetheringon enters bearing a large bouquet of red, white, and blue flowers, a cake, and an enormous hat festooned with a multitude of objects

MRS. WETHERINGTON (upper-class British accent) What do you mean I can’t see her! It’s her birthday, October 24! Here you sit all comfy while your nincompoop of a Führer is throwing men down the well all over Europe and beyond! And all you can think of doing to protect your pathetic authority is to imprison two harmless old ladies who, by the way, are the nicest neighbors!

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(she shakes the bouquet in the face of KNACKFUSS) I’d have a few things to tell Herr Hitler about how to run a war! Why he’s not even an officer! You’re being led around by the nose by a simple corporal! So much for Deutschland über alles ! KNACKFUSS In Gottes Namen! Who the devil are you? MRS. WETHERINGTON I am Mrs. Isabella Wetherington and I demand to see Miss Cahun whom you have the effrontery to lock up here in your dingy establishment. She is a lady—how could you possibly understand. And that goes for her sister too. I’ve brought flowers and a cake—it’s her birthday! KNACKFUSS Those flowers are the colors of the French flag! MRS. WETHERINGTON Pooh pooh I’m not scared of you. I’m a British citizen. I’m probably even more of an Aryan than you are—pure English, all the way back to the Magna Carta. Claude is French. Even so—she’s my friend. And I always give her a red white and blue bouquet on her birthday and a cake with red white and blue frosting—see? KNACKFUSS You’re British you say. It is my duty and my pleasure to remind you that you are under occupation by the German Wehrmacht and hence subject to my sole authority. Our attitude toward the British population has been entirely correct, as we regard you as our subjects—subjects in the great German Reich! MRS. WETHERINGTON Occupy this tiny island all you want, since you couldn’t get your hands on anything bigger. Tell me—was it really worth a world war so you could sit here cooling your heels on the Isle of Jersey? Where is the rest of your victorious army? Anyway, get on with it and let me see her. Or did you Germans decide to outlaw saying it with flowers too? KNACKFUSS (irritated) I’ll have you know that we not only occupy the island, but we have even captured an American pilot! Guard! Take her downstairs!

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OTTO comes onstage and takes MRS. WETHERINGTON to see CLAUDE in her cell; CLAUDE has been arranging herself to sit according to her “Buddhist monk” photo)

CLAUDE (languidly) Mrs. Wetherington, I presume. Oh Isabella! Is it really my birthday? MRS. WETHERINGTON Claude, stop this silliness at once! Guard! Stand outside! Otto obediently goes to stand outside the cell

CLAUDE (rising) You know we may be condemned to death. MRS. WETHERINGTON Fiddlesticks! They wouldn’t! Leclerc marched into Paris on the 19th of August at the head of the French troops! And that bulldog Churchill is thundering away now that the German bombs failed to break us! You need to hang on, dear. CLAUDE (sinking into Buddhist pose once more) Yes, be patient and wait for enlightenment—liberation from prison—or from these earthly shackles. (rising) Who knows what they might be capable of if they want revenge. In defeat they are perhaps even more dangerous. MRS. WETHERINGTON Oh shush now. Look, I brought you things from home—well most of your house is pillaged of course. But here! (She takes things out of her enormous hat: candles, matches, feathers, combs, a fork and spoon, a newspaper, gloves; then places the large vase of flowers on the floor; these objects will become part of Claude’s sculpture; also she brings a rolled up portrait of the cat, Kid)

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CLAUDE (unrolling the picture of Kid) Marcel’s drawing of our cat Kid! (petulant) I’m insulted the Wehrmacht didn’t steal it. How is my sister? Can you manage to see her too? Take her this from me (hands Mrs. Wetherington a letter)—the trial is only three weeks away. If only I could be Judith to the German Holofernes. I’d cut off Hitler’s head! MRS. WETHERINGTON Don’t worry dear. We are watching them. They wouldn’t hurt you! Not in Britain! She exits

ACT I Scene 4 Setting: The trial in KNACKFUSS’ office; MARCEL and CLAUDE are brought in by two German soldiers who stand off to the side. KNACKFUSS Gottverdammt! Diese unverschämte Frauenzimmer! So these are the “soldiers with no name.” For four years you have been insulting the Wehrmacht and subverting the morale of our men! And all this time the German Wehrmacht has shown the utmost consideration for the inhabitants of this wretched island! MARCEL How can you accuse us? There were German officers billeted in our house along with their horses—nasty beasts who tore up our vegetable garden. We are the wronged ones. KNACKFUSS (to the soldiers) Bring the evidence! The two soldiers bring in a suitcase loaded with tracts and subversive materials

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KNACKFUSS This was found in the barn next to your house! Coins inscribed with nail polish messages saying “Down with War!” Nieder mit Krieg! Seditious tracts urging our soldiers to desert! A calendar for this very year, 1944, with pictures of destroyed German cities for each month! And always signed “the soldier without a name.” Who is your leader? Who else conspired with you? What is the name of your organization? MARCEL Why do you men always think that we women need help? It’s rather your army that’s stomping around uselessly with your clubfooted gait all over Europe and Russia, officer Crackfoot! The two German soldiers smirk but stop at a stern look from KNACKFUSS

KNACKFUSS You will never get me to believe that you acted alone! MARCEL (very patiently) Of course we did. It was easy. For instance, we took a headline from one of your newspapers and changed the word order. (she recites) Allies losing the war! Londoners desert the capital! Endless waves of bombs over London! German troops triumph! Germany victorious! CLAUDE And so we changed it to: German troops desert! Germany losing the war! Endless war! Krieg ohne Ende! Then we just inserted these pages into the magazines the German soldiers buy… MARCEL I even wrote up little messages in German addressed to “Deutsche Soldaten”: “Fellow German soldiers, do you know what awaits you? The German army is suffering losses all over Europe. Entrenched in France where it meets constant resistance from the population, it has been unable even to cross the Channel into England. Your officers are blind and bloated from their corrupt exploitation of the lands they occupy, stuffing themselves while you are fed with turnips and cabbage. Soon they will

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suffer bitter years of prison. But you can save yourselves. Refuse to obey them. Signed: The soldier without a name. Der Soldat ohne Name.” CLAUDE (enthusiastic) And then we dressed up in our Wellingtons and riding breeches and Burberry raincoats—just like most of the women here. The raincoats have lots of deep pockets for our tracts! MARCEL Who was going to suspect two old ladies out for a walk or going shopping? We always carried big empty shopping bags. And we stuffed our messages in officers’ mailboxes or pinned them to horse drawn carts. CLAUDE And so they went all over the island! KNACKFUSS You are proud of this? You are boasting that you urged our soldiers to commit treason? MARCEL You think we did not act alone. You think we needed a man to tell us what to do. We did not. We live across from the cemetery… CLAUDE So we went out at night and painted the crosses of the German soldiers with the slogan: For them the war is over… KNACKFUSS Enough, enough! So you were encouraging German soldiers to commit treason! Here: a picture of the Führer decapitated! CLAUDE We are only pointing out how sad it would be if Hitler were to lose his head, just as apparently he has lost his way… KNACKFUSS Unverschämt! And this image! German soldiers on a path leading nowhere with cemetery crosses on both sides of the road! MARCEL (with sarcasm) Yes, wouldn’t that be terrible! It looks a bit like the snowy steppes of Russia, doesn’t it?

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KNACKFUSS And then there’s the song! A song beloved all over Germany that celebrates our fallen heroes! And you had the effrontery to write new words to it! GERMAN SOLDIERS (singing to the tune of “Ich hat einen Kamaraden”) I had a soldier comrade— A brother tried and true; We went to war together The Hun against the Jew; We swore to serve our Führer And swore to love him too. But endless war befell us And now it seems we’re though! Our brothers froze in Russia, Our brothers died at Dieppe The Allies are advancing While through the mud we schlepp. We wish tvhat we could stop this— Surrender would be sweet Where can we lay our arms down And thaw our frozen feet!

KNACKFUSS Enough of this farce! MARCEL Yes, time to put your foot down, Colonel Crackfoot! (the soldiers snigger at this play on words) KNACKFUSS (drawing himself up) For illegal possession of a radio: nine months prison. For illegal possession of a firearm: six years prison. For incitement to desertion and conspiracy: death by firing squad.

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MARCEL Well that’s really logical now! I can tell that you come from the “nation of poets and philosophers!” Tell me: are we to serve the nine months and six years before we are executed or after? (the soldiers smirk) KNACKFUSS Stop this farce at once! Take the prisoners back to their cells! The soldiers take Claude and Marcel away

ACT II Scene 1 Setting: Claude’s cell. She is busy with her surrealist sculpture. THE BARON enters quietly

CLAUDE And who might you be? THE BARON Baron von Aufsess. Here on the island they just call me The Baron. I have the honor and also the duty to be the German civilian administrator for this island. I believe I can offer you and your sister a solution. CLAUDE And what could that be? You know very well we are condemned to death. You are the jailers, we the jailed—but that situation will someday change, as well you know. THE BARON Yes but in the meantime we are still the masters. I find myself in a difficult position. CLAUDE Oh, so now I am to advise you? Do go on. THE BARON Do not mistake me—I am not asking for anything for myself. I offer you a way to save yourselves only.

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CLAUDE Possibly you wish to avoid the consequences of putting two ladies to death once the German occupiers are called to a reckoning by the victors. THE BARON Perhaps also I am motivated by less selfish concerns. CLAUDE Then you would be a most unusual person indeed! How are you going to convince me of it? THE BARON You refer to me as your jailer; however now that France is in the hands of the allies, we Germans too are in a sense imprisoned on this island. CLAUDE Are you giving me a lesson in the ironies of fate? Permit me to laugh: haha. THE BARON Some of the authorities here see this as a justification for harsher measures against the islanders. To prevent a full-scale revolt. I myself… CLAUDE You want me to believe that you are one of the “good” Germans. THE BARON The military has its codes of honor. We cannot simply surrender. The situation is difficult. The government of Jersey is cut off from England as we are cut off from supplies in France. Since the fall of St. Malo we are entirely without provisions and resources. CLAUDE So we are all chained to the rock. And I—as well as my sister—am simply to be tortured in eternity by the German eagle. THE BARON You compare yourself to Prometheus? CLAUDE Ah, an educated German at last. Did we not bring something like truth to your raggedy soldiers? Caught in their war without end?

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THE BARON Truth? What good is truth without hope? Perhaps you did more harm than good. We have several of your dissidents in this very prison condemned for desertion and treason. CLAUDE That will be on your conscience, not mine! THE BARON Let me remind you that I am not all-powerful here. My job is to look after the civilian population only. Nor will I necessarily be able to do so for much longer. We aristocrats are all under suspicion after the attempt on the life of the Führer by Claus von Stauffenberg. There is probably an arrest warrant for me making its way from Berlin even now. CLAUDE Ah, but lines of communication are cut off! How lucky for you. THE BARON All the more reason for you to sign this request to the military authorities that they pardon you. CLAUDE You want us to beg the authorities to pardon us! When all we did we did from conviction! THE BARON Our view on that must necessarily differ. As long as we are the occupiers we must have discipline within our own ranks. Anything else becomes unmanageable. CLAUDE You want me to sign, which is the same as saying: pardon me, jailer, for making your life more difficult! THE BARON You could put it that way. I prefer to think that you recognize that all you have done is to sow confusion. CLAUDE Baron—you find yourself on the wrong side of history. And history will soon prove us right!

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THE BARON Then sign and live to see it. CLAUDE I will not sign. THE BARON You call yourself a woman—but a real woman is pliable and will take advice from a man. I have become friends with many Englishwomen on the island and we have come to respect one another and even consider one another as allies in this impossible situation. There has to be good will and cooperation. CLAUDE Well then I am not a woman in your usual sense. It is not only the soldier who lives with a code of honor. I am no collaborator. THE BARON Remain on your rock then, Prometheus. CLAUDE Hitler is no Zeus. And even wars without end have a way of ending someday. Fly away eagle. You are only playing at war. THE BARON And you are playing at resistance. CLAUDE Perhaps. But I have the better role. THE BARON I have done what I could. What happens now I cannot predict. Adieu Madame. THE BARON exits the cell; no answer from CLAUDE who turns away THE BARON and moves to another part of the stage where he writes to his wife; CLAUDE and THE BARON read parts of their letters in alternation

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CLAUDE My dearest, you did well to warn me; I did not sign. Why should we beg for our lives from these monsters! Soon enough they will take our place behind bars. They sent their most persuasive messenger, a German with manners no less, and educated! THE BARON My dearest, I write this secret diary in the hope that you may read it if I am unable to return. My friends write that you are in prison and suspected of being unfriendly to the Reich, along with the Stauffenberg family. Certainly that was the outcome to be feared if the Count’s plan did not succeed. This island has become like a prison too—it gives me a feeling of mental claustrophobia. Our closeness to France makes me remember that I am French on my mother’s side. Would the French have fallen for Hitler? I think not. CLAUDE My poor little chick, all we have left is our courage, our ability to focus on what we treasure and share to forget the miserable present; have patience—the more you try it, the better you get at it. I have become a genius with patience. In the meantime I have made a candle-holder with a potato and a spoon! Quite surrealist, I think. THE BARON There are two strange women here, convicted for activities against the Reich. The photographs found in their home were almost pornographic— shaved heads, women in men’s clothes, all sorts of perversion and exhibitionism. How different from my lovely Sophie, yet how terrible it is to see any woman in this awful prison where deprivation gets harder every day. Yet the military want to prolong the occupation to the last moment even if the population starves. ACT II Scene 2 Setting: The Angry Dog pub. Edna and Nigel at the table; Jeremy brings drinks and sits down with them JEREMY Two arrested last night—for harboring a radio and listening to the BBC.

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NIGEL And there were two more arrested this morning—for hiding a German deserter. Nicky I think his name was. I saw him last week, poor boy— nineteen years old and thin as a rail. He showed up at the Allen Farm and they just didn’t have the heart to turn him away. So now they’re all in jail together. Though it will go worse for Nicky than for the islanders, to be sure. Though with winter coming on, and the lack of supplies, they will be lucky to survive in any case. EDNA Did you hear about Mrs. Wetherington? Some officers pushed her off the curb on High Street and she got up and punched one of them! Told them it was her town and her island and they should know their place as mere “guests!” She’s under house arrest for a week. JEREMY That lady sure is something! You know I almost think she was trying to get herself thrown in jail? There’s some sort of plot afoot concerning an American pilot who’s in there. NIGEL Well they better get him out fast. With food so scarce, prisoners are being starved. The Germans don’t even have enough to feed their own. JEREMY As I see it, in the end we have to get along with them. I see them come in here looking for some distraction. Most of them are not a bad lot. They’re not the ones who started this war. They just got caught up in it like anyone. Like you and me. EDNA So you don’t mind that I have to teach German to our kids—while they go about in shoes mended with old tires—and come to school hungry? You don’t mind that that’s what the occupation has brought us? JEREMY I’m just saying—might as well make the best of it. Live and let live, you know. These Germans mean business—why risk getting on the wrong side of them? You only end up in prison or worse; like those two sisters from France. I heard they are condemned to death! NIGEL Some would call them heroes.

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JEREMY Not me; it’s foolish to taunt them when they have all the power. What good does it do? Live and let live—that’s what I say. EDNA If they’d only let us—then I could see your point. (to Nigel) By the way, how are you getting around these days? You can’t always manage by your broken-down bicycle when you go out to the farms. NIGEL I get a very small petrol allowance. But the Germans figured out that the farmers were filling me up a bit when I come out there. So now they put coloring in the petrol. Doctors have green; farmers have red. So if I get caught with red petrol—well I might go straight to jail myself. JEREMY And with checkpoints everywhere—how do you manage? NIGEL Well I know the back roads pretty well. And a couple of times I had to go through the farmer’s fields to get around the checkpoints. EDNA Yesterday I saw an incredible thing—a horse-drawn ambulance! JEREMY Somebody better guard that horse at night or it will end up on the dinner table! EDNA And you might have to rename your pub the “Poached Poodle” instead of the “Angry Dog.” JEREMY (laughing) I might at that! Well here’s to Christmas, everyone—with red and green petrol. Lights out and curfew soon! They clink glasses; offstage, men singing “O Tannenbaum,” a German Christmas carol

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ACT II Scene 3 Setting: The prison office. KNACKFUSS sitting behind his desk; THE BARON stands in front of the desk. KNACKFUSS There is no other solution. We have no way of obtaining more supplies. Our duty is to our troops. We shall confiscate the food from the islanders and that will allow our own troops to survive three more months—until the final victory. THE BARON We cannot let the population starve to death! First of all, from a humanitarian point of view. Secondly, we shall all be treated as war criminals if Germany is defeated and we have let the islanders die. KNACKFUSS Germany defeated? Your military code of honor forbids you to think it— much less to say it. All you aristocrats are in league against the Führer! THE BARON I have already expressed my abhorrence about the assassination attempt. Von Stauffenberg is no friend of mine. KNACKFUSS All the same your wife has been arrested. THE BARON A misunderstanding. My unfortunate wife is completely innocent. KNACKFUSS You can prove your loyalty by rounding up supplies for our troops! We know the islanders are hiding food. THE BARON Food they will sorely need to get through this winter. Allow me to point out that there is another solution. KNACKFUSS I very much doubt it. THE BARON We appeal to the Red Cross. They will understand that it is no longer possible for us to feed the population since we have no connection any longer to France.

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KNACKFUSS This is to admit our own weakness! You are too much impressed by these islanders. THE BARON Yet it is not surrender. I see no other way. If Britain will not help their own people, we must appeal to the international community. KNACKFUSS Once again you show the weakness of your class. In the end you noblemen are worth no more than these miserable islanders. You are all dispensable. THE BARON If the population is allowed to starve, I myself will join them. Soon there will be nothing left we can forbid to people, except to live. KNACKFUSS And you are a danger not just to yourself, but to our whole military operation here. I shall report this to the authorities. Heil Hitler! The Baron makes a half-hearted salute and exits; KNACKFUSS exits after him.

ACT II Scene 4 Setting: CLAUDE’s cell; Marcel comes onstage and outside the cell CLAUDE Squirrel! Here! But how? MARCEL OTTO was in my cell, feeling sorry for himself. His wife and daughter were bombed in Hamburg a month ago in November; his son is in the army. Anyway when he forgot to lock my cell—maybe on purpose—I don’t know… CLAUDE Almost six months in this place and god knows how much longer! MARCEL Amidst all their troubles they seem to have forgotten about us—that could be a good omen.

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CLAUDE Or maybe we’ve become pawns in their bid for clemency once it’s all over for them… MARCEL Yes, they’ll be the ones asking for a pardon next! CLAUDE Anyway, let’s not think about it. Let’s remember the good old times— that’s what Christmas is for, isn’t it? MARCEL Yes, I suppose. CLAUDE Remember when we decided to move here, to leave Paris? I used my Hermès handbag to smuggle Kit. MARCEL (laughing) Literally, you couldn’t let the cat out of the bag! Anyway, she would have died in quarantine. Just because the isle is British – they wouldn’t admit a simple French housecat without locking her up first. CLAUDE That was crazy. We had to take matters into our own hands. I had to explain to Kit not to make a single miaow. Of course the vet’s sleeping potion helped too! Right then and there at the port we could have been arrested, plus they would have taken Kit from us! MARCEL I was nervous. CLAUDE But it never showed! Neither then, nor later when we started in on our real smuggling activities. When you think about it, smuggling Kit was a sort of initiation to all that. MARCEL The British islanders here—in a way they are all just trying to get by. But I can’t help thinking of our resistance fighters in France and the risks they are taking. Being French makes all the difference. We had to refuse collaboration.

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CLAUDE I’ve always looked up to you, you know. You are always the calm one. The decisive one. (pause) You were such a tomboy. I always loved that. Marcel suits you much better than Suzanne. MARCEL I think my dad wanted a son, actually. Sometimes I felt I needed to fill those shoes for him. CLAUDE I don’t think I’m either a man or a woman; I’m something in between. In any case, a Claude, not a Lucie! Maybe there’s a third sex? I never wanted children; but I don’t go for masculine physical domination either. My male avatars are peaceful and my women—well they’re parodies of women, a lot of them. (pause) I mean, Helen of Troy—what a stupid bitch! I’m sure Menelaus was just pimping her all over Greece so she could cause a scandal and he could find an excuse to go to war. I’m attracted to the fierce ones, like Delilah, like Judith. I’d like to do that to Hitler—cut off his hair like Delilah did to Samson. MARCEL That’s my duckling—she’s actually a condor! My rebel princess, darling of the Paris surrealists. Are you sure you didn’t fancy one of them? Benjamin Péret for instance? Or even Breton himself? CLAUDE You’re joking! MARCEL I was, actually. (a pause; she looks through the bars at the sculpture). But what’s that I see? CLAUDE My monument to boredom and emptiness. It’s very fragile—like our existence here. The fork—our starvation diet. The candle—our freezing cells. The cape—our bravery.

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MARCEL It’s lovely. Just think! This might be the only example of surrealist prison art. But listen! There’s another prisoner in the corridor—why, it’s PETER, the American pilot! PETER comes and stands on the other side of CLAUDE, outside the cell

CLAUDE Hello soldier. I’m so glad you were free to come to our little party. PETER Greetings Ma’am. Merry Christmas. Not free, but present and accounted for anyway. MARCEL (mockingly) May I offer you some more of our holiday pudding? PETER Thank you Ma’am . If I may say so, the goose was delicious, if a trifle overdone… CLAUDE You’re welcome. It’s so hard, you know, to time the cooking with the Berlin time that we’re on… PETER Indeed. By the way, here’s a little present from the German soldier, Nicky, in the cell next to mine. It’s his war decoration—the German eagle pin. He says he won’t be needing it anymore where he is going. MARCEL Nicky—that’s short for Nicholas, isn’t it. How funny—like Saint Nicholas—Father Christmas. PETER Well I’d like to believe in Father Christmas and in miracles generally. But things don’t look good for him. I think the war will soon be over for him—along with everything else. MARCEL But why? Don’t they realize they’re losing the war?

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PETER Desperation I guess. The death throes of a wild animal. A catastrophe of biblical proportions. Samson bringing down the pillars of the temple on his own head. Executions are still taking place. By the way—he told me he read some of your tracts. CLAUDE Poor Nicky. He learned the truth too late. But look—we can at least help you get out of here; we’ve told people on the outside and then we have the string post! Take this and you can drop a letter from your outside window. Once people on the outside know where you are, it won’t be hard to trick or bribe a guard to look the other way for a moment. PETER I see! Well so it’s a merry Christmas after all! Thank you both for your hospitality but I really must be getting back before Otto returns! It’s been a most memorable evening! (pause) But why wouldn’t you use the chance to get out yourselves? CLAUDE Oh we wouldn’t be able to get off the island—and they would quickly find us again. We just have to wait it out. PETER I see. My duty as a soldier is different—I must try to escape. Well goodnight then. MARCEL Before you go—let us recite one of our poems for you—as a kind of Christmas carol. You stand there—and be our audience. We distributed this one all over the island to German soldiers—in their magazines and mailboxes! (CLAUDE and MARCEL recite alternate strophes): Bow down before the Master Race The Führer’s troops are we We conquered all of Europe’s lands And even saw the sea. And when I get to see my wife She’s gotten out of hand

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She’s making soldiers right and left All for the fatherland. Your Russia was a devil’s land I stayed there many a year And I became a handsome man-Frostbite on nose and ear. In Africa my skin was burned I warmed up right away. The meat was foul, the water stank Day after blinding day. Onward march! To America! How many were drowned at sea! For years we circle round and round From windward back to lea. And round and round around the world A dizzying path we drew And why we did this devil’s dance None of us ever knew. And when I get to see my wife She’s gotten out of hand She’s making soldiers right and left All for the fatherland.

PETER “All for the fatherland indeed!” Well Good night all! And happy dreams! CLAUDE and MARCEL blow kisses through the cell bars; MARCEL goes off with PETER holding the string.

ACT II Scene 5 Setting: CLAUDE’s cell the next morning.

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Offstage sounds, boots, etc. shouts and hoots from other prisoners, sounding like protest

CLAUDE What’s all that noise, OTTO? OTTO Schrecklich, Milady. An execution. One of our own—a deserter. And the day after Weihnachten too. CLAUDE A martyr! OTTO The Wehrmacht think different, milady. Poor man. He only nineteen. NICKY (Nicky’s voice off stage) They said my country called me And I must go to war Avenging wrongs to Deutschland And all that came before I’ve been through France and Belgium And come to the Jersey shore But all I see is people And I can’t fight anymore I sold my soul to the Führer I’ve made the cannons roar But now I’m sick of fighting When I don’t even know what for!

CLAUDE Why that’s Nicky’s voice! Orders and gunshot sounds of execution; lights dim

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CLAUDE (writing) My dearest, Did you hear the commotion? They killed Nicky today, you know the one who sent us the eagle pin. What a thin line between life and death. In the end I don’t really know what I think of myself, of life, of anything. But I keep on searching; perhaps I only need a few words to put me on a different path…it would suffice for one friend to show me the way, perhaps to a whole different life… I wrote this lullaby for you, my love—a Song for the Condemned… (as she recites it, she works on her surrealist sculpture) My prison cell is barren And every day’s the same Inside this rabbit warren, My boredom has no name. This old and tired edifice Is wishing it could fall But everything is vertical-There is no space at all. Fourteen-hour nights That never seem to end, With no escape in sight And dreams my only friend. This cold would split a stone I wait for you, alone-My charcoal-colored cat Curled up across my heart. Your voice softly beseeching-Your dusky voice is reaching Me in the dead of night Your voice—my only light.

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(her tone changes to one of delight) Why, this garden is so green! Like something never seen. Can that really be the sea? The sun, the sand ? -- are we free?

Claude crawls into a piece of furniture, such as a bookshelf, as in her famous photograph.

Perhaps, at dawn tomorrow. Good night my love-bird, my kitten, my wolf, my little monkey; I hope fate smiles on us and I can pass this letter on to you tonight; the only variety in our existence here is made up of these uncertainties… MARCEL (shout from offstage) Long live Houdini! The American pilot is free! ACT II Scene 6 Setting: The Angry Dog pub. EDNA is sitting; JEREMY is busying himself. EDNA 5 o’clock and still no sign of the doctor. What do you have for us today, Jeremy? JEREMY Well now not much you see. I’ve been relying on the doctor to bring a bottle or two from his still. Four years of German occupation and the Jerries have drunk up all my beer. As for the dandelion wine—it’s just fit for pigs. But the good doctor has a way of distilling the bad wine into gin—that’s a man of science for you. EDNA Oh bother! Soon it will be curfew. And it’s practically still teatime. JEREMY You still have tea sometimes then?

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EDNA (short laugh) Tea from seaweed. Tea from sugar beets. Even dandelion root tea! My neighbor makes coffee from acorns. To think that this island is famous for its potato exports! But last spring the prisoners of war brought to fortify the coast stole all the potato seeds from the fields—they were so hungry. NIGEL (arriving) Yes—you’re all thinner and fitter; everyone walks or cycles! The Jerry diet! JEREMY Any trouble on the road, doc? You’re later than usual. NIGEL (pulling out a bottle) Here’s consolation for the afflicted! My very own medicine for your ailments—bad wine distilled into something nearly drinkable. EDNA This winter is awful. With the Germans backed against the wall supplies aren’t coming to the island. I see it in the poor little schoolchildren. They come to school hungry and can barely sit still. Well at least they won’t be able to concentrate enough to learn German. NIGEL Hah! All they need to know is “Streng Verboten.” Strictly Prohibited! EDNA Anyway my accent is so atrocious the kids will never be able to be understood! But speaking of “verboten”: they’ve confiscated all the library books by Jewish writers and anything critical of Hitler and his gang. Jeremy, your idea of just getting along with them doesn’t seem to be working. JEREMY At the same time I don’t see any other way. Last week there were three German soldiers in here with some Jersey women. You call them Jerry bags but I call them customers. What good does it do anyone to stir up trouble?

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EDNA I’ll tell you. It reminds us who we are. When this is all over with some of us will stand proud to have come through in spite of everything. I’m not brave myself but I admire those who refuse to compromise. NIGEL But remember that if it weren’t for the Red Cross we’d all have starved to death by now. Did England do anything for us? As I see it, we’re just pawns in a game between two powers. Anyway—curfew soon for you folks! I’m going around town on a bicycle now; and for tires I’m using garden hoses. JEREMY Ah, the good doctor. Here—one for the road! The others leave; Jeremy removes some empty bottles behind which a radio becomes visible; he turns it on and listens to a BBC broadcast

ACT II Scene 7 Setting: CLAUDE’S cell. THE BARON enters CLAUDE You’re back. What is it this time? It’s already February. We’ve been here almost eight months. At least we now have something to eat. THE BARON The Red Cross ships have indeed saved the population. But my mission here is something else. Madame, I have the honor to inform you that your death sentence—yours as well as your sister’s—has been commuted. CLAUDE Thank you. And all without signing the miserable request for a pardon that you urged on me before. But why the long face? THE BARON The danger now is that you and your sister may be sent to a concentration camp on the neighboring island of Alderney, along with other prisoners.

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CLAUDE How is it possible! At this late date? I am quite aware of the German camps and how unlikely it is that we should survive there. Why now? Germany has already lost the war. THE BARON You are well informed. Indeed; the war will soon be over and I myself will become a prisoner. Yet the danger to you and your sister remains. CLAUDE You have indeed made a Faustian bargain with your Nazi brothers. And you still want me to believe you are the good German. You realize that being shot is nothing compared to what we would have to endure in the camp. THE BARON Unfortunately there is nothing that I can undertake. I myself have been demoted due to what is called “laxity in the exercise of power.” Though I do not wish to praise myself, I would like to inform you that I have played a part in the negotiations for the Red Cross ships. The population has been saved. As for you and your sister-- you will have to trust your luck and hope to stay here until the island is officially liberated. CLAUDE You expect me to admire you. But I admire only those who resist wholeheartedly, who engage themselves against injustice. I do not judge abstractly from principles. A person defines herself by her actions. (pause) Within these walls, believe me, I am still free. All my life people have tried to confine me, to cultivate me like a nice little flower for their private garden—even my father. Instead I am the cucumber blossom that grows upon a heap of dung, or a bizarre and proud cactus. If even those who loved me could not contain me, you can be sure that your flimsy prison cannot do it. THE BARON Madame, this will no doubt be our last meeting. Tell me: you risked death, for what seems to me an absurd plan. As a soldier, I know that any battle requires a clear objective. In the end, I just do not see the point.

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CLAUDE Imagine then that we fought for the German people against Nazi Germany. We fought as surrealists with the weapons of chance. We fought for the freedom to create, to love, to live without chains. THE BARON We should have been on the same side. As it is, even on this battlefield I must admit defeat. Yet I hope that my wife in her prison has retained some of the same spirit that I see in you. Adieu, Madame. THE BARON exits; CLAUDE returns to working on her sculpture.

CLAUDE (to herself) And yet, and yet, is a heroine ever understood by her people? Did Judith truly embrace her fate? Was there no other way than to be remembered in history as the murderess of Holofernes? Why did he not spare her this destiny by doing the only thing that could have saved him – lifting the siege of Bethulia, perhaps in honor of his love for her? And she – did she act wholeheartedly? Did she have no regrets at all? Did her gruesome act not haunt her until the end of her days? Did she not pity the great general who in the end was vanquished by love – his love for her? Surely there are better roles for us humans to play. Who would really want to be a heroine, unless she had no other choice? ACT II Scene 8 Setting; CLAUDE’S cell a few weeks later OTTO (drunk, singing German birthday song) Wie schön, dass du geboren bist, Wir hätten dich sonst sehr vermisst, Wie schön, dass wir beisammen sind, Wir gratulieren dir, Geburtstagskind.

CLAUDE Otto! What are you singing?

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OTTO Guten Morgen, milady—today 20 April, Führer birthday! Russians near Berlin, Americans cross Elbe, alles kaput ! Deutschland kaput! I home soon—or prison. (sings) We’re happy you were born today We’d hate to miss you anyway How nice that we can all be here To celebrate with Wurst and beer.

CLAUDE For God’s sake, Otto, shut up! I want to sing my own song… Adolf, birthday-boy, je te plumerai! (sings) je te plumerai la tête, je te plumerai your head— alouette, alouette—Aaah!

Delilah will shave your famous mustache and render you speechless. Salomé will dance for the king and demand your head. Adolf, I wish you dead! And then – let us have peace! Lights darken to indicate the passage of the bars of the jail, and shouting; a shot rings out. Loud shouts: DER FÜHRER IST TOT! Growing sounds of a crowd and bells ringing; lights grow brighter MRS. WETHERINGTON ENTERS with MARCEL and the guard OTTO who opens the cell door

MRS. WETHERINGTON Darling! It’s too wonderful! May 9, 1945! A day to remember forever! The HMS Beagle popped up over the horizon at 6 o’clock this morning! Immediately all the churches started ringing their bells and everyone is running down to the port to welcome them. Our flags are everywhere! People are bringing their children, even the old are hobbling down to the

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shore! The Germans are nowhere to be seen. There’s a huge bonfire of Nazi flags in the square, and dancing around the flames! MARCEL CLAUDE! We are free! Let’s go down to the port to welcome the ship. CLAUDE Ah! Then I must dress the part! CLAUDE dons a top hat; she grabs her cane and becomes the picture of the English gentleman.

MARCEL Unconditional surrender… CLAUDE And we get out…after nearly ten months. MARCEL A bit the worse for wear… CLAUDE I’m not sorry though. We had no choice. MARCEL We’d do it all again. You know what really made them mad was that we stole their fire. CLAUDE Ah! Prometheus again! Where is the great German eagle now? (looking around) But what will happen to my sculpture? MARCEL Come to think of it, it looks a bit like one of your self-portraits. Let’s take a picture of it. A flash; bright light on the sculpture CLAUDE climbs up to the highest platform; lights on her as the English gentleman with a top hat; distant cheers from the crowd; she takes a bow.

END OF PLAY

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Bibliography: Sources and Further Reading on the German Occupation of France and the French Resistance, 1940–1944 Added, Serge. Le Théâtre dans les années de Vichy, 1940-1944. Paris: Editions Ramsay, 1992. Atack, Margaret. Literature and the French Resistance: Cultural politics and narrative forms, 1940-1950. Manchester, UK: Manchester Univ. Press,1989. Aubrac, Lucie. Outwitting the Gestapo. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1993. Cahun, Claude. Écrits. Transalated by François Leperlier. Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 2002. Chadwick, Whitney, ed. Mirror Images: Women, Surrealism and SelfRepresentation. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. Clinton, Alan. Jean Moulin: The French Resistance and the Republic. London: Palgrave, 2002. Conan, Eric and Henry Rousso. Vichy: An Ever-Present Past. Translated by Nathan Becher. Hanover, NH: Univ. Press of New England, 1998. Cordier, Daniel. Jean Moulin, la république des catacombes. Paris: Gallimard, 1999. Crémieux-Brilhac, Jean-Louis. La France libre: De l’appel du 18 juin à la liberation. Paris: Gallimard, 1996. De Gaulle, Charles. The Complete War Memoirs. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1964. Downie, Louise, ed. Don’t kiss me: The art of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore. London: Jersey Heritage Trust, 2006. Doy, Gen. Claude Cahun: A Sensual Politics of Photography. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. Fuchs, Elinor. Plays of the Holocaust: an international anthology. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 1987. Garber, Marjorie. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. London: Routledge, 1992. Golsan, Richard J. Vichy’s Afterlife: History and Counterhistory in Postwar France. Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 2000. Gordon, Bertram M., ed. Historical Dictionary of World War Two France: the occupation, Vichy, and the Resistance, 1938-1946. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998. Jackson, Jeffrey H. Paper Bullets: Two Artists Who Risked Their Lives to Defy the Nazis. New York: Algonquin Books, 2020. Jackson, Julian. France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001. Kedward, Harry Roderick. Occupied France: Collaboration and Resistance, 1940– 1944. New York: B. Blackwell, 1985.

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Latour, Anny. The Jewish Resistance in France, 1940-1944. New York: Schocken Books, 1981. Leperlier, François. Claude Cahun: L’Exotisme intérieur. Paris: Fayard, 2006 Lewis, Dr. John. A Doctor’s Occupation: The Dramatic True Story of Life in Nazi-Occupied Jersey. Jersey: Starlight Publishing, 1997. Löwy, Michael. Morning Star: Surrealism, Marxism, Anarchism, Situationism, Utopia. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2009. McLaughlin, Roy. Living with the Enemy: An Outline of the German Occupation of the Channel Islands with First-Hand Accounts by People Who Remember the Years 1940 to 1945.. 1995. Jersey: Channel Island Publishing, 2005. Namer, Gérard. La Commémoration en France 1944-1982. Paris: L’Harmattan, 1983. Pocknell, Brian, “Jean-Claude Grumberg’s holocaust plays: Presenting the Jewish experience,” Modern Drama, 41.3 (Fall 1998): 399–410. Rapaport, Brooke Kamin. Houdini: Art and Magic. The Jewish Museum and Yale Univ. Press, 2011. Riding, Alan. And the Show Went On: Cultural Life in Nazi-Occupied Paris. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010. Rousso, Henry. The Vichy Syndrome: History and Memory in France since 1944. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1991. Sapiro, Gisèle. The French Writers’ War, 1940-1953. Durham: Duke Univ. Press, 2014. 1999 Simonin, Anne. Les Éditions de minuit, 1942-1955: le devoir d’insoumission. Paris: IMEC Editions, 2008. Shaffer, Mary Ann and Annie Barrows. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. A Novel. New York: Dial Press, 2008. Suleiman, Susan Rubin. Crises of Memory and the Second World War. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 2006. Sweets, John F. The Politics of Resistance in France, 1940-1944: a history of the mouvements unis de la Résistance. Dekalb: Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 1976. Weitz, Margaret Collins. Sisters in the Resistance: how women fought to free France, 1940–1945. New York: Wiley, 1995. Wieviorka, Annette. Déportation et genocide: entre la mémoire et l’oubli. Paris: Plon, 1992 ———. À l’intérieur du camp de Drancy. Paris: Perrin, 2012.

CHAPTER 4

Theatre of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In his story “Josephine the Singer,” Franz Kafka’s mouse narrator describes the mouse folks’ complicated relationship to dramatic performance. While no one would describe Josephine’s “singing” as particularly original and different from the ordinary whistling that all mice engage in, great crowds assemble in respectful silence to hear her as soon as she announces that she will perform. The narrator acknowledges the importance of these performances, since “here whistling is freed from everyday life, and also frees us for a short time.” Josephine claims that her singing protects her people: “Supposedly her song rescues us from a terrible political or economic situation—nothing less—and even if it cannot avert disaster, it gives us the strength to bear it.” Kafka’s story can be read as a useful allegory for theatrical works that aim to engage their audiences with difficult issues. In such plays, the physical presence of the audience offers not only an intensive shared experience but also the opportunity for post-performance discussion. It shouldn’t surprise us that theatre, both in Israel and abroad, has powerfully sought to engage in one of the most contentious issues of our time, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. My play “Kafka in Palestine” is such an attempt. The first scene shows an imaginary encounter in Vienna between a young Franz Kafka (1883–1924) who has just graduated from Gymnasium (high school) and Theodore Herzl (1860–1904), a playwright, journalist, and visionary © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 I. Hedges, Staging History from the Shoah to Palestine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84009-9_4

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Image 4.1 Theodor Herzl in 1900. Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

who is considered one of the founders of Zionism (Image 4.1). Zionism emerged in the late nineteenth century to envision a Jewish homeland in what was then called Palestine. Herzl campaigned tirelessly for this dream, traveling to the reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire (who controlled the region at the time) to argue for his cause, and meeting with prominent Jewish bankers in England to secure the necessary financing. In his novel Altneuland (Old-new-land) in 1903, published only one year before his death, Herzl set forth his plan for a government that would welcome the collaboration of people of all faiths, working together to create a harmonious society that would be a homeland for Jews.1 For many in present-day Israel, Herzl is considered a hero and honored as a founding father.

1 Theodore Herzl, Altneuland = Old-new-land: novel (Haifa, Israel: Haifa Publishing Company, 1960, originally published in 1903).

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Image 4.2 Franz Kafka in 1923. Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Franz Kafka is a major twentieth-century writer whose name is familiar to most since it has given rise to the expression “Kafkaesque,” a term denoting nightmarish bureaucracies that entrap and destroy. The characters in Kafka’s novels and stories can be human individuals accused of and executed for unspecified crimes (The Trial, published posthumously in 1925); a young man waking up to find himself changed into an insect (“The Metamorphosis,” 1915); a surveyor who is called to the Castle but can’t locate his employers among the vast corridors (The Castle, published posthumously in 1926); or any number of animals in a crisis—a mouse, a dog, a mole. Kafka, although conflicted about his Jewish identity, also wrote about the possibility of immigrating to Palestine. He and his sister Ottla thought they could find a more peaceful existence there, away from their domineering and authoritarian father (Images 4.2 and 4.3). In employing the medium of theatre, I try to draw audiences in to the idealist aspirations of my characters who dream of a Jewish homeland—Herzl, Franz Kafka, and his sister Ottla (1892–1943). I then explore the way that the current situation in Israel/Palestine betrays that dream (Image 4.4). The play uses surrealist elements (characters from Franz Kafka’s stories take the stage), Brechtian strategies (some actors

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Image 4.3 Ottla Kafka in 1941. Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

address the audience directly), and techniques of collage (quotations from Herzl’s and Franz Kafka’s writings are interwoven with the dialogue). The result, I hope, is a work that allows entry into the fraught contemporary Middle Eastern landscape. Above all, I seek to encourage reflection and discussion. After completing “Kafka in Palestine,” I went in search of other plays that have, in one way or another, addressed the same set of issues. My focus is confined to (translated) Israeli and English-language works. There is a copious body of work in English that deserves to be better known; for untranslated works in Hebrew, I have had to rely on the accounts of other critics. Some of these are extensive and particularly interesting for their description of audience reactions and the obstacles some of the plays have faced from different forms of censorship.

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Image 4.4 A watchtower on the separation wall in Bethlehem (Photograph by Johanna Fernández (with 2016 prison-abolition delegation led by Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi))

Israeli Theatre---The Early Years When Hebrew rather than Yiddish (or German, as Herzl had once advocated) became the official language of Israel after the founding of the Israeli State in1948, a Hebrew-language theatre began to develop from scratch, as it were.2 From the beginning, this emerging theatre was connected to politics. Oxford professor Glenda Abramson outlines the way that dramatic works of the 1950s were valued according to how they reinforced the collective needs and interests of society. This led, she argues, to a distortion of reality, despite the works’ aesthetic of realism: “The ideological complicity of drama in particular led to the transformation of the founding myths into something more, the kind of material that

2 Playwright Motti Lerner comments that in 1948 the Hebrew language consisted of only 20% of words available in English. Interview with Ramona Kaval, “Passion, Politics and Poetry,” Radio Australia 2000. Consulted in Widener Library, Harvard University Judaica collection.

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closely resembles propaganda.”3 In many plays of the period, the Israeliborn male sabra, leader in a kibbutz, emerges as a hero of the Zionist enterprise. Yet Abramson notes that as soon as 1956 a work by Yoram Matmor, “An Ordinary Play,” began to question the uncritical acceptance of the Zionist ethos. In performance, actual veterans of the 1947–1949 War of Independence (the first war of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) assumed the roles of soldiers and even influenced the play, which portrayed post-war corruption and deterioration, and highlighted “the contradiction between the ideological premises of Zionism—that the State would be established by appeasement [with the existing population], and its actual establishment through bloodshed and eviction.”4 The furor that broke out around the performances of this play was a precursor to the controversy and even censorship that would later envelop plays that attempt to deal with the issue of Palestinians. In the 1958 “Tales of Lod” by Moshe Shamir, described by Israeli professor and critic Dan Urian as “the only play until the 1970s that dealt with an expropriated Arab home,” an Arab returns to his home to find Jewish tenants installed. He ends up abandoning the house when the tenants make impossible demands of him as landlord. Urian notes, however, that the play softens the issue of expropriation by focusing in almost comic fashion on the landlord-tenant relationship.5

Israeli Theatre After the Six-Day War (1967) Ironically, it was in reaction to the euphoria surrounding the 1967 SixDay War, in which the Israeli army preventively attacked Egypt and scored a major victory against its neighboring Arab States, that Israeli playwrights mounted their first broad challenges to the dominant national mythos. Hanoch Levin’s 1968 satire, “You and Me and the Next War,” presented cabaret-style at the student Barbarim jazz bar in Tel Aviv, juxtaposed the idea of military heroism with the celebration of life:

3 Glenda Abramson, Drama and Ideology in Modern Israel (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998), 16. 4 Ibid., 29. 5 Dan Urian, “The Image of the Arab on the Israeli Stage,” in Theater in Israel, ed.

Linda Ben-Zvi (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 1996), 259.

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For even in a just war There is a common plot for the dead, And life is proven right in any case; At home they are waiting for me to return.6

In 1970, he followed up with “Queen of the Bathtub” at the Cameri Theatre. This time the production was shut down after 19 performances, due to riots.7 Here, Levin created the character of Samatocha, an Arab waiter, who becomes an emblematic figure for the oppressed Arab worker in later Israeli dramatic works. At one point, one of the Jewish characters admonishes, “Don’t hurt the Arab, there are loads of dirty dishes in the kitchen.”8 The “bathtub” in the title refers to one of the sketches in which two Jewish women refuse the use of the bathroom to their live-in Arab cousin (perhaps a metaphor for the occupation), after which they assert their desire for peace.9 Critic Michael Taub (a Lecturer in Jewish Studies at SUNY-Purchase) writes “Levin and other left-wing writers oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and warn against reliance on military might and nationalistic fervor […] these writers fear the corruption of age-old humanistic values and morality.”10 In 1973, the playwright Miriam Kainy addressed the expropriation of Arab property in “The Return.” In the 1973 version, Riyyad, an Arab lawyer, is being interviewed about his friend Ruben, who fell in the 1967 Six-Day War (in a later version it is the 1973 Yom Kippur War). Riyyad is being interviewed in a house that was built by his father, and is now occupied by Ruben’s family.11 Urian remarks that for the first time in Israeli theatre, a romantic relationship was portrayed between an Arab (Riyyad) and a Jew (Alona). However, the couple separates due to pressure from Riyyad’s family; Alona becomes involved with Ruben, a move 6 Nurit Yaari, “Life as a Lost Battle: The Theater of Hanoch Levin,” in Theater in Israel, 151. 7 Ibid., 156. Yaari writes “the performances of all these cabarets were accompanied by public outcries. Shows were interrupted by vociferous protests from affronted viewers, and actors had objects thrown at them from the audience.” 8 Urian, “The Image of the Arab on the Israeli Stage,” 239. 9 Yaari, “Life as a Lost Battle,” 156. 10 Michael Taub, ed., Modern Israeli Drama in Translation (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1993), “Introduction,” x. 11 Urian, “The Image of the Arab,” 260.

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that breaks up the friendship between the two men. As Urian notes, “there are no happy Jewish–Arab families in the Israeli theater.”12 Nevertheless, Abramson comments that Riyyad breaks the stereotype that had hitherto prevailed and represents “the first authentic Arab hero in Israeli drama.” She notes that in 1973 the role of Riyyad was played by an Israeli Arab actor.13 Rather than being offered at a fringe theatre (like some of the satirical works of Levin), “The Return” played at the Cameri Theatre, which at the time was the most important theatre in Tel Aviv.14

Israeli Theatre After the Yom Kippur War (1973) The Yom Kippur War of 1973, like the Six-Day War, was the occasion of another turning point in Israeli theatre and its treatment of Palestinians. The surprise attack by Egypt and Syria exploded the myth of Israeli military preparedness and invincibility, even though the attacks were ultimately repulsed. The Haifa Municipal Theatre, founded in 1969, was the first to formulate the crisis in the Israeli self-image after the trauma of the 1973 war.15 Abramson comments “From the start, the Haifa Municipal Theatre proclaimed an overtly political agenda which encouraged outspokenness and included the work of Arab and Palestinian playwrights and actors. It is widely regarded as the theatre of opposition.”16 A play like Jacob Shabtai’s “The Spotted Tiger” (based on his short story “A Private and Very Awesome Leopard”17 ), which was first performed there in 1974, satirized the Zionist dream of an Israeli homeland as a fantastical delusion, similar to the overblown visions of a P.T. Barnum circus. Israeli critic Gad Kaynar writes that the protagonist’s project of founding a circus suggests that “real Zionism is such an absurd and utopian vision, a ‘castle in the air’ as he puts it, that only he who drives

12 Ibid., 230. 13 Abramson, Drama and Ideology in Modern Israel, 60. 14 Zara Shakow, The Theatre in Israel (New York: Herzl Press, 1963), 63. 15 Gad Kaynar, “Spectators in Search of an Author: the Israeli Drama and Reality-

Convention,” introduction to A Selection of Hebrew Plays Synopses (typescript), Jerusalem: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1993, 6. 16 Abramson, Drama and Ideology in Modern Israel, 55. 17 Yaakov Shabtai, Uncle Peretz Takes Off (short stories) trans. Dalya Bilu (Woodstock,

NY: Overlook Duckworth, 2004), 143–179.

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it ad absurdum, to its self-refutation, i.e., to the circus, is able to realize it.” Kaynar offers the following excerpt: I say: this land has given the world the Bible and the Jordan river—this land needs a circus! This land cannot dispense with a circus! Here a circus will stand! […] Here! In the land of Jerusalem! In the land of ‘khamsin,’ the unbearable heat waves! In Hebrew! Hallelujah! As I stand here, at the hub of the universe, before the open hole, on this cornerstone day, and lift my eyes, I see the entire circus! Oh Mundus! I see Jacob-ladders reaching up to ‘good-morning’ skies and acrobats in white, flying hither and thither like angels, mocking the damned gravitation of this globe! I see noble horses, owls of seven generations, magicians, super-acrobats, and the spotted tiger, this marvelous tiger, born in Malaya, or Tasmania…a real tiger—the symbol of braveness, glory, nobility, the symbol of the circus! The circus, ladies and gentleman, not socialism! Not psychology! Not the Suez Canal or all these demagogical fantasies of crazy gamblers! No money—nobility! There are no mosquitos! No ‘khamsin’! No pain! No nothing! …we create a New World, ladies and gentlemen! Here! In the sand! […] Long live the New Jerusalem!18

Kaynar relates how, in production, the protagonist Pinek is dressed to resemble the iconographic image of Theodore Herzl addressing the first Zionist congress in 1897, as well as that of Meir Dizengoff, the first mayor of Tel Aviv, as he awarded land to Jewish immigrants.19 Yosef Mundy’s 1975 play “Governor of Jericho” (performed at the Cameri Theatre) moves to an overt criticism of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. The governor makes a bold assertion of power relations: GOVERNOR: What is this, wasteland? It belongs to whoever works it, makes it fertile, gets something out of it. That person is the rightful owner. SOLDIER: They’re Moslems, we’re Jews, once they ruled us, now we rule them, they’re the majority, we’re the minority. They’re happy with little, we want it all, they have time, we don’t.20

18 Kaynar, “Spectators in Search of an Author,” 8. 19 Ibid., 9. 20 Yosef Mundy, “The Governor of Jericho,” trans. Michael Taub, Modern International Drama, 29.1 (1995): 45.

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Mundy’s absurdist play pits the governor, who has been assigned to occupy the West Bank city of Jericho, against Layla, a female soldier (who shares his bed but dreams of being transferred to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem where she can enjoy her youth). Other characters include a sergeant who is only there to obey orders, a “schizoid” recruit who deserts, a Russian traveling salesman, and a captured Muslim Arab who is accused of being a terrorist. It is suggested that Layla might also be a Palestinian spy. The governor, meanwhile, is trying to find archeological evidence for the “wall” of Jericho in order to establish the right of Jewish occupation. (According to an unsubstantiated Biblical story in the Book of Joshua, the Israelites conquered the city in the thirteenth century BCE after marching around the walls of Jericho and blowing their trumpets seven times.) The play satirizes these attempts at archeology in multiple ways: there are repeated references to the nonexistent wall, while the sergeant is required to parade around the military headquarters blowing his trumpet every half hour in imitation of the Biblical story. The play’s theme is the confusion of identities and the characters’ inability to see one another for what they are. They keep talking past each other: the governor steps in and out of the scene giving absurd orders and dreaming of becoming the manager of a supermarket, while ignoring the concerns of those around him. He sees everyone as a stereotype: Layla is there only for his sexual appetite, the Sargent exists only to carry out his orders, the Muslim is “of course” a terrorist…in this madcap landscape, Mundy is able to insert some poignant exchanges about the occupation: MOHAMMAD [The Muslim]: You conquered this land, and we are your slaves. SCHIZOID RECRUIT: You’re stupid! Stupid, arrogant, crazy! Land has no master, land belongs to all of us, it is mine just like it is yours MOHAMMAD: No! You think it’s only yours. Get out! Get out! You don’t belong here! SCHIZOID RECRUIT: I don’t belong anywhere. MOHAMMAD: So go, don’t belong somewhere else. This is my country, this land is part of me.21

Abramson comments that all the characters “seek a non-existent wall believed to surround Jericho, an imaginary wall which nevertheless prevents their escape, a symbol of both a political and existential dead 21 Ibid., 56.

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end.”22 She notes that the Muslim and the Schizoid both end up symbolically in the same prison cell—a motif that will return more than twenty years later in a play by Ken Kaissar in 2017, “The Victims, Or What Do You Want Me to Do about It?” Michael Taub comments “‘The Governor of Jericho’ shows the frustrations of Israelis and Palestinians when confronted with such questions as peaceful coexistence, national aspirations, security, and justice.”23

Israeli Theatre and the Lebanon War (1982–1985) The next historical watershed that profoundly affected the Israeli theatre was the invasion of Lebanon by Israeli forces in 1982–1985, ostensibly to dislodge the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization) from its seat there. The war was unpopular, and, in the words of one critic, it “shattered the national consensus.”24 In the course of that war, Jewish forces stood by when their allies, the Christian Phalangists, massacred Palestinian refugees in the Sabra and Shatila camps. Shosh Avigal remarks that the plays of this period were “a theater of protest […] of disillusionment, with a strong undercurrent of nostalgic eulogizing of the Zionist dream and its demise.”25 Abramson comments that the “Palestinian question” came to dominate the Israeli theatrical repertoire from 1982 to 1993, from the fringe theatre to established national stages.26 The 1985 “Palestinait (Shooting Magda)” by Joshua Sobol uses the device of a play within a play (and another play within that one) to explore the complexities of Israeli-Palestinian relations. “Shooting” refers to the fact that the actors are shooting a film about Samira’s experiences as a Palestinian (named “Magda” in her screenplay). The cast and crew are operating under a deadline since the studio is only available for 24 hours.

22 Abramson, Drama and Ideology in Modern Israel, 52. 23 Taub, Modern Israeli Drama in Translation, “Introduction,” xii. 24 Shosh Avigal, “Patterns and Trends in Israeli Drama and Theater,” in Theater in

Israel, ibid., 11. 25 Ibid., 37. 26 Abramson, Drama and Ideology in Modern Israel, 38.

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Samira is present on the set, while the part of Magda is being played by 40-year-old Jewish woman, Dahlia.27 In the past, Samira, along with her Arab boyfriend Adnan, had put on a parable skit about Israel-Palestine relations at an Israeli celebration. Some right-wing Jews had beaten her up because they suspected her of being Jewish and having an Arab boyfriend; David, one of the thugs beating her up, had then stopped the others when he realized she was an Arab. Feeling guilty, he later visited her and then became romantically involved with her. These real-life events find their way into Samira’s screenplay, along with other scenes. It is sometimes difficult to tell what is invented and what really happened in the past. The filming becomes complicated as the various characters improvise lines that explore their complicated relationships with each other—for instance, Benesh, the director of the film, is having an extra-marital affair with Dahlia, the Jewish woman playing Magda. At issue is whether in the fraught Israeli context there can ever be a truthful exploration of the Palestinian experience. Throughout the performances, Samira objects to the way the actors portray their roles, saying it is not true to her experiences as a Palestinian. As a whole, the cast is trying to explore their own feelings about the “Palestinian question.” At one point, the actor Udi, who plays the role of David, breaks out of character to describe his experience in the Lebanon War, where he had staged a scene from Kafka’s The Trial for some guards who were holding prisoners of war: UDI: The audience consisted of a dozen oddballs whose job was to interrogate the prisoners. […] there I am on the platform, recounting the story of the gates and the guards while those investigators sit there across from me, staring, their eyes red from sleepless nights. Behind them was the fence, and behind it the prisoners, with strips of rags on their eyes. And there I stood, spitting out those words by Kafka.28

“Shooting Magda” ends as Samira faints and the actors stage an accelerated nightmare that recaps many of the previous scenes. When Samira

27 Joshua Sobol, “Shooting Magda,” trans. Miriam Schlesinger, in Modern Jewish Plays, ed. Jason Sherman (Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2006), 213–294. 28 Ibid., 260.

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revives, she is told that the filming has ended. The project is complete, and the cast concludes the experience in a conciliatory spirit. Freddie Roken comments that in contrast to other plays within plays such as Peter Weiss’ 1963 play “Marat/Sade” where the actors are asylum inmates, “in ‘Palestinait’ the team making the film are ‘sane’; they are able to find a solution to the conflict, while the outside world depicted in this film looks like a lunatic asylum.”29 He also comments that the Hebrew title of the play, which translates as “The Palestinian woman,” in itself problematizes Arab identity in Israel, where a distinction has been made between an Israeli Arab (living inside the 1948 Israeli borders) and a Palestinian living in the occupied West Bank or Gaza. He comments that by calling his play “Palestinait,” Sobol confronted semantic issues that were “a direct reflection of the most burning issues confronting an Israeli audience.”30 Roken reports that while the professional critics praised “Shooting Magda,” the Haifa production sometimes elicited some of the same violence among the spectators that is depicted in the play; right-wing spectators interrupted the performance with both verbal and physical assaults on the actors.31

Israeli Theatre and the First Intifada (1987–1991) A few months before the December 1987 outbreak of the first intifada, several plays warned of the coming explosion. “Hamdo and Son” by Yitzhak Buton premiered in July. In August, Ella Alterman’s “Yellow Time” adapted the novelist David Grossman’s reportage on the devastating situation in the Palestinian territories.32 MottiBaharav presented “The Gazans” in October. Despite this, Dan Urian comments “For the Israeli and Palestinian politicians the outbreak of the intifada came as a complete surprise.”33 29 Freddie Roken, “Yehoshua Sobol—Between History and the Arts,” in Theater in Israel, 218. 30 Ibid., 218. 31 Ibid., 222. 32 David Grossman’s book is The Yellow Wind (New York: Farrar Straus and Girouxk 1988). 33 Dan Urian, The Arab in Israeli Drama and Theatre, trans. Naomi Paz (United Kingdom: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997), 47–48. See also Dan Urian, “The

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In Buton’s play, the Palestinian Hamdo, who has already lost three sons to the armed struggle, is unable to prevent his only remaining son Halil from joining the same struggle after the family’s home is confiscated by the Israeli authorities. Urian comments that “Hamdo and Son” was “the first play to be presented on the Israeli stage written by a JewishIsraeli playwright dealing with ‘the Arab question’ solely through Arab characters.”34 “The Gazans” portrayed exploited Palestinian workers in Jewish cities, where they are forced to live in miserable conditions and are subjected to abuse by their employers. In the end, they are blown up along with the bomb that they are preparing to use against their oppressors.35 Set in 1990 during the first intifada, Ilhan Hatzor’s “Masked Faces” dramatizes the conflicts between three Palestinian brothers.36 One of them, Da’ud, works in Israel and helps to support the family, while another, Na’im, is an important figure of the Palestinian resistance. The younger brother Chaled has also recently joined the resistance. The three brothers meet in a butcher shop in the West Bank where Chaled is employed. “Masked Faces” exposes the pressure that all Palestinians face under occupation. Chaled and Na’im want to save their brother Da’ud, who is suspected of collaborating with the Israeli authorities, from being executed by the Palestinian resistance. Chaled also desperately wants to believe in his brother’s innocence. However, intense questioning by Na’im exposes Da’ud as a collaborator who has supplied the authorities with names and reaped financial gain from his assistance to the Israelis. Da’ud boasts that he has also given his location to the Israeli armed forces who, he claims, will come to rescue him. He defends his actions: DA’UD: That day…the interrogation…they ruined my world. Just like that, my whole life. I gave them names. In Nablus two weeks ago…they said they would pick up Chaled…and you [Na’im] they said they would kill […] One of them said […] that they’d destroy my house because I Emergence of the Arab in Israeli Theatre, 1948–1982,” Israel Affairs 1.4 (1995): 101–127. 34 Urian, “Image of the Arab,” 243. 35 Ibid., 244–245. 36 Ilhan Hatzor, “Masked Faces,” trans. Miriam Schlesinger and Kira Goldstein, An Anthology of Israeli Drama for the New Millennium, ed. Michael Taub (Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Millen Press, 2004), 113–156.

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didn’t have a permit…they drove me nuts…all of them talking together. They said they’d make me look like an informer, that they’d have me walk through the village with them and round people up…

In the end, Chaled stabs his brother to death while embracing him, just as the outside forces arrive. Hatzor’s play, the first to feature exclusively Palestinian characters, was acted out by Jewish actors and intended for Jewish audiences. In his introduction to the published play, Michael Taub comments on the reasons for the play’s success with the Israeli audience: “While Israeli Jews are forever fighting for survival and peace, they too are facing moral dilemmas of the kind dramatized in Hatzor’s play […] While some families have questioned the wisdom of continuing the occupation of the West Bank, others have been asking whether it is appropriate to send young men into hostile territories to defend questionable goals […] a group of IDF officers have altogether refused to serve outside Israel proper.”37

Israeli Theatre in the New Millennium More recently, a pattern has developed in which plays that deal with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict face insurmountable obstacles to being produced in Israel. Theatres are threatened with open censorship or more subtle pressures such as the withdrawal of public funding. As a result, many of the most thoughtful plays have been produced only in the United States and other countries.38 In 2006, it proved difficult for Motti Lerner to produce his play “The Murder of Isaac” on the Israeli stage. In “The Murder of Isaac,”39 the inmates of a rehabilitation center for patients afflicted with PTSD from Israel’s many wars are putting on a play about the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (the “Isaac” of the title) in 1995 by a right-wing extremist who was enraged about the signing of the Oslo accords. These were signed in 1993 between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the Israeli 37 Michael Taub, “Introduction” in An Anthology of Israeli Drama, vii. 38 See Jason Sherman, “Outro,” in Modern Jewish Plays, 363–366, for a description of

the difficulties faced by plays that address the “Palestinian question” both in Israel and abroad. 39 Motti Lerner, The Murder of Isaac,” trans. Anthony Berris in, An Anthology of Israeli Drama, ed. Michael Taub, 29–90.

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government and were supposed to guarantee a certain measure of selfdetermination for Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. The play’s major theme is the widespread psychological damage inflicted on Israelis themselves during the successive wars of 1967, 1973, and 1982– 1985. Yoga, one of the Israeli characters, is the survivor of a roadside bomb in Lebanon, while another character, Binder, is an amputee who was wounded in 1948. Yuma, who plays the role of the leader of the opposition, was wounded in 1967. Talia, another character, was the victim of a bus bombing. Altogether there are eleven inmates along with the guard and Lola, a mother whose two sons were killed in 1973 and who volunteers at the center. As the rehearsal proceeds, individual patients act out their traumas until Yoga, who has been assigned the role of Rabin’s assassin, actually grabs a gun from the guard and kills Binder, who is playing the role of Rabin. Lerner reaches back into the traditions of the Attic theatre of the fifth century BCE to mimic the crude annexation of the West Bank and Gaza as well as the obscenity of Rabin’s assassination: just before the assassination scene, some actors dressed as Yeshiva students invade the stage wearing huge phalluses and urinate on Rabin’s supposed grave.40 Earlier in the play, Shulamit, whose children and husband were killed by terrorists in 1994, wears plastic breasts and an apron depicting a vagina that are said to represent “Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank) and Gaza.41 Lerner also employs the motif of the Greek chorus with echoes of Biblical language to bewail the effects of war: Amputees limp through the streets Burned faces wearing their masks The blind feel their way in the dark And the shell-shocked hide their faces And the earth was without form, and void; And darkness on the face of the deep.42

Lerner’s play is a passionate argument against war and violence. Binder as spokesperson for Rabin says:

40 Ibid., 88. 41 Ibid., 60. 42 Ibid., 68.

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BINDER: If there’s another war, we will win it. But this victory will be the beginning of our destruction. In order to keep its fruits we will have to continue living by the sword […] If we amass power, we only encourage our enemies to amass more power. Power more destructive. Power more reckless. If you want to prevent war, you should abolish the reasons for war.43

“The Murder of Isaac” was presented at Center Stage in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2006, while another play Lerner wrote that same year, “The Admission” (about the 1948 war), had to wait until 2014 to be produced at Theater J in Washington, DC.44 As can been from “The Murder of Isaac,” Lerner is a playwright steeped in the history of drama. Central to his practice is the Aristotelian notion of catharsis, which Lerner has written about in The Playwright’s Purpose.45 In “The Murder of Isaac,” the killing of Binder is a cathartic moment for the play, which thus breaks out of the “fiction” of the reenactment with the explosion of Yoga’s stolen gun. The firing of the live gun is also a bow to nineteenth-century Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov, who asserted that if a gun appears in the first act of a play, it must be fired in a following act; Chekhov was the subject of another book by Lerner.46 Lerner’s “The Admission”47 revolves around the character of Avigdor, who was a colonel in the 1948 war and is now the owner of a construction company. The play takes place in Haifa in 1988, during 43 Ibid., 64. 44 Motti Lerner, “Facing the Trauma of 1948,” Six Plays of the Israeli-Palestinian

Conflict, ed. Jamil Khoury et al. (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2018). Lerner writes, “While writing was completed as early as 2006, all plans to produce The Admission were ultimately aborted in spite of the interest expressed by several theatres in Israel. These repeated cancellations likely had to do not only with the theatre managers’ fear of potential sanctions by the Ministry of Culture, but their concerns over an enraged public’s reaction to this “deviation” from consensus in showing the forbidden story of the 1948 war.” 13. 45 Motti Lerner, The Playwright’s Purpose, trans. Natalie Feinstein (South Gate, CA:

NoPassport Press, 2014), 27. 46 Motti Lerner, According to Chekhov: Thoughts on the Writing of “Uncle Vanya,” trans. Lior Yatsiv (South Gate, CA: NoPassport Press, 2011). 47 Motti Lerner, “The Admission” in Six Plays of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, ed. Jamil Khoury, Michael Malek Majjar and Corey Pond (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co., 2018), 9–44.

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the first Intifada. Avigdor has tried to befriend and assist a Palestinian family, in particular Zama, the owner of a restaurant, and his daughter Samba, a university lecturer and colleague of his son Giora. He has even helped Samba secure an academic fellowship to England. There is a problem, however. Zama’s father Ibrahim remembers the slaughter of Palestinians in his village of Tantur in 1948 and has recognized Avigdor as the commander-in-chief at that massacre. Ibrahim is further angered by Avigdor’s plans to raze the ruins of the village and build a new town on them. In a rage, he stabs Avigdor. The “admission” comes when Avigdor admits to what happened that day: AVIGDOR: We killed. Not two hundred and twenty like the Arabs claim. And not even the hundred fifty that the Red Cross reported. Maybe seventy. There were probably some injured who died on the way to Tul Karem. All of them were shot during combat. When the trucks came, two bastards tried to stop the others from getting on. One threw a grenade that he had hidden under his shirt. Four of my soldiers were killed. Twenty years old. Just a month after getting off the boat. Survivors. The last remains. (Pause) So we shot those two bastards. The Arabs started screaming. Throwing stones. Fifteen hundred people surrounded us. No reinforcements. Nobody could rescue us. We continued shooting until they calmed down.48

After hearing his father admit to what happened in 1948, his son Giora, who has a leg injury from his service in the 1982 Lebanon War, decides that his lameness has been a just punishment for the violence his father visited upon the Palestinians in 1948. As the play ends, Giora is overlooking the construction site that Avigdor has razed with bulldozers, riding over the bones of the slaughtered Palestinians. He comments: GIORA: You will never succeed in hiding the dead that you buried there. Even if you build skyscrapers on top of them. I’ll dig for them with my hands and fingernails. Until they’re found. Then maybe the wounds will begin to heal.

In a talk he gave at Paris VIII University in 2019 as part of the International Conference on “Writing, Translating and Staging the History of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict,” Lerner explained that the germ of 48

Ibid., 31.

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the play came out of the public controversy surrounding the deaths of Palestinians in the village of Tantura on the Mediterranean coast in 1948. The issue—still unresolved—is whether the Palestinians were massacred or died in battle. Lerner comments “The reason for this controversy is clear: it has huge consequences on the understanding of one of the major elements of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—the creation and the solution of the Palestinian refugee problem—which poses a very difficult dilemma for many Israelis when they consider a peace plan.”49 In 2014, the play had been scheduled for a full production at Theater J within the Jewish Community Center in Washington DC when a conservative group, Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art (COPMA), approached donors and lobbied against the play; they demanded that the donors stop contributing to the Center. The Israeli embassy also complained that the play was “anti-Semitic.” As a compromise, the play was presented in a workshop instead of a full production.50 Three years later, “The Admission” was finally staged in Jaffa, Israel, in 2017. There were 60 performances with a post-show discussion. Lerner comments “for many of the Israeli spectators this was the first time they saw a Palestinian character on stage, and for the first time they heard the Palestinian narrative of 1948 from a Palestinian character—and not from a Jewish perspective. More than that—because I tried my best to write fully developed characters, and because the Palestinian actors were all excellent performers, most of the Israeli spectators developed meaningful empathy for the Palestinian characters. If you think about it, it’s almost a miracle.” He goes on to say that both the Israelis and the Palestinians in the audience felt that their traumas around the events of 1948 were recognized. This led to more openness and mutual understanding on both sides.51 Despite financial and political pressures, Theater J and the Mosaic Theater in Washington have persevered in presenting controversial plays about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In particular, the Mosaic Theater under the direction of Ari Roth (who was forced to leave Theater J after

49 Motti Lerner, “Facing the Trauma of 1948 as a Step Toward Reconciliation,” International Conference: Writing, translating and staging the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Paris 8 University, September 27th, 2019 (unpublished talk). 50 Jamil Khoury, “Introduction,” Six Plays of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 6; and Motti Lerner, “Facing the Trauma of 1948.” 51 Ibid.

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the 2014 controversy over “The Admission”) annually organizes a festival of plays titled “Voices from a Changing Middle East.” In 2014, the Mosaic Theater presented Lerner’s “After the War” which takes place during two days after the end of the Second Lebanon War in 2006. His main character Joel is an Israeli-born concert pianist who lives in the United States and has spoken out against Israeli policy in the Middle East. As a result, his father (now deceased) has disowned him, while his son Izzy, who fought in the Lebanon War, has turned against him. Joel has been invited to be the pianist at a performance in Tel Aviv directed by Zubin Mehta. At issue is whether the Israeli public will boycott the concert because of Joel’s outspoken views—his own son says that his military comrades will picket outside the concert hall. Lerner’s play seems like a deeply personal statement about the difficulty Israeli artists face when they follow their conscience. Lerner illustrates how this affects family relations as well as the artist’s ability to function in public. Here, Joel questions his mother about her feelings about him: JOEL: Did you also not want me to return? Why is it so difficult for you to say it? You’re different from dad. You have feelings, emotions. You cried when he wouldn’t let you see Izzy. Didn’t you? I’m sure you also understood why we left. You taught me not to fake it when I’m playing, not to separate the person from the pianist. And the person is also his conscience….When the first intifada began, I was called up to the reserves and refused to serve in the occupied territories. I spent a month in jail. When I was released, I found out that the ministry of culture had pressured the Philharmonic to cancel my concerts….I’m sure that deep in your heart you wanted me to continue speaking out, mom. I’m sure that you were even proud of me for being prepared to pay the price. I didn’t expect to be greeted here with open arms after eighteen years. I knew my criticism has angered too many people. I was probably too blunt too many times. But when Zubin Mehta sat next to me on the plane and asked me to play with the Philharmonic, I thought something had changed here. That maybe people were willing to listen to me, despite everything. That this could be the opportunity to straighten things out. I also hoped that you had changed… that you’d sit in the first row, proud and smiling, I hoped you’d call for an encore. (He chokes up) But I guess I was mistaken. I guess that only strangers will be sitting in the first row…

In this play, Lerner addresses the ostracism that Israeli artists suffer when they try to address Palestinian rights as human rights. In the 2019

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play “I Was There,” his protagonist Ido Biton, speaking from beyond the grave, addresses the human rights violations of the Gaza attacks of 2014 (“Operation Protective Edge”). Ido Biton is the commander of an artillery battery who deserts from the army after being ordered to kill civilians in retaliation for the capture of a mortally wounded platoon commander. He then turns himself in as a war criminal and demands that he be tried as such, along with his commanding officer: “I asked for a meeting with the Defense Minister. He didn’t respond. I put up a tent outside his office in Tel Aviv and hung a poster saying: I killed dozens of people in Rafah. I demand to stand trial. Three policemen arrived during the night and removed me, saying that I was disturbing public safety.” The army wants to hush things up, but Ido persists, even after his campaign threatens to break up his family. On the way to his trial for “disclosing confidential information,” he is assassinated. Once again Lerner opens up the stage for a discussion of the trauma suffered by Palestinians as well as the guilt feelings of the perpetrators. In 2010, the Israeli-American director Guy Ben-Aharon founded the Israeli Stage in Boston, Massachusetts, dedicated to “sharing the diversity and vitality of Israeli culture through theatre.” A notable feature of Israeli Stage and Mosaic productions are the audience “talkbacks” after the play. These allow the audience to address controversial subjects raised in the dramas. The first full production in 2015 was Gilad Evron’s “Ulysses on Bottles.” The play premiered at the Haifa Municipal Theatre in 2011 where it won the Israeli Theatre prize for “Best Original Play” (it was presented again at the Mosaic Theater in 2017 as part of the “Changing Middle East” festival). Israeli Stage had presented the play in 2012 in a staged reading at Boston’s Goethe Institute. Evron’s play was inspired by his own son’s refusal to serve in the occupied territories when he was called up for military duty. In prison, he refused to wear the prison uniform and was forced to remain naked for several days. His father also had to campaign to get permission for his son to receive books. The play’s Jewish protagonist is imprisoned after he builds a raft out of discarded plastic bottles and tries to sail for Gaza with a load of Russian novels. Imprisoned, he argues with his lawyer and the security officers that the Gazans needed literature as much as food. Writing in the Boston Globe about the 2015 Israeli Stage production in Boston, Dan Aucoin comments “The attorney finds himself caught between his quirkily rebellious client and the power of the state, represented by the icy Seinfeld […], an official in Israel’s security agency who views Ulysses as ‘a

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dangerous man.’ Further complicating matters is the fact that Saul [the lawyer] is also working for Seinfeld: His task is to advise him how to abide by the embargo’s laws regarding, for example, the minimum food supply that must be allowed in Gaza.”52 The play was hotly discussed in the American media.53 In 2018, Joshua Sobol was unable to find a theatre in Israel willing to stage his play “Last Act.” It was picked up by the Israeli Stage and performed in Boston. Here, the story is the friendship between an Israeli actress and a Palestinian actor, a friendship complicated by the suspicion that the Palestinian is actually a terrorist. The actress’s husband, an Israeli intelligence officer, is warned that the actor plans to kidnap his wife and hold her hostage in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners. Sobol comments that his play refers to the paranoia that gripped Israel in the face of multiple stabbings of Israelis by Palestinians in 2016, the so-called “intifada of the individual.” In an interview with Ben-Aharon, Sobol comments “the husband became the killer of his wife’s dream […] It is terribly dangerous to get into that mood where you become a kind of terrorist by reacting to terrorism.”54 Writing in 2002, Dan Urian commented: In connection with the dispute between the Jews and the Palestinians, Israeli theatre has an important role. The Arab images presented in Israeli theatre have contributed to the public discussion through emphasizing the strong desire of a particular Jewish Israeli sector for coexistence with the Arabs.55

52 Don Aucoin, “Promising Debut for Israeli Stage with ‘Ulysses on Bottles,’ The Boston Globe, April 15, 2015. 53 See Ian Thai, “Award-winning ‘Ulysses on Bottles’ Sails into Goethe Institut,” The Jewish Advocate, Nov. 16, 2012: 14; Jules Becker, “Israeli Stage’s ‘Ulysses on Bottles’ Disturbing, Provocative,” The Jewish Advocate, April 17, 2015: 22; Nelson Pressley, “Mosaic’s ‘Ulysses on Bottles’ Uncorks Israel’s Occupied Mind,” The Washington Post, May 23, 2017. 54 Matt Lebovic, “Boston Theater Producer Happy to Air Israel’s ‘Dirty Laundry’ on Stage,” The Times of Israel, May 18, 2018. 55 Dan Urian, “Israeli Drama: a Sociological Perspective,” Contemporary Theatre Review 12, part 3 (2002): 92.

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The “Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” on the International Stage The Israeli-Palestinian conflict goes beyond the concerns of Israeli society. As an international issue, it has become the focus of several playwrights outside of Israel. Within the West Bank itself, the Freedom Theatre in the Jenin refugee camp has played an important role in presenting the Palestinian side.56 In Ramallah, “The wall: stories under occupation II” was presented in 2015 by the Al-Kasaba Theatre and Cinemathèque.57 The Ashtar Theater in Ramallah trains activists in Augosto Boal’s technique of interventionist “Forum Theatre,” where actors engage the participation of spectators (“spec-actors”) to rehearse problematic situations and possible solutions.58 In the 2017 “The Victims: And What Do You Want Me to Do About It?”59 the Canadian Ken Kaissar presents us with familiar types: the Jewish American (David) on a trip to Israel to find his “roots”; a friendly Palestinian (Mas’ud) who invites him home; a well-meaning but ineffective peace negotiator (Paula); and several other characters. Kaissar’s play perfectly presents the quandary of Jewish–Arab coexistence. David, who holds an Israeli passport by virtue of being born in Israel, comes back through a checkpoint after visiting his new-found Arab friend Mas’ud. The Israeli soldiers are furious. In the first place, they are angry because Israeli citizens not allowed into the Israeli-defined “section A” of the West Bank. Secondly, they suspect that the whole invitation by Mas’ud was a terrorist plot. ISRAELI SOLDIER: Let me tell you how it goes. His neighbor Ichy Ayesh finds out a Jew and an Israeli is visiting his good friend’s house. He makes one phone call, and before you have time to choke on your falafel you’re a hostage for Hamas. Mas’ud and his neighbor are hailed

56 See http://www.thefreedomtheatre.org/. 57 The Wall: stories under occupation II , Ramallah: Alkasaba Theatre and Cinémathèque,

2005, VHS video, Arabic with English subtitles. 58 See the Ashtar website at http://www.ashtar-theatre.org/about.html. There is also an interesting interview with theatre practitioners from Ashtar at https://howlround.com/ forum-theatre-palestine. 59 Ken Kaissar, The Victims: Or What Do You Want Me to Do About It, in Six Plays of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, ed. Jamal Khoury, Michael Malek Najjar and Corey Ponds, 177–225.

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as heroes for their efforts in jihad against the colonial Zionist regime, and you’re wasting away in a basement wondering if today is the day Hamas hangs you in a public square. Meanwhile, my Mossad brothers are killing themselves trying to figure out how to find you. Except they don’t know that you’re not worth saving because you spend all you time feeling badly for a bunch of people who just want to kill you.60

At the end of the play, we learn that these events are part of a dream (or nightmare) of David’s. David then sets up an “endgame” to force the major characters to come up with a better dream. He locks himself in with them in a cage and throws away the key. The ending suggests that it’s time for all parties to imagine their way out of a situation in which everyone is trapped. The Victims was presented in the series Semitic Commonwealth: A Series of Staged Readings as part of Chicago’s “Silk Road Rising” theatre project. The “Silk Road Rising” project also produced a staged reading of Palestinian-Irish Hannah Khalil’s “Scenes from 69* Years: Snapshots from a Seemingly Endless Occupation”; the play’s title is updated with each passing year and was published in the 70th year of the occupation.61 Naomi Wallace is another playwright outside Israel who has created powerful dramas about Palestine. Fever Chart (2009) consists of three short plays that examine the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.62 She situates one of them, “The State of Innocence,” in the town of Rafah in the southern Gaza strip. The Israeli zookeeper Yuval is confronted by Um Hisham, a Palestinian mother. She complains about the poor state of the zoo which, she says, has declined since she last visited. Yuval tells her it is even worse than she thinks, because the animals keep losing parts of themselves every night, only to grow them back each morning. This surrealist setting prepares the audience for the ending which reveals that Yuval, who was an Israeli soldier, is actually dead, killed by an Arab sniper when his battalion invaded a Palestinian village. Um Hisham explains that her daughter also was killed by an Israeli sniper as she fed her pigeons on the roof of the family home. She goes on to reveal to Yuval that he is dead,

60 Ibid., 209. 61 Hannah Khalil, “Scenes from 70* Years: Snapshots from a Seemingly Endless

Occupation,” in Six Plays of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, ed. Jamil Khoury et al., 47–90. 62 Naomi Wallace, “A State of Innocence,” in The Fever Chart: Three Visions of the Middle East (New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2009), 5–24.

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having been killed right in front of her door; and that she had held him as he died. Tragedy, Wallace shows, pervades both sides of the conflict: UM HISAM: Three minutes. It took you three minutes to die. Everything I have despised, for decades—the uniform, the power, the brutality, the inhumanity—and I held it in my arms. I held you, Yuval. (Beat ) But it should have been your mother. We should hold our own children when they die.63

Performances of Wallace’s plays at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2010 were followed by conversations with guests representing differing points-of-view on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict; the cast also played against personal identities—for example, Palestinian-American intellectual Edward Said’s daughter Najla Said played an Israeli soldier.64 In 2008, Wallace also collaborated with the Palestinian playwright Abdelfattah Abusrour and Lisa Schlesinger to create a play, “Twenty-One Positions: A Cartographic Dream of the Middle East,”65 commissioned by Minneapolis’s Guthrie Theater and ultimately produced at Fordham University. The Israeli Stage has also encouraged collaborations. A new play, “The Return” (not the same as Miriam Kainy’s 1973 play), is co-authored by the American playwright Edward Mast (who is not Jewish) and Hanna Eady, the founder of the first theatre group in his native village of Buqahah, Palestine. “The Return” was presented in Boston in 2019 as the final performance of the Israeli Stage. The play presents a confrontation between an Israeli-born American woman returning to Israel and confronting the Arab Palestinian she had been involved with in her youth. The Arab had been imprisoned in the past for pretending to her that he was Jewish. Now working in a car repair shop, he sees that her attempts to apologize and become involved with him again will expose him to further harassment by the authorities. The play sets forth in riveting fashion the circumscribed life that Palestinians are subjected to as second-class citizens in Israel. 63 Ibid., 23. 64 Wallace’s plays were presented by the Underground Railway Theater at Central

Square Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. 65 Abdelfattah Abusrour, Lisa Schlesinger, and Naomi Wallace, “Twenty-One Positions: A Cartographic Dream of the Middle East,” in Double Exposure: Plays of the Jewish and Palestinian Diasporas, ed. Stephen Orlov, and Samah Sabawi (Toronto: Playwrights Canada Press, 2016), 428–526.

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“Kafka in Palestine” tries to imagine how Franz Kafka would have responded to the contemporary situation is Israel/Palestine. The main characters are Franz and his devoted sister Ottla, without whom his genius might have been smothered. For Franz, I was able to consult his copious letters, diaries, and his occasionally hermetic writings; in the case of Ottla, I had to rely mainly on the reports of others. Theirs was a deep and sustaining sibling friendship. In their youth, the brother and sister dreamed of going to Palestine, where Franz wanted to become a simple farmer or carpenter. Ottla hoped to make a living in agricultural pursuits, thus escaping paternal authority. But this was not to be—Franz succumbed to tuberculosis in his fortieth year; Ottla survived him, only to be deported to Theresienstadt and then to Auschwitz where she perished along with the orphaned children she had volunteered to accompany to the death camp. I was also intrigued by the diaries and writings of Theodor Herzl, whose portrait can be found everywhere in Israel. As it happens, Franz Kafka happened to visit Vienna upon his graduation from the Gymnasium in 1902 and before beginning his university studies. Thus, he could have encountered Herzl in a coffee shop in Vienna, and he could have heard Herzl expound his ideas about a new Palestine where Jews and Arabs and Christians would create a harmonious society of collaboration and cooperation, as outlined in his novel, Altneuland (Old-new-land). This is the setting for the first scene of my play. 1917, the year that Franz and Ottla spent together on a farm where Ottla went to gain some independence, coincided with many earthshaking events: the ongoing World War I, the Russian revolution, and the Balfour declaration, which granted the Jews a homeland in Britishruled Palestine. It was also on Ottla’s farm that Franz wrote his cryptic parables. I imagine the brother and sister playfully teasing some of these out. In the final scenes, Franz and Ottla visit contemporary Israel/Palestine as dybbuks and are disappointed that things have turned out differently from their own dreams, as well as from Herzl’s utopian vision (See image 4.4). In my play, Herzl’s ghost weeps at the betrayal of his dream of peaceful coexistence between peoples. Kafka in Palestine interweaves many quotations from Franz Kafka’s texts and is peopled by some of his creatures. I have tried to imagine how some of them might have been inspired by his life, or how their stories might help us to understand world events, past and present.

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Kafka in Palestine by Inez Hedges

© Inez Hedges 2018 All rights reserved. Library of Congress PAu003904620 Info: Inez Hedges [email protected] Summary: Kafka in Palestine is an imaginative retelling of the friendship between Franz Kafka and his sister Ottla in the early twentieth century. They dream of escaping their authoritarian father by moving to the idealized Palestine they have read about in the writings of the Zionist visionary Theodore Herzl. But reality intervenes (Franz’s fatal illness, Ottla’s deportation to the concentration camp of Terezin) until the siblings are magically reunited in the troubled landscape of the modern era. There they have to deal with the ongoing struggle between Israelis and Palestinians over the land and human rights. There are also appearances by Herzl, by an Israeli soldier, a modern Palestinian couple, and several creatures from Kafka’s stories.

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Roles and Descriptions (can be played by 6–7 actors; Herzl and Nazi Kommandant should not be played by the same actor)

FRANZ KAFKA, from age 18 to 35. A tortured genius who wants to escape his authoritarian father and move to Palestine. OTTLA KAFKA, from age 21 to 50. Franz’s favorite sister who cares for him when he contracts TB; she dies in a concentration camp HERMANN KAFKA, the father, age 63 JULIE KAFKA, the mother, age 65 THEODOR HERZL, age 40. One of the founders of Zionism. MOLE, indeterminate age/gender. Franz’s creative demon/ guardian angel, later a creature of Franz’s imagination (based on the short story “Der Bau” or “The Burrow”) SARAH, indeterminate age. A friend of Ottla’s in the concentration camp of Terezin. SIMON, 50s. An artist in Terezin KOMMANDANT OF THE TEREZIN CAMP, 40s (male) MILITARY JUDGE in the occupied territories, 40s (male) Various short roles in the final scene: A GENERAL (male), a PRIME MINISTER (male or female), a JOURNALIST (male or female) the EMPEROR’S MESSENGER (male or female), DOG (indeterminate gender/age; based on the short story “Investigations of a Dog”); an ISRAELI SOLDIER FARED K. and LEILA, FRANZ and OTTLA transformed as Palestinians Scene Locations: Scene 1: 1901: A café in Vienna Scene 2: 1913: Ottla’s apartment on the Alchemists’ Alley in Prague Scene 3: 1917: Ottla Kafka’s farmhouse in Zürau Czechoslovakia/ Prague family home Scene 4: 1943: The concentration camp of Terezin (Theresienstadt) Scene 5: The present: Walpurgisnacht (Tel Aviv) Scene 6: The present: Hebron

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Scene 1 Setting: A Viennese café in 1901. It is late at night— around 11 p.m., after the theatre. MOLE is officiating as head waiter. FRANZ comes in and seats himself at a table. He opens a book. MOLE (to the audience) I was there from the beginning. Call me his inner demon, guardian angel, or whatever. Some people are marked—marked by genius. That’s where I come in. He could see me too. At first he must have thought every child had a secret sharer that other people couldn’t see. Then he must have come to realize he was special. And finally, that he couldn’t get rid of me. I was there—in dreams, in fantasies, in nightmares too. Also in jest—Franz Kafka loved to laugh. He’ll be surprised to find me as the head waiter— head in one of the most famous coffeehouses in Vienna! And I play the role marvelously. Do you know what distinguishes the best waiters? They make themselves invisible, yet all the while they anticipate the slightest wishes of the clientele. A perfect role for me—since I am invisible to all but him anyway. So this is where it all begins—in 1901, and Franz Kafka is only 18 years old. He’s just out of gymnasium—or what you might call High School. He’s come from Prague to Vienna with his uncle. And all hell breaks loose! Sounds of glass breaking and shouts off-screen: “JUDEN RAUS!” HERZL, impeccably dressed in a suit, but with his clothes in disarray, rushes in

HERZL (loudly, to himself) So eine Schweinerei! How dare they! The sound of tumult continues; FRANZ is startled And looks up; MOLE swiftly brings HERZL a coffee; during this scene, MOLE moves about the stage; only Kafka acknowledges him with a nod when he brings things.

HERZL Listen to those monsters! Austrians will never see Jews except as outsiders, no matter how many generations we have lived here. Well I throw down

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the gauntlet! I will not crawl around as a supplicant asking to be assimilated—I will walk proudly among them as a Jew. You over there! What do you have to say? The street noise dies down for a while.

FRANZ I’m thinking Vienna is very different from Prague. HERZL Ah! Ein Prager! You are fortunate there, in a way. Within the German minority, you have your own Jewish institutions and culture. (pause) You are Jewish, are you not? FRANZ (nods assent) Of course, we have our labyrinths, the protections of our family houses and coffee houses, which are modeled on Vienna’s. That is, in a sense, why I find myself here, in a place that feels compatible. Though my uncle has brought me here to experience something different—and to celebrate my graduation from the gymnasium. But what’s going on outside? HERZL I’m afraid Vienna has offered you a sorry welcome. These eruptions of anti-Semitism are all too frequent here. And it runs deep. Do you know what they wrote about my play The New Ghetto? “This play, which vainly tries to prove that Jews have the same sense of honor as the young men of our aristocratic circles, is a fantasy. We all know that Jews do not fight duels because they have no honor to defend.” There you have it—my play about anti-Semitism got an anti-Semitic response! FRANZ I thought I recognized you. You are the playwright—Theodore Herzl. Ah! This makes my visit to Vienna complete! I too have the dream of being a writer. HERZL Write then! As for me, I now work on an even greater goal, one that will save us from these street thugs and unpleasant demonstrations. In August, I will head the Jewish Congress in London. Someday we Jews

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will create our own national identity. We will live in Palestine! I have dedicated my life to seeing it happen. Just imagine, I am a mere journalist and playwright, yet in May, I met with the Sultan himself in Istanbul! FRANZ (dreamily) Palestine? The Sultan? It sounds like a dream…. HERZL No dream, my young friend. I will tell you a secret, in case you are ever in this kind of situation: lest it look like I was not used to such formal audiences, I had slightly creased my new white gloves. First impressions are so important! At the palace there was a procession of courtiers, eunuchs, princesses and other nobility in all sorts of carriages, pashas, lackeys and petitioners. All of them streaming by to musical accompaniment. The shining blue Bosporus. The call of the muezzin. Then the wait. Ambassadors, generals come and go in the enormous red and gold reception hall. Finally doors, and corridors, and more doors. The audience hall. The sultan Abdul Hamid Khan II: not tall, thin, with a great hook nose, a full beard dyed black, a thin wavering voice. He was wearing his ceremonial uniform. He sat with his sword between his legs. FRANZ Doors and more doors? such a palace must be a labyrinth… HERZL Doors you can only get through by offering bribe after bribe, as I learned. I offered his majesty no less than this: to liquidate the Empire’s national debt if he would give the Palestinian lands to the Jews. This was in May— only a few months ago. But I am realizing that in reaching the Sultan I have not yet reached the center of power—he is a figurehead, a mere symbol for this empire of robbers. I have not heard anything since. When I remember our meeting now I see only the sordid aspects: his yellow teeth, the protruding ears under his fez, his lack of authority. I was carried away with a sense of my own success, and met with only a stick figure, a prisoner in a gilded cage. FRANZ (intrigued) Sometimes I think we are all caged; we carry the bars of our cages around inside us. But who do you think actually runs things in the castle?

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HERZL Ah! Is it the Sultan’s First Secretary Tashin Bey? Or the second Secretary Izzet Bey? Or men whose existence I am unaware of, who are hiding somewhere in the marshes or behind the bushes of this fabulous palace? In May I had thought to be at the end of my lifelong effort to secure a homeland for the Jews—now it seems I am only at the beginning. FRANZ I can see that as a father figure for his Empire the Sultan won’t do. In Prague we have a similar figure in the Austrian Kaiser. People line the streets when he comes to visit. We see military bands, all kinds of uniforms, the whole ridiculous parade. It’s all such an absurd glorification of war. It often seems to me that we live in an era which is possessed by demons. HERZL Indeed. Already there are too many who see the emancipated Jew as a competitor and a threat. The world is holding its breath now, in this new 20th century. FRANZ Most people hold onto life like little creatures on a coral reef—stuck in a deadening job but believing themselves to be part of some great national idea. They don’t even realize how precarious their existence is…condemned to life! HERZL Dark thoughts for such a young man. I will tell you what keeps me going. On the one hand it is the vision of a Jewish homeland where we will finally be able to show what a model we can be for the rest of the world. In Europe, in the past few decades and with emancipation, we have experienced more tolerance; now it is for us to carry that tolerance to Palestine and become a beacon for all the world. In the society I am dreaming of and striving for, people of all religions will be welcome as long as they come to help us build the ideal society. FRANZ So that is on the one hand—what is the other? Crescendo of off-screen tumult; “Hep Hep,” boisterous and cruel laughter; this erupts in spurts during the conversation

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HERZL On the other I cannot rest because I fear what will happen if our collective dream is not realized. We have only a small chance and time is short—we must get approval for the homeland now, before it is too late. FRANZ Why is it people talk of emancipation just because a new century is beginning? It is, after all, an arbitrary measurement of time. Yet somehow we feel it—the need to break apart the old structures. HERZL There is some truth to what you say. If you truly want to change people, you have to change their conditions of existence. So we must succeed—or go under. As Jews, I have sometimes thought we are fated to perform a service for mankind. To show the way to a higher way of being. FRANZ Of course evolution has to be perpetual. Otherwise there is no hope for us, or anyone. But people are afraid of freedom—they would rather cage themselves in, and suffocate. I myself—like my schoolmates—I will soon begin my studies, law or whatever and then….an office. I escape from one cage—working at my father’s factories—to settle, finally, for another. HERZL We are all trapped, one way or another. But in Palestine Jews will throw off these shackles. They will learn agriculture, farming, all kinds of professions that have been off-limits to Jews. Do you think those who founded the countries we live in today were more talented or more educated or richer than we? Not at all. I began with only my gifts as a writer. Now I compose on the world stage—and with real people. FRANZ To work with one’s hands. Yes, that appeals to me…to break away from our fathers, to start a new life… HERZL This is, after all, the theme of much Jewish writing…To break away from our fathers, in the broadest sense. From the heritage of enslavement. My Jews will walk proudly, secure in their own lineage and will scorn to assimilate.

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FRANZ Assimilate? Impossible for me. I feel I have no native language—not Czech, nor German. And Hebrew defeats me. Yet there is writing, a homeland of sorts. Sometimes I feel that I come from another world entirely. I have never felt Jewish either. HERZL Perhaps you have never encountered open and brazen anti-Semitism. Listen to what’s going on just outside these doors! Anyway, we Jews have been too long subservient. It even affects our relations with our richer brothers. When I meet with the banker Rothschild my attitude reminds me of the Jewish witticism: “If you want to milk a cow, you have to bow down before her.” FRANZ People who meet are so often at cross-purposes. A man is walking on a country road when a farmer comes along in a cart. “How far is it to the next village?” he asks. “Half an hour,” says the farmer. “Can I get in?” the man asks. “Of course,” says the farmer. After an hour, the man gets worried and asks again. “How far is it now?” “An hour and a half,” says the farmer. “We are headed in the opposite direction.” (pause) My dear sir, I hope the same will not happen to your dream of Palestine. The tumult slowly abates

HERZL What a strange young man you are. Somehow I feel that the world will hear from you. Remember what I have said. And believe in art. It is the way to unlock the cages. Tell me your name. FRANZ Kafka. Franz Kafka. Yes, art is sometimes like a clock that runs ahead of the times. HERZL Ah, speaking of clocks—it is very late. And the riffraff seems to have moved on past our door. These wonderful coffee houses! The last refuge for us Jews. For now, it is the enmity against Jews that defines us as a people. Someday we will become great—once we fulfill our destiny in our own land.

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FRANZ And so you wait for a message from the Sultan, coming from afar. Perhaps the messenger is already on his way, traversing the corridors of the palace, then mountains and streams and cities…but perhaps the message will never arrive. HERZL Take heart, young man. FRANZ Heart? My pen is the seismograph of my heart. That, perhaps is the way to a relative sort of freedom. HERZL This has been a very unusual evening. I hope we shall meet again. Yet my health…and your home after all is not Vienna, but Prague. Goodnight, my young friend. FRANZ nods; HERZL exits

FRANZ What an unusual man. (pause) There is art, after all. It is like prayer—a hand reaching into the darkness to feel something of grace and bring it back, to metamorphose into the hand of plenty….and to spread it over the earth. MOLE And so the seed was planted. Or could have been. Where did Franz get the idea of moving to Palestine? From his diaries we know he thought about it from an early age, and talked about it with his favorite sister Ottla. I was there with them too, of course, though she couldn’t see me. Let’s go forward a dozen years, to 1913; Europe is on the brink of war, but the war within the family has been raging for a decade already…. Lights dim

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Scene 2 Setting: A tiny cottage near the Prague castle, 1913. OTTLA and FRANZ can meet here for privacy and to be away from the rest of the family. FRANZ is sitting at a table, writing, with a blanket wrapped around him. It’s very cold. MOLE sits in a corner. OTTLA knocks discreetly. OTTLA Franz—are you there? FRANZ Yes—come in Ottla. OTTLA enters with a bucket of coal and seats herself on edge in an awkward wooden chair

OTTLA I just came by to bring you some more coal. I don’t want to disturb you when you’re writing. FRANZ (coughs) But how could you disturb me Ottla? This is your little cottage. I know how much you needed to get away from the family. And I feel selfish for accepting your offer of letting me come here to write. Do you know…at night the stars come out on this perfectly named Alchemists’ Alley and over there in the distance the windows of the castle light up. The castle seems so near and yet so far away… OTTLA Dearest Franz! FRANZ Sometimes I just sit here and nothing occurs to me. Other times I stay up all night writing the most fantastic visions. A man wakes up and he’s turned into a giant bug—maybe even a cockroach. MOLE gets up and lies on the floor with arms and legs kicking in the air

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FRANZ (to MOLE, coughing) That’s enough now. MOLE gets back on the chair

OTTLA Who are you talking to? FRANZ Just my demon. By the way, in my story, the only person who’s nice to the cockroach is his sister. OTTLA Well then let me make you some tea right now, Franz. To warm you up. It’s so cold and dank in here. Not good for you. You must remember to keep warm. I’ll stoke the fire. (she gets up and adds coals) FRANZ Baby sister! (shaking his finger) You are “mothering” me! OTTLA Yes, and I promised not to do that. But you look so helpless. And that cough… FRANZ It’s just a cough, nothing more. What’s happening at home? OTTLA (bringing tea and sitting down) That’s what I wanted to tell you. Father fired his entire staff this morning! What a performance at dinner last night! He was really ranting. “Paid enemies” he called them. And you should have seen him in the store today. He swept his arm across a whole shelf of shoeboxes and threw them on the floor, just because he didn’t like the way they were displayed. Then he ordered Renate to pick them up. She just stared at him, in shock. “You’re all fired,” he yells then. What now? I’m already there from early morning until four in the afternoon. That’s four people to replace!

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FRANZ I can just imagine the scene: “Don’t even think of contradicting me!” Father is the epitome of the loud-talking, self-satisfied, know-it-all. He’s like a monster with a voracious appetite that devours everything and everyone in his wake! He’s always automatically in the right, a tyrant who imposes rules that he never even bothers to follow himself. I suppose you’ll have to go around and convince them to come back. No doubt father will realize what this temper tantrum will cost him if he persists. OTTLA Let him do it. I’m not afraid to stand up to him. I have quite a temper myself, when it comes to that. FRANZ I’ve always thought you’re the only one who’s strong enough to stand up to him. As for me, I just try to keep out of his way. I suppose I’m a great disappointment to him. As I am, in a way, to myself. OTTLA Don’t ever say that Franz. I know you’ll be a great writer someday. Even your friends can see it. And even if not—think about what it would be like for me without you. FRANZ Ah, we made a Faustian bargain being born into this family! OTTLA There you go with you fantasies again, Franz! FRANZ No—really! In a contorted way it’s true. It’s like the film I saw recently– The Student of Prague. Here’s the poor student in his garret just wanting things he can only dream of but can never attain. With him it was wealth and the love of a countess. So in the film the devil comes in to the garret— that’s Scapinelli… (FRANZ begins to act out the scene) He pours an unending stream of gold coins onto the poor student’s desk and only asks to take one thing in exchange from the poor student’s room… and of course the student laughs and says yes!!! Then Scapinelli walks over to the wall and orders the student’s reflection to follow him

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out of the large mirror that’s standing there…and now our hero has no more reflection! Then the double creates all kind of mischief, including killing a man! MOLE gets up and stands opposite FRANZ as though standing in for FRANZ’s mirror reflection

OTTLA But how does that relate to us? FRANZ How? We’ve betrayed our own wishes and dreams! We gave up our independence for a little bit of security… Now you are chained to the shop instead of following your dream of living independently in the countryside, and I am stuck in my deadening office work where I can’t find time to write. Like the student who lost his reflection, we can’t even see ourselves clearly anymore. Don’t we both dine every night in a house where everything runs according to father’s whims and commands? And all the while I’m already thirty years old and you are twenty-one. OTTLA Alright, alright, so how does it end? FRANZ How does it end? The student shoots his own reflection. But then he discovers, as he collapses, that he has only shot himself. MOLE and FRANZ both collapse on the floor; FRANZ and OTTLA laugh

OTTLA Dearest Franz, sometimes I think you are totally meshugge! FRANZ Words like meshugge make me realize I’m Jewish—words for things that just don’t exist in German. Take even the simplest ones like Papa and Mama or Mamele—they imply a wholly different relationship than the German Vater and Mutter. Our own Papa is always trying to play the “Vater” with us—that’s the problem! Then there are all the diminutives and endearments—in the Yiddish plays I have come to love, you would be called Ottele and I’d be Franzele and we would sing little songs…

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OTTLA And we’d be saved by the Golem! FRANZ A clay figure brought to life by words! Just the right magical words inscribed on his forehead! Isn’t that what all writers aspire to? To create life with words? The Golem was created right here in Prague… FRANZ moves toward OTTLA with unnatural mechanical steps, like an artificial man; his attitude is playful/threatening

But I want to tell you about my dream. There was a massive pile of human teeth, all heaped up together like pieces of a puzzle, except that they were sliding around according to the motions of my mouth. I was making the utmost effort to express something that lay close to my heart—the motions of these teeth, the gaps between them, their gnashing, the feeling I had as I guided them—all this had some specific relation to a decision, a hope, a possibility that I wanted to accomplish by this uninterrupted biting. And then I woke up… OTTLA Franz, sometimes you scare me. Piles of human teeth? Pieces of a puzzle? How can you dream such things! FRANZ It’s like at night I go in search of something, as into a labyrinth. My dreams sometimes seem more vivid than my pale reflection of a life that I live in the office and at home. I’m not sure I even really sleep—it’s like a half-sleep from which I often wake up exhausted….And even during the day sometimes I have hallucinations. OTTLA Hallucinations? What kind of hallucinations? FRANZ Just before you came I dozed off. And that poker there—do you see it, next to the stove? OTTLA The poker?

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FRANZ Well it came to life! It started to move. And speak! (shudders) OTTLA (ironically) Really Franz! And what did it say? FRANZ It told me I was on the wrong path. And by the way, it was wearing a tefillin.. OTTLA So the poker had a face—poker face, haha. You are letting your fantasies run away with you Franz. FRANZ No really, Ottla. Don’t laugh. It was frightening. OTTLA (going over and picking up the poker and shaking it) Franz! You shouldn’t try to scare yourself sitting here all alone. I’ll show you there’s nothing to be afraid of. So here I am, the voice from the beyond. (intones) Franz Kafka, you have strayed from the true path. I am your spirit. Return to the faith of your fathers. Give up all this crazy writing. Become a responsible citizen. Duty, work, family! You are walking on a tightrope and are bound to fall! FRANZ Stop Ottla! It does feel like a tightrope! And I could fall at any moment! FRANZ stands up and seems to lose his balance

OTTLA (hugging him) But I’m here Franz! I’ll catch you. (pause) Do you think the Golem had dreams?

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FRANZ No, because the Golem didn’t have a soul. The rabbi could animate him and put him to rest again by inscribing or removing the magical words. The Golem is a dream. OTTLA Alright, Dr. Freud. What does the Golem dream mean? FRANZ (reflective) There is a Jewish rabbi who is confronted with a great danger. Not just to himself but to his entire community. The danger of injustice, of arbitrary punishment, even death. And what does this Jewish rabbi do? He becomes an artist. He remembers words—magical words that have been passed down from tradition. He finds the words from his roots, from his Judaic culture. And with these words he breathes life into matter. He animates a creature he creates out of clay, like God created Adam. The Golem comes to life and saves his community from danger. It’s a story about the power of imagination—imagination rooted in knowing your traditions, where you come from, and where you belong. And it’s a story about redemption. The possibility of hope. The possibility of survival. That’s the dream of the Golem. OTTLA But the Golem goes on a rampage! The rabbi almost loses control! FRANZ There’s a lesson there also. Be careful with the powers you unleash. OTTLA Did you ever really feel Jewish? FRANZ Father used to make me go to synagogue with him on holidays. I could see he was only going through the motions and he let me wander around during services. I was so totally bored. But there was one thing I liked. When they opened the Ark of the Covenant. That was fun—like the doors that pop open in a shooting gallery when you hit the target. I was just a kid!

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(pause) But seriously—I’m feeling more connected now through the theatre. It’s as if those plays are real, and we ourselves are play-acting—acting at being German in a Czech society whereas we are not really German at all. But Yiddish—it’s truly ours. Like the poem by Frug—“Sand and Stars”: Es shaynt di levone, es glantsn di shtern; Di nakht shvebt oyf barg un oyf tol. Dos altitshke bikhele ligt far mir ofn, Ikh leyen es, leyen es toyznter mol. Ikh leyen di heylike, tayere verter; Mir hert zikh a shtime: “Ikh shver, Mayn folk, du vest zayn vi di shtern in himl, Vi zamd oyfn breg funem mer!”

Can you translate? OTTLA Of course! “The moon is shining; the stars are sparkling, the night stretches over mountains and valleys the holy prayer book lies open before me I read and read it a thousand times over. My people you will be like the stars in the heavens The sand on the shores of the sea….

FRANZ The poem goes on to say that at present we are trod upon and scattered. Yet the stars are promised to us—someday. OTTLA I also know one about the moon. It’s a love poem I learned at the new organization of women and girls: Sheyn vi di levone Likhtik vi di shtern Fun himl a matone Bistu tsu mir geshikt

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FRANZ There is something in the Yiddish theatre that speaks of home to me. There’s a message there, though one I can’t quite read. You know, Ottla, at times I imagine father stretched out over the map of the whole world, covering it up so there is no place left for me. No place in the sun where I could marry and have a little family. Then I could at least be his equal. As it is I live like a condemned prisoner in his house where he treats me like a bloodsucking leech. And my office job—all day long I deal with accidents mostly caused by greedy employers—people falling off flimsy scaffolding, slipping on ladders put up hastily under pressure, machines that rip off body parts. OTTLA Franz I do want to help you get away. Maybe we’ll go to Palestine. We could farm there. There are people talking about it. Jews are setting up communal farms. FRANZ Ah, now you’re the one who’s dreaming! I don’t know if I feel that Jewish. OTTLA But you just said you don’t feel at home anywhere. FRANZ Let’s make a pact then. We’ll get away from here, one way or another! OTTLA So, is this another Faustian bargain? Who is the devil this time? FRANZ Why you of course—doesn’t father always bring out your demonic side? Admit you secretly enjoy annoying him. OTTLA (sighs) Oh father again. I almost forgot. I have to go around and apologize to all the help so they’ll come back. Wish me luck. FRANZ Yes. Until tomorrow then. OTTLA exits

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FRANZ (to himself, acting out the dream as MOLE bars his way with arms outstretched) I had another dream—what was it now? I was walking in a great illuminated hall, but when I went to open the door to leave, the door opened onto an abrupt cliff that blocked the exit. The same happened with the second door—you could see all the way up and into the distance left and right but there was no way out. I struggled to wake up, but the dream persisted long afterward. Lights dim; end of scene

Scene 3 Setting: Alternates between the parents at home in Prague and the two siblings in Ottla’s farmhouse in Zürau. HERR KAFKA is reading the paper; FRAU KAFKA is holding a letter; OTTLA and FRANZ are on a farm in Zürau. TIME: 1917 FRAU KAFKA Hermann—here’s a letter from Ottla. HERR KAFKA Ah! News from the renegade who has run off to play at being a farmer in Zürau. And now Franz has gone there too on a seemingly endless vacation. So read it, Julie. We might as well know the worst. FRAU KAFKA Well, I for one am happy Ottla is not alone there. I know she wanted to try running a farm, but it must be hard. She has to learn everything on her own. Not that Franz knows any more than she does. But at least she has someone to talk to. HERR KAFKA Tell me this, Julie. Why does anyone have children? They will never understand their parents. This war, the shortages, the problems at the store—and my spoiled children go off to play at being peasants! FRAU KAFKA (reading) Oh! It says here that Felice came to visit Franz! I do hope it went well. I would be so happy to see Franz settled.

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HERR KAFKA Harrumph! Lights dim; lights up on Zürau

OTTLA Well she’s gone. We rode together on the train all the way to Prague and she hardly opened her mouth. What did you say to her? FRANZ What could I say? Somehow everything is turned upside down. Here in the country I’ve come to see my life differently. She doesn’t fit in. OTTLA What do you mean “fit?” Franz, Felice took a 30-hour train ride from Berlin just to see you. Is that what you told her? She doesn’t “fit?”. FRANZ No, of course not. We did talk. I told her about my illness, of course, but also that this way of living here in nature—with you—is the best cure. Lots of people have overcome it. The body can heal itself... OTTLA But you didn’t give her any hope? About your future together? As I said, she hardly spoke. And she certainly didn’t look happy. FRANZ Ottla, don’t you see? This illness is my liberation! Here we are, two escapees from Prague, you with your farm, I with my long days lying out in the sun—the luxury of just thinking! OTTLA Thinking. FRANZ Yes, thinking! OTTLA And what was my dear brother thinking about? Not about his fiancée I take it.

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FRANZ Nor about yours. It’s you, after all, who are about to take Kierkegaard’s great leap. Beyond a certain point there is no going back. This is the point you are about to reach. OTTLA Funny—I don’t see marriage that way. FRANZ And with a Christian too. Are you even a believer? OTTLA Of course not. Are you? FRANZ I do think there is something indestructible in me—something that links me to all other human beings because I see the same thing in them. OTTLA So, even in our father? FRANZ Quit changing the subject. OTTLA Our father, whom we have temporarily escaped? I hope the indestructible part of him is not going to insist on our return. FRANZ If only we could put Prague behind us! Lights dim; lights up on Prague

FRAU KAFKA Oh! Ottla writes that she has a young man. HERR KAFKA So: the last daughter will go. And I will be quite alone in the shop. Meanwhile my son, the princeling, has decided that a leisurely country life suits him better than working in the city! FRAU KAFKA Aber Hermann! It’s not as bad as all that! Ottla is already 25—it’s time she was married. Franz is 34 but he still seems like a child sometimes. In

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all this time, he never moved away from home. It will all turn out for the best. I think the country life will be good for him. (smiling) So Ottla has a young man… Lights dim; lights up on Zürau

FRANZ What is to become of our plans to go to Palestine if you marry your Christian? OTTLA Oh. I didn’t know you were so interested. FRANZ You didn’t know? Why do you suppose I’m learning Hebrew? OTTLA So how do you imagine your life there? Are you going to become a farmer too? FRANZ Of course. I’m good at carpentry. And I like to work with my hands. No more shuffling papers at the office! OTTLA You’re serious about this! FRANZ I’m serious. Now let’s imagine telling father. You first. OTTLA That’s not hard! “No son of mine is going to be a farmer! Eine Schande! You children do not appreciate the hard road I have traveled, from the village butcher shop to our present exalted position among the first families of Prague!” FRANZ “Who do you think pays for you to bask in the sun, to live your life of leisure, who is it that pays for it every day and again and again with endless financial worries, enduring the sneers of ungrateful employees and the impossible demands of customers?”

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OTTLA That’s just like father, Franz. And this: “I never have a moment’s rest whereas my son does nothing but cavort in cafés and once in a while shows up at his little job as a minor office clerk? And now this same son dares to tell me he will desert his family and all the hopes we have pinned on him?” OTTLA and FRANZ laugh and hug playfully Lights dim; lights up on Prague

HERR KAFKA (looking up from his paper) I understand now. Look at this! The czar deposed in Russia. Bolsheviks! My children are also Bolsheviks! Scraping the ground like common peasants! What do you think will happen in Russia now that the legitimate authority has been overthrown? There is a natural order of things in society and only chaos can follow from disregarding it. I am in principle against all revolutions! FRAU KAFKA Aber Hermann! I know my Ottla. She has a lot of common sense. She’s hardly a revolutionary. HERR KAFKA Common sense you say. And yet these two are constantly dropping hints about moving to Palestine. Where they will live pell-mell in a communal kibbutz, without even a fork or a spoon to call their own. Parents don’t even raise their own children there so what kind of bond can there be between husband and wife? It’s all very unhealthy and against the principles of any sane society! Lights dim; lights up on Zürau

FRANZ Wait, wait. What about you Ottla? “And who is this ungrateful daughter who seeks to abandon her rightful place within the family and go out adventuring in foreign lands? What madness is this? Right when she is needed in the shop to attend to our customers with a smile?”

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OTTLA Here’s another one: “And what is this vegetarian fantasy of yours? Where did you get this idée fixe that it’s healthy to avoid meat? Now Ottla has started in too. Whenever you come home the whole household is inconvenienced by your dietary obsessions. What’s natural about it? Why do you think humans have teeth?” (OTTLA and FRANZ both laugh, but then FRANZ begins to cough uncontrollably)

OTTLA (rushing to hold him) I’m so sorry Franz. Let’s rest now. We got carried away. (Pause) I guess we’re nothing to brag about. (Pause) You haven’t told father about your illness. FRANZ No. I don’t want pity. I want to be left alone to do what I must. (while FRANZ speaks, MOLE acts out the struggle with Franz’s father in the dream)

Did I tell you about my dream? I was watching a regiment parading outside our window. In my dream Father said: “You have to enjoy a sight like this, as long as you are still able,” and jumps onto the windowsill. I grab him and hold on with the belt of his dressing gown. Out of spitefulness he leans even farther out—to hold onto him I have to exert my strength to the limit. I think about how it would be good if I could attach my feet to something solid somehow with ropes so I won’t be pulled out along with Father. But to achieve that I’d have to let go of Father for a moment and that’s not possible. I tense up so much it throttles my sleep—and I wake up in a sweat. Ottla! Do you think I wish for father’s death? That would be horrible! OTTLA (she comforts him) But you didn’t let go Franz! You didn’t let go! (pause) But I don’t wonder you have nightmares, Franz. I don’t know. It’s all too much. The family, the war, the drought this year, your illness which frightens me so much I cannot even bear to name it….

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FRANZ But Ottla, don’t you see? For now I am happy. Listen to this: A cage went in search for a bird. OTTLA A cage was empty. Without a bird it had no reason for being. So it went in search for one. And besides—the bird will sing in the cage. Like so many prisoners who defy those who put them behind bars. Only in being defied will the cage find its life’s meaning. It’s like a brand-new wooden step that has not yet been worn down by the passage of feet. It’s meaningless until it has fulfilled its purpose. FRANZ That’s very good! May I borrow it? Here’s another one: There is a goal, but no path. What we call “path” is hesitancy. OTTLA You mean the right decision can be made with lightning speed. If we only knew what it was… FRANZ (reading as MOLE stumbles around blindly) Touché! And now for a longer one—I’ll have to get out my notebook.. Ah! Here it is: From the point of view of our corrupted earthly existence, we are in the situation of passengers on a train which has come to grief in an interminable tunnel. From this place the light of the entrance is no longer visible, while the light at the end is so remote that we can barely see it. In fact we can’t even tell the entrance from the exit. All around us the wounded travelers imagine monsters and kaleidoscopic optical reflections. What to do? Or why? are meaningless questions because there are no answers here. OTTLA (ironic) Now I can see how happy you are! Seriously, though, it’s good. In a way it explains perfectly how we go about our business blindly, though of course what keeps us going is hope, isn’t it? This war goes on and on, and I sometimes wonder what will happen at the end. Prague is so divided: Germans, Czechs, and Jews. From a distance you get a better perspective. It’s always been an uneasy coexistence. Anti-Semitism…what to do, indeed.

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FRANZ Women have it easier, in a way. Ottla, you can marry Josef David and then devote yourself to raising a family. That way you escape Father as well. I’m not sure though, that marrying a Christian will exempt you from Anti-Semitism. OTTLA Easier! What a funny way of putting it. Women in our society go from one economic dependency to another, and never get to stand on their own. Do you know the kinds of arguments that are used against us? There’s never been a woman genius, people said. Never mind Sappho, and, for that matter, Fanny Mendelssohn if she’d only been given the same privileges as her “genius” brother. As for George Sand, and George Eliot—funny that women have to adopt masculine pen names to get published. FRANZ You know I think I might try to publish something under the name “Franziska,” and see how it goes. That would prove your point, wouldn’t it? I mean if I couldn’t get published? Except of course that nobody thinks I’m a genius anyway…. Lights dim; lights up on Prague

HERR KAFKA (reading the newspaper with surprise) Look here! A certain Lord Balfour, speaking for the British crown states it “expresses its support for the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”… Now those two dreamers will lose their last hold on reality! HERR KAFKA slams the newspaper down on the table and exits; FRAU KAFKA goes over to pick it up and read; then exits

Lights dim; lights up on Zürau

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OTTLA (also reading a newspaper) “…and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country….” Franz, isn’t it wonderful? This is just what we were hoping for! FRANZ Do you really think it can work? All those different religions and people of different origins living together? OTTLA I do Franz. Don’t you see what a chance this is? To start something completely new. I believe that people, when it comes down to it, really do want to get along. And I think no matter what their religion or background, everyone knows the difference between right and wrong. We can always recognize injustice, can’t we? For that reason I’ve always believed in justice. FRANZ Justice. In my job, I’m often asked to protect the factory owners from having to compensate injured workers. That’s not justice. OTTLA And that’s what I mean, Franz. In your position you’re able to do justice to those who have been hurt. You’ve helped so many people. You’re a fighter for justice, Franz. FRANZ So you think we’ll be able to change our way of living in Palestine? OTTLA Yes, I believe it. Remember that lovely scene in Herzl’s novel? A Jewish family and an Arab family walking together to a town meeting? The idea that everyone is welcome in Palestine so long as they agree to contribute to the best of their abilities? It’s a vision I believe in.

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FRANZ (as FRANZ speaks, MOLE tries to walk on a narrow wooden ledge, and stumbles)

I sometimes have the intuition: I won’t set anchor here, and then I immediately feel myself borne aloft by a billowing wave that is carrying me away! But at the same time, Ottla: I feel I am walking on a tightrope strung not over an abyss, but just a few inches off the ground. It threatens to make me stumble! OTTLA Those are your bad dreams again Franz. FRANZ But what if we are already in Paradise, and just don’t realize it? What if we are eternally being driven out of it, but only because we are eternally there? OTTLA You’re saying you don’t wish to go after all. But Franz—how long do you think we can stay here? The farming is not going at all well, you know. FRANZ I feel like we have a good little “marriage” here, sister Ottla. I finally get to rest, and write, and you have the dream of your agricultural projects, and the possibility of independence…but life goes on I suppose. I have to meet Felice again in Prague in December—for the last time I think. OTTLA And at the same time Josef David will come to see me here in Zürau. I do love him you know. And as you say, it is escape—though not independence. FRANZ “Love.” I’m happy for you. I think all earthly love has an aspect of heavenly love. And if you freely choose to marry, so be it. There can be no going back, of course, not to the person you were before. Life will change you, Ottla. I hope—I would pray, if it were possible—that you never have to go searching for the person you were again. For that would mean a terrible choice. I’ll come to haunt you—like a Dybbuk! To remind you of who you really are.

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OTTLA (gaily) Dearest Franz—always so gloomy! If you haunt me I’ll haunt you right back! Let’s agree to meet in Palestine, in this life or the next! But come and see—we have packages from mother in Prague—nuts and fruits and vegetables! At least she has shown herself tolerant of our vegetarian lifestyle. Lights dim; MOLE comes forward as FRANZ exits

MOLE It was no good; Franz’s illness was incurable. Tuberculosis. Like so many geniuses who died young back then. As for me, well Franz made me immortal—in his writings, I became one his creatures—a bug, a mole, a man called Joseph K. or just K.—I’m all of them and more. Ottla married Josef David three years later and had two daughters, Vera and Helene. She was still in Prague when Hitler invaded. Eventually, she ended up in the concentration camp of Terezin. I was there too….on the day that would have been Franz’s 60th birthday…. Stage Darkens

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Scene 4 Setting: The concentration camp of Terezin (Theresienstadt) on July 3, 1943. OTTLA is addressing the inmates, children and adults in celebration of Kafka’s 60 th birthday. MOLE moves about the stage, digging, trying to escape the camp. OTTLA is busying herself with the children in the camp.MOLE moves about the stage, digging, trying to escape the camp. OTTLA is busying herself with the children in the camp. OTTLA (speaking like a grade school teacher) Listen children! Do you think a chimpanzee could be dressed up like a man and give a lecture? Because that’s just what happens in my brother’s story “A Report to the Academy.” The poor chimpanzee has to agree to give up all his precious childhood memories in order to adjust to captivity—because they would just make him sad and get in the way. So the gate to his memories gets smaller and smaller until he can’t pass through it at all. Once he’s captured he’s put on a boat in a small cage in which it’s neither possible to sit or stand—and there’s no way out. Besides, if he escaped what could he do but jump into the sea and drown? So he learns to copy his jailers and win their acceptance. There’s a lesson here for you, children—here in Terezin you have to behave and follow the rules. Once you come here the old rules don’t apply. For instance you must get off the sidewalk if you see a German officer coming toward you. There are so many rules! But don’t worry, we will help you. Or do you think a mouse named Josephine could be a famous singer? There’s a story like that. In Terezin we’ll be putting on a children’s play with music. Maybe you think you’re too little to perform on stage here, or to dance, or to sing—but just think of Josephine the mouse! SARAH Ottla! Come quickly! They are taking Simon off to the Kommandatur! OTTLA Simon? Why? What do they say he has done? SARAH Something about making secret drawings of the camp. His friends have been working all morning to hide his remaining pictures. People are saying he might go to prison!

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OTTLA That’s too much! As though this camp were not punishment enough! SARAH Can’t you think of something? OTTLA What? You think I have any influence here? SARAH But Ottla—you know as well as I do that culture is only encouraged here so the Nazis can claim the Jews have it good in the camps. But you are Franz Kafka’s sister—people listen to you. And besides, there is Franz’s anniversary celebration today. People are expecting you to speak. OTTLA Of course, of course Sarah. Just let me put my head to it. It’s all in a whirl. Terezin has not turned out as we expected, has it? This last convoy of children who arrived from Poland, without their parents—dirty, crying, with torn clothing and some of them with no shoes. Many of them have even forgotten their last names. SARAH At least you saved your own children. OTTLA Yes, by divorcing Josef David. That way my daughters were no longer considered Jewish. How I miss them Sarah. Soon they will be getting married and having children of their own! But I can help the children here. SARAH Try to think of something Ottla. There is already a crowd in the square waiting for your speech about Franz. And the Kommandant will be busy with Simon. You can speak freely. OTTLA I’ll do my best, Sarah. OTTLA walks forward, addressing the crowd/audience

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OTTLA Thank you for the chance to say something about my brother Franz on the occasion of his 60th birthday—or rather what would have been his 60th birthday. Franz was my dearest friend when I was growing up. He used to read aloud to all of us sisters when we were small; sometimes I think he loved to scare us to death! Then after Elli and Valli got married Franz and I were the only ones left at home. Franz would go to the office around an hour after I was already working in the shop. In the afternoon and after work he would take long walks and go to bed very late. Sometimes he would spend the whole night writing and even in sleep he was disturbed by overly vivid dreams. I often think his stories came out of those dreams, or nightmares. But looking around us here in Terezin some of those dreams don’t seem so far-fetched. (pause) Indeed, there are things my brother wrote that we hardly understood at the time. Now that our world has been turned upside down we can perhaps begin to understand his strange and disturbing visions. All his life Franz sought justice—just compensation for injured workers at the office, just recognition from our father, equality in his personal relationships. This was the “way out” he sought. But of course he did not find it. Instead, the world seemed to him one of arbitrary rules, of domination by the powerful, of corrupted human relationships. But we should remember that Franz himself did not necessarily want to leave these writings behind after his death. Many of them were published despite his explicit request that they be burned. He did not think they offered any “way out” of the cages in which we humans are imprisoned. I often wonder whether it would not have been wise to do as he wished. Simon’s interrogation by the Kommandant of the camp is presented in alternation with OTTLA’s speech; during his interrogation, charcoal drawings by some of the artist inmates can be projected; the KOMMANDANT sits on an elevated chair, looking down on SIMON)

KOMMANDANT Are these yours? This picture of an old man searching in the garbage for potato peelings? And you title this piece “Hunger.”

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SIMON Yes, it’s mine. KOMMANDANT (in a conciliatory tone) I have to say I really don’t understand you. Why go to imagine such horrors when we have gone out of our way to create a model community here for Jews? Such fantasies are really out of place. SIMON I draw what I see, Kommandant. KOMMANDANT But this is slander. These are lies. Here we allow Jews to have concerts and art classes and you go behind our backs to question the generosity of the German people and our Führer! Back to Ottla

OTTLA Do you remember Franz’s story “Before the Law”? It’s one of the first things he ever published. In the story there’s a man from the country who goes to seek redress with the law. But he encounters a gatekeeper who won’t let him through…yet. The gatekeeper keeps telling him it’s not time yet, even as the man grows older and gives away all his possessions in the attempt to gain entry. Finally he lies dying and asks the gatekeeper why no one else, in all the years, has come to the gate of the law. And the gatekeeper tells him the terrible truth: this very gate is meant only for him….now what I have always wondered is why the man grows old and dies, but the gatekeeper does not. But now I think I finally understand. New oppressors are always arising, in the infinite relay of cruelty that is our so-called civilization. Can you believe it? Within this camp, where we are confined just because we are Jews, there is a prison! And even now, as I speak to you, our friend Simon, the artist whom you all know, is in trouble because of some drawings he made! Back to the interrogation

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KOMMANDANT What is the true function of art, in your opinion? I believe it is to inspire, to elevate the soul. We encourage art here. But as an artist, it is your duty to show beauty. The love between a mother and her child. Religious services. Why not paint still lifes, for heaven’s sake!! SIMON The function of art? Surely not just decoration. The artist speaks from the soul. KOMMANDANT Yes, precisely. And therefore he represents the community. Think of this as your responsibility. To express the loveliness of what the German people have created for the Jews here in Terezin. SIMON You speak of community? You have robbed us of our time on earth. Here we are like the living dead. All of us here want only one thing: to return to our homes. KOMMANDANT (he glowers and becomes rigid with anger) Unverschämt! Back to OTTLA

OTTLA My brother used to joke that he would come back as a Dybbuk. Perhaps if he did, he could help us to understand what we are experiencing here in Terezin. Remember how they called it “Theresienbad” –a spa for Jews? Or “Paradise Ghetto?” What a disappointment when we arrived here! The scene darkens; MOLE stops digging

MOLE The condemned man is placed here on the bed, naked and lying on his stomach. Here there are straps for the hands, for the feet, for the neck. And here at the head of the bed is a piece of felt that can be adjusted to fit right into the man’s mouth. Its purpose is to keep him from screaming and biting his tongue….the actual sentence is carried out by the harrow…

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now for the most important thing: the wheelwork mechanism determines the motion of the harrow, and this wheelwork is adjusted to pierce the flesh of the prisoner with an image of the sentence which has been conferred on him. Of course it cannot be a matter of simple letters; the mechanism is not designed to kill at once, but on the average of twelve hours; so many, many decorations are added to the script. How still the man becomes after the sixth hour! He is beginning to decipher the script; he deciphers it through his wounds. It’s a lot of work—it takes him six hours to complete the task. Then the harrow spears him right through and throws him in the pit. At that moment the trial is over. (looking out toward the audience) and this is the crime which is inscribed on his back, which penetrates his skin and his entrails with the instruments of torture: “He was born a Jew!” Back to the interrogation

KOMMANDANT How dare you? How could you dream up such a mockery of reality, and draw it? Even the Red Cross, which visited recently, had no quarrel with the conditions here. They were impressed with our generous provisions for you Jews. We have even heard that some of these drawings have been smuggled outside of Theresienstadt to perpetrate lies. This is obviously a communist plot to discredit the Führer! SIMON I repeat: I paint for myself—to fulfill myself as an artist. There is no other reason. KOMMANDANT Your drawings are lies and you are also a liar. You are condemned to prison! SIMON Here all of us are already in prison. Going down to one more level of hell won’t make any difference. KOMMANDANT I’m quite sure we can provide a version of hell that even you cannot imagine. Take him away to the Festung! And that goes for his wife and children as well! You do not deserve to live here in comfort.

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Back to OTTLA

OTTLA My brother and I read Herzl’s diaries together and what many of you do not know is that we dreamed sometimes of going to Palestine. When we read HERZL we began to dream his dream as well. Altneuland—the “old-new-homeland” he envisioned—where Jews would show the world what true justice and tolerance could mean. HERZL understood that if you want to change people, you have to change their circumstances. As for our dream of Palestine, I was studying agriculture and FRANZ also would have liked to be a farmer—at least that is what he told me. He hated the bureaucracy where he was forced to earn his living…the way to hell, he would claim, is paved with red tape and office memoranda… SARAH (taking Ottla’s hand) Thank you Ottla. It was a beautiful speech. Now that people know about Simon there are many ways we can help him even if he is taken away to the prison. OTTLA Sarah, remember those children who arrived here from Poland the other day? SARAH I remember now. I’ve been so busy in the infirmary. Actually several of them ended up there at first. We were asked to take special care of them. OTTLA The German staff found new clothes for them. They even have their own dormitory where they all live together. I’ve been helping them. SARAH And now? OTTLA Well -- now there is talk of sending them to a new place. SARAH A new place? Whatever for? They seem fine here. OTTLA There is talk of “resettling” them farther east.

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SARAH Resettling? How do you do that with children? Children without families? OTTLA I don’t want them to have to travel by themselves, Sarah. I’ve decided to go with them when the time comes. SARAH But Ottla, how do you know what the Germans really have in mind? Where is this place? OTTLA The Germans are talking about a place in Poland, Ossewicz. The Germans calls it Auschwitz. SARAH Ottla, I don’t want to lose you. You’re the person I rely on the most here. Who knows if they will let you come back? OTTLA But the children. You’ve seen them. How lost they are. And they trust me. I’m sorry Sarah. I just have to do it. SARAH There are children here too Ottla. Please don’t go. OTTLA Don’t you see? There’s no other way. I have to. It’s what is right. SARAH What is right to do is not always what is wise to do, Ottla. Do think it over carefully. You know what I mean. OTTLA I know. But I have no other choice, even knowing it. Especially knowing it. You’ve been a good friend Sarah. I expect after this we won’t see one another again. Sounds of trains as the lights dim

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Scene 5 Setting: Contemporary Tel Aviv. The train sounds from the previous scene are gradually overlaid by sounds of modern traffic: horns, moving cars, etc. then OTTLA and FRANZ come forward holding hands as Dybbuks). The scene is contemporary, except that it is peopled by animals from Franz Kafka’s stories. Ottla and Franz wander through the Surreal landscape. All the characters except Franz, Ottla, and Mole can be played by the same three actors who put on various masks or wear signs. OTTLA Where are we? What are we? FRANZ I feel like I’ve been wandering for ages. Ottla, you’ve come to join me at last. OTTLA I told you I would haunt you back someday! It’s hard to believe it’s been almost a hundred years since you were taken from us. Your terrible illness. And what came after was also terrible. Our sisters, rounded up by the Germans and sent to the ghetto. My divorce, to save my children from the same fate. As for me: Terezin, and then Auschwitz. FRANZ Terezin? Auschwitz? OTTLA Another war you never had to see. Whole factories of death. So much suffering. FRANZ Yes. Here’s the funny thing though. You got to be older than I did. Now you’re fifty and I only got to be forty. Don’t worry, you look great! But now I’m the younger brother! Our roles are reversed… OTTLA Not really. I always felt older than you Franz. You were such a dreamer! Have you forgotten? Anyway, let’s find out where we’ve landed. FRANZ (looking around) So this is the modern world. A new century. The 21st ! Just look around you Ottla. So many machines! Cars everywhere. Flying saucers delivering

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packages. People walking around holding other machines to their heads and talking. OTTLA What kind of creature is that Franz? It looks like a MOLE! MOLE (to the audience) Yes, I’m still here! In fact, Palestine is where I found my niche. At night I like to come out and watch the entrance of my vast underground labyrinth. I started even as a young mole. I have built corridors upon corridors, widening out to vast rooms where I can even do a somersault without touching the ceiling. In some of these rooms I have stored enough food for half a year. Safe, safe, I am completely safe. And yet…I like to come out to watch…I have to see if anyone stops to sniff out the entrance. I like to watch and imagine how safe I would be if I were inside. From behind a bush I watch the traffic going by…but luckily no one stops to inspect. MOLE drifts backstage

FRANZ The creature over there seems oddly familiar. Did I dream it? Or is it dreaming me? Here comes another one. Look, Ottla, it’s a dog. OTTLA I can see it’s a dog. What is your name? DOG (ignoring her) As for me, I’m only interested in digging around in the earth. I’m trying to figure out how the earth provides nourishment. When you look at the earth, well, it’s just dry stuff. But other things grow out of it. It’s a mystery. I don’t get it. And why do people look up to the sky for help when there’s hunger? Food comes from the earth, not the sky. I just can’t figure it out, though I’ve been investigating it all my life… DOG drifts backstage

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OTTLA As I look around me, I see green fields under cultivation, roads bordered by neat little houses with gardens. I see beds of tomatoes, artichokes, green peas and beans. And fruit: oranges, melons and bananas! It’s beautiful, Franz! It’s like our dream of Palestine! FRANZ I don’t know. It seems to me we’ve wandered into a modern Walpurgisnacht. Just as when I was alive, I wish I could wake up! Here come the next bunch…What looks like a General and a Prime Minister! Followed by a Journalist! THE GENERAL I just follow orders from the government. If they ask me to clear out a village you can be sure I will do it with dispatch. THE PRIME MINISTER I know the will of the people better than the people do themselves. You can count on me to carry out what we have decided. THE JOURNALIST I report what the government wants me to tell the people. I think my job is the most important of all! THE EMPEROR’S MESSENGER Excuse me gentlemen, but I have a message from the Emperor to the people. It’s very important—a matter of life and death. Kindly let me pass. THE GENERAL Please stand aside while I read this message. Don’t you see we have checkpoints here? Go over and stand on that stone with one leg raised in the air until I have finished. THE PRIME MINISTER Dear man, you had best do what the general says. Go over there and wait. And don’t try to get through without our permission. We are only the first of many checkpoints, each one more difficult than the last. Believe me. There are many, many checkpoints. And the last one is so heavily guarded that even I would hesitate to approach it.

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MOLE (coming forward again and then retreating to backstage) When I first started I had the clever idea of making a fake entrance. Those who would go in would eventually come up against a sheer wall! The real entrance is hidden under a bed of moss. And in the center is my great hall! To shore up the earth all around I have to ram against the walls with my head. THE JOURNALIST (approaches the stone where the messenger is standing) How do you feel standing on this rock? How committed are you to proceeding with your message? Do you imagine this checkpoint is made only for you? I’m afraid you are sadly mistaken. Perhaps you would like to make a statement to the press? THE EMPEROR’S MESSENGER I am the bearer of a message from the Emperor! The Emperor whispered to me in person in front of his entire court and asked me to repeat it into his royal ear. After I did so he nodded to say that I had understood it correctly. Look at my credentials—my pass, my identity papers, my official documents. The message is to be delivered to the farthest point of the realm. It concerns the well-being of the whole country. But it must reach its destination. And for this, you must let me go through the checkpoints! THE GENERAL (sharply) Remain standing on that rock with one foot in the air! (THE GENERAL exits)

EMPEROR’S MESSENGER (to Ottla and Franz) I am the bearer of the message that must reach the people, the people who are dreaming of the arrival of the message, the knock on the door. I’ve travelled so far…Staircase after staircase and courtyards within courtyards…But before I can get to the people I have endless checkpoints to traverse; I wander in this labyrinth dreaming that someday I will arrive… (to the theatre audience, as the messenger exits, adlibbing) Excuse me, I have a message… a message from the Emperor…kindly let me pass.

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DOG (coming forward and then retreating to backstage) Me, I’m interested in scientific investigation. Science is always moving forward! It’s moving faster and faster. But sometimes I ask myself: what’s so great about that? Praising science for advancing is like congratulating someone for getting older and older when all he’s doing is getting closer to his death! MOLE (coming forward and then retreating to backstage) What’s the point of leaving home? To get out? For what? I’ve felt secure here in my labyrinth for as long as I can remember. But a few weeks ago when I woke up I heard a scratching, a distant but regular scraping which bothers me like an itch in a place I cannot reach. (pause) Oh, it’s not a loud noise, just persistent and it’s always there, day and night. It won’t go away. Is someone trying to enter and take over my corridors? The ones I have spent my whole life building? When small animals cross over into my space I can easily crush them—little mice, and voles and crawly things. But this noise is different. I think it’s a large creature. It gives me no rest. I no longer feel safe in my domain! Now I rush around tearing through the walls, creating havoc where there was once order. But no matter how much I destroy, the noise never gets closer or seems farther away. It’s all around me! OTTLA Franz, listen to the poor mole! The poor creature doesn’t feel at home even in its own house! FRANZ In the end, what is home, Ottla? Finding home is like moving with a caravan through the desert. The caravan doesn’t want to conquer anything, it just wants to get to a secure place where people can develop themselves freely and in peace. OTTLA But tell me where the caravan is headed, Franz. I’ve seen things even you could never have imagined. Things done to us just because we happened to be born Jewish…

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FRANZ Things I could never have imagined? I did imagine them, Ottla. Joseph K. is arrested for no reason he can discover. He tries to find justice, but his lawyer treats his clients like dogs, and his trial is a mockery. One day he is marched to a sandpit and executed. For no reason. Then there’s K—notice the initial—who is summoned to the castle, and gets lost in its labyrinth of corridors. I imagined it all. OTTLA I know Franz. We were shocked, your friends and I, when we saw some of the things you had written and never shown to anyone. I didn’t realize, Franz. Remember how we used to laugh at some of your strange visions? I should not have laughed. It turns out they were all too real. FRANZ Look around you. Isn’t this the realization of all those nightmares? OTTLA But Franz – there must still be a way out. FRANZ Yes, we need to have hope. Our role in history should be what Herzl said, Ottla. To become truly human, to raise humanity to a higher plane. We lived in an era that was possessed by demons. An era that judged civilians were worth less than soldiers and weapons, and therefore more expendable. But there must be another way. In back of darkened stage, sound of digging

OTTLA What’s that sound? FRANZ I don’t know. Someone digging. Lights up on the WORKMAN

OTTLA Ask him Franz.

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FRANZ Hey! What are you doing? OTTLA Are you planting something? More trees? WORKMAN comes forward from the back of the stage

WORKMAN Not planting. Digging up. Getting rid of these trees here. OTTLA Not planting? Getting rid of trees? But why? WORKMAN Got to build a wall here. FRANZ A wall? Whatever for? WORKMAN Keep Palestinians out on this side. Keep them in on that side. That’s what this wall is for. It’s hard work. Can’t rest. (WORKMAN goes back to work digging)

OTTLA But your wall goes right through this grove of trees! What’s the sense in that? WORKMAN Can’t go around the trees. Got to build the wall tall and straight. That’s the nature of a wall. FRANZ And how will you know at the end, who is inside and who is outside? Who decides? WORKMAN Don’t know. Just got to build this wall. They tell me to build a wall, I build a wall. Got to get back to work.

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(An image of the Israeli separation wall might be projected)

MOLE (coming forward, pacing back and forth in front of the wall) I’m so worried. I can’t see my enemy but I know he’s approaching. The sound of digging, digging, digging. It’s everywhere around me. I’m rushing around shoring up the walls of my labyrinth, this labyrinth in which I was sure I was safe. How long until the enemy suddenly bursts through. I keep moving all my supplies around from one place to the next. Shall I hoard them all in the center? But that would leave me unprotected if the center were attacked. Shall I distribute them around to different storerooms? But then I might be cut off from them. I should have made huge piles of dirt everywhere, piles I could tip into avalanches to bury the enemy. But then it would take me time to dig myself out! I might lose precious minutes that way and become the victim. (MOLE goes offstage from which sounds of lamentation now arise)

OTTLA Franz, I hear someone weeping. Please – go and see what it is. This place is frightening. FRANZ (moving downstage) It’s the mountain, Ottla. It is called Mount Herzl. The whole mountain is weeping. There are waterfalls of tears running down the mountainside. The water is not sweet but salty, like tears, and it chokes the earth wherever it flows. Herr Herzl! Was this your vision for Palestine? OTTLA We thought that in Palestine we could finally belong. In Prague we were neither Czech nor German; we were always outsiders. But here in Palestine it’s the same. As long as there are excluded people we’ve always belonged with them. We’re outsiders still. (pause) We’re still in one of your nightmares, Franz. Lights dim; Palestinian music

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Scene 6 Setting: Hebron. Palestinian music continues; OTTLA and FRANZ dress one another as Palestinians—Franz wears a keffiyeh, Ottla a headscarf. FRANZ is now FARED K., a Palestinian brought before a judge by an Israeli soldier (MOLE). The judge sits on an elevated chair. FARED remains standing throughout. During the trial, the soldier/MOLE addresses the audience off to the side. OTTLA as LEILA silently goes up and down some stairs in the manner of someone traversing a labyrinth; alternatively, the short film “Hebron stories” can be projected. It shows a Palestinian woman clambering over ladders and rooftops in Hebron to leave her house, whose front door has been welded shut by Israeli settlers. The role of the judge can be played by the actor who played the Nazi commandant; the judge’s severity resembles the siblings’ earlier passages imitating their authoritarian father. THE JUDGE Remain standing and state your name and address. FARED K. Fared K. From the village of Al-Dawayima. THE JUDGE The village of Al-Dawayima does not exist. FARED K. It was near Hebron. There were many families living there—nearly 4,000 of us. In 1948 there was a massacre. Men, women, and children were killed. Then it was razed by the army. THE JUDGE State your address. FARED K. The Al-Arroub refugee camp. My parents were displaced there in 1948. They came from Al-Dawayima. THE JUDGE You are accused of trespassing in a military zone. FARED K. My family cultivated 30 dunums of land at Al-Dawayima. I went to our ancestral lands to pick olives.

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THE JUDGE You were quite aware that access to this area is restricted! FARED K. As a child, I helped my parents with the harvest there. We have never sold the land. THE JUDGE Your family abandoned the land. FARED K. We fled. My own family escaped the massacre. My parents said we would return in a few days. But when we tried to return, we were not allowed. THE JUDGE By abandoning the land, you lost your right to it. You Arabs are desert people, nomads. We Jews have made the land productive. FARED K. May I remind the judge that my family—my parents, may they rest in peace, myself, and my children are the rightful heirs. We have lived on this land for a century! THE JUDGE Our Israeli laws have spoken on this. Your legal status does not entitle you to the land. Under our law, you are classified as a “present absentee.” FARED K. But what does this mean? How can I be both present and absent at the same time? THE JUDGE By leaving, you have given up your rights. Your presence is simply an inconvenience and an embarrassment to the government. THE SOLDIER/MOLE (off to the side, speaking directly to the audience) In school Arabs are given the same worth as other human beings, also at home…but when you interfere in people’s lives like that, you’re in control, and if you can decide when he eats and when he does whatever, he slowly loses his worth in your eyes. FARED K. How can my family be an inconvenience? We have farmed and harvested this land for generations. Where is the justice here? Now there are others

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living on our land. But we accept no compensation. Because we will never give up our right to the land. THE SOLDIER/MOLE (off to the side, speaking directly to the audience) Just evacuating an outpost is complicated…it’s very complicated. You have to submit injunctions, and then they can submit an appeal against the injunction, and then it goes to the military appeal committee, and it get stuck there for months sometimes. And even if you get approval to evacuate, then they go to the Supreme Court. And then you have to wait for the Supreme Court to finish…There are outposts that have a legal correspondence of seven, eight, nine, ten binders. It’s like a purgatory that’s been going on for forty years. You need never-ending legal opinions for every single subject, and nothing ever gets done. There’s such turmoil that in the end you get annoyed, even though you’re part of the system. THE JUDGE The Israeli law is clear on this. You have no right to return. By leaving you and your family have given up your claim to the land. FARED K. I will appeal. We will never give up our rights. THE JUDGE There is no appeal here. You Palestinians in the occupied territories are subject to the justice of the military court. My decision is final. FARED K. This is justice? You are a thief. You have robbed me. Robbed me of time. You have made us into the living dead. THE SOLDIER/MOLE (off to the side, speaking directly to the audience) In the end, you don’t know which side you’re on. I’m a Jewish Israeli soldier, and I’m supposed to be against the Arabs because they’re my enemy, but I’m here, next to a settler’s house, and I start thinking I’m not on their side, the settlers aren’t in the right. So wait, so no, I have to flip a switch in my brain so I can keep hating Arabs and justifying what we do. It’s all very confusing. (LEILA/OTTLA leads Fared away to a checkpoint that has been set up by the soldier)

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THE SOLDIER/MOLE (with brusque authority) Show me your papers. (They comply)

THE SOLDIER/MOLE (after a cursory examination) The checkpoint is closed now. FARED K. But we must go through. My sister is ill. She must get to a doctor. Don’t you see? We must get through. THE SOLDIER/MOLE You are not listening. The checkpoint is closed. LEILA/OTTLA But why? It was open just a moment ago. Look, Fared: the hospital on that hill over there. It looks just like a castle. It’s so near and yet so far away. Fared—I’m feeling faint…. THE SOLDIER/MOLE (conflicted) Even if I were to let you through, there are many more checkpoints after this one, each more difficult than the last. In the end, you would not get through. Really, you will do better to go home. FARED K. Home? Where is – home? (pause; then in a determined voice to the soldier) Now I understand. All I have to do is to pass through this door. This door is meant for me. It’s been open all the time. Don’t you see? I am your shadow, your reflection. We are one. If you shoot me, you will only be killing yourself. Stand aside, we are coming home. The scene goes dark. There is a gunshot.

END OF PLAY

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Bibliography: Sources and Further Reading on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Ashrawi, Hanan. “The Politics of Cultural Revival,” in The Palestinians: New Directions, ed. Michael C. Hudson. Washington, DC: Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, 1990. Anderson, Mark, ed. Reading Kafka: Prague, Politics and the fin de siècle. New York: Schocken, 1989. Barghouti, Omar. BDS: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights. Chicago: Haymarket, 2011. Beck, Evelyn Torton. Kafka and the Yiddish Theater, its impact on his work. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1971. Bennis, Phyllis. Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer. Northampton: Olive Branch Press, 2012. Binder, Hartmut, “Franz Kafka und die Wochenzeitschrift ‘Selbstwehr’,” Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Geistesgeschichte No. 41 (1967): 283–304. Breaking the Silence, ed. Our Harsh Logic: Israeli Soldiers’ Testimonies from the Occupied Territories, 2000–2010. New York: Henry Holt, 2012. Brenner, Hannelore. The Girls of Room 28: Friendship, Hope, and Survival in Theresienstadt, trans. John E. Woods and Shelley Frisch. New York: Schocken, 2009. Bruce, Iris. Kafka and Cultural Zionism. Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 2007. Buber, Martin. A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1983. Gettleman, Marvin E. and Stuart Schaar, eds. The Middle East and Islamic World Reader. New York: Grove, 2003 Green, Gerald. The Artists of Terezin. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1978. Grossman, David. The Yellow Wind, trans. Chaim Waizman. New York: Picador, 1988. ———. Death as a Way of Life: Israel Ten Years after Oslo, trans. Haim Waizman. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2003. Hajjar, Lisa. Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza. Berkeley: Univ. of California Press, 2005. Hall, Stuart. “Cultural Identity and Diaspora,” in Identity: Community, Culture, Difference, ed. J. Rutherford. London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1998. Herzl, Theodor, Vision und Politik: Theodor Herzl’s Tagebücher, ed. Gisela BrudeFirnau. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1976. ———. Der Judenstaat. Versuch einer Lösung der Judenfrage. Zürich: Manesse, 1988.

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———. Altneuland in Gesammelte zionistische Werke, 1860–1904. Tel Aviv: Ivrith, 1934–35. Janouch, Gustav. Conversations with Kafka, trans. Goronwy Rees. New York: New Directions, 1968. Jewish Museum, New York. The City of K: Franz Kafka and Prague. Barcelona: Centro de Cultura Contemporanea de Barcelona, 2002. Kafka, Franz. Tagebücher 1910-1923. New York: Schocken Books, 1949. ———. Sämtliche Erzählungen, ed. Paul Raabe. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Bücherei, 1970. ———. Briefe an Ottla und die Familie, ed. Hartmut Binder and Klaus Wagenbach. Frankfurt and Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1974 ———. Träume, ed. Gaspare Giudice and Michael Müller. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1993. Katz, Sheila. Connecting with the Enemy: A Century of Palestinian-Israeli Joint Nonviolence. Austin: Univ. of Texas Press, 2016. Kushner, Tony and Alisa Solomon, eds. Wrestling with Zion: Progressive JewishAmerican Responses to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. New York: Grove Press, 2003. Landis, Joseph, trans. Three Great Jewish Plays. New York: Applause Theatre Book Publishers, 1972. Löwy, Michael. Franz Kafka: Subversive Dreamer, trans. Inez Hedges. Ann Arbor: Michigan Univ. Press, 2016. Meital, Yoram. Peace in Tatters: Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006. Oz, Amos. How to Cure a Fanatic. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2002. Pappe, Ilan. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine. Oxford: One World, 2006. ———. The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge. London: Verso, 2014. Pawel, Ernst. The Nightmare of Reason: the Life of Franz Kafka. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1984. Prashad, Vijay, ed. Letters to Palestine: Writers Respond to War and Occupation. London: Verso, 2015. Reich, Bernard. A Brief History of Israel, 2nd ed. New York: Checkmark Books, 2008. Robertson, Ritchie. Kafka: Judaism, Politics, and Literature. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. Rodlauer, Hannelore, “Die Schwester: Ottilie Kafka Davidová,” in Zions Töchter: Jüdische Frauen in Literatur, Kunst und Politik, ed. Andreas Lauritsch. Vienna: Lit / (Edition Mnemosyne vol. 14.), 2006. Rothchild, Alice. Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish & Palestinian Trauma & Resilience. London: Pluto Press, 2007.

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———. Condition Critical: Life and Death in Israel/Palestine. Charlottesville: Just World Books, 2016. Said, Edward. The Question of Palestine. New York: Vintage, 1979, repr. 1992. ———. After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives. London: Faber and Faber, 1986. Sa’di, Ahman and Lila Abu-Lubhod, eds. Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the Claims of Memory. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 2007. Schwerdtfeger, Ruth. Women of Theresienstadt: Voices from a Concentration Camp. Oxford: Berg Publishers, 1989. Singer, Isaac Bashevis. The Golem. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1982. Stach, Reiner. Kafka: The Decisive Years, trans. Shelley Frisch. New York: Harcourt Inc., 2005. ———. Kafka: The Years of Insight, trans. Shelley Frisch. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2013. ———. Kafka: The Early Years, trans. Shelley Frisch. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 2017. Stargardt, J. A. Antiquariat. Franz Kafka: Die Briefe an Ottla. Auktion. Berlin, April 19, 2011. Wagnerová, Alena. “Das ungeschiebene Leben: Elli, Valli und Ottla, die Schwestern Franz Kafkas,” in Deutsche Schwestern. vierzehn biographische Porträts, ed. Katharina Raabe. Berlin: Rowohlt, 1997, 281–305. ———. “Eine Landärtztin.” Neue deutsche Literatur No. 12 (1993): 60–73. Volavková, Hana. I Never Saw another Butterfly: Children’s Drawings and Poems from Terezin Concentration Camp, 1942-1944. New York: Schocken Books, 1993. Zylberberg, H. “Das tragische Ende der drei Schwestern Kafkas.” Wort und Tat No.2 (1946): 137.

Afterword

This short afterword talks about the differences between my three plays: the role of memory theory in writings about the Holocaust, the element of surrealism in Cahun and Moore’s Resistance activities, and the importance of dream/nightmare imagery in Kafka. The three plays presented here are very different. “Children of Drancy” is a documentary play, made up of found texts and records from the dramatized events. The play is an attempt to frame our collective memory of the Shoah in France in a way that audiences will find compelling, and to fill a gap in the historical and cultural memory about the experience of Jews in France during the German occupation in 1940–1944. Many writings about the Holocaust address the issue of memory, and these have provided some of the concepts I have tried to embody in the play, from Susan Engel’s “borrowed memory” to Marianne Hirsch’s “postmemory.” Engel writes about Holocaust autobiographies: “What they do is to give us a feeling of detail and immediacy, and evoke a level of emotion that no mere historical account could.”1 Hirsch explains that “‘postmemory’ is a powerful and very particular form of memory precisely because its connection to its object or source is mediated not through recollection but through an imaginative investment and creation.”2 Even 1 Susan Engel, Context is Everything: The Nature of Memory (New York: W. H. Freeman, 1999), 157. 2 Marianne Hirsch, Family Frames: Photography, (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1997), 22.

Narrative

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021 I. Hedges, Staging History from the Shoah to Palestine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84009-9

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Postmemory

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AFTERWORD

before the establishment of the Shoah memorial museum at Drancy in 2012 across from the former site (now an apartment complex), Caroline Wiedmer wrote extensively about the different physical memorials that have been created there.3 “Children of Drancy” could be considered as yet another memorial, one that seeks to engage the reader, actor, and spectator emotionally. The artist Claude Cahun has recently experienced a revival of interest in her artistic career.4 As a surrealist artist, she ranks with others who were the equals of their male counterparts: Dorothea Tanning, Nancy Miller, and Leonora Carrington. Like Carrington, she displays a mordant wit in both her artwork and her writings. What makes her uniquely relevant as a role model in our times is her activism—her refusal to bow to sexual norms and her courageous defiance of the Nazi occupiers on the Isle of Jersey, where she lived with her lifelong partner Marcel Moore. Her victory on both fronts called for a play that would acknowledge her fearless defiance, coupled with humor—black humor, if you will—inventiveness, and also compassion. What resulted from this mix is a bio-play with elements of surrealist black humor that reflects the real dangers that the two women faced. Once again, the play makes ample use of documents—Cahun’s letters from the period, and the diary of Baron von Aufsess.5 My own research trip to the Isle of Jersey, to the museum of the Occupation, and to her house helped to provide the setting.

3 Caroline Wiedmer, The Claims of Memory: Representations of the Holocaust in

Contemporary Germany and France (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1999). 4 See Shelley Rice, Inverted Odysseys: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren and Cindy Sherman: Cambridge, MA: MIT Press: 1999); Tirza True Latimer, “Narcissus and Narcissus: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore,” in Women Together/Women Apart: Portraits of Lesbian Paris. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005); Jennifer L. Shaw, Exist Otherwise: The Life and Works of Claude Cahun, London: Reaktion Books, 2017; and Louise Downie, Don’t Kiss Me: The Art of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore: London: Aperture: 2006). 5 Baron von Aufsess makes only one (unsympathetic) remark in his diary, on October 28, 1944, about Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore: “The two Jewish women who have just been arrested belong to an unpleasant category. These women had been circulating leaflets urging German soldiers to shoot their officers. At last they were tracked down. A search of the house, full of ugly cubist paintings, brought to light a quantity of pornographic material of an especially revolting nature. One woman had had her head shaved and been thus photographed in the nude from every angle. Thereafter she had worn men’s clothes…” Baron von Aufsess, The von Aufsess Occupation Diary, ed. and trans. Kathleen J. Nowlan (Worcester, UK: Phillimore Press, 1985), 61–62.

AFTERWORD

211

“Kafka in Palestine” moves through a century of historical time in a series of dreams and nightmares—Theodore Herzl’s vision of a Palestine where people of all religions would work together peaceably to create a refuge for Jews; Ottla and Franz Kafka’s dream of escaping the pressures of their authoritarian upbringing and leading simple lives in Palestine, farming and doing carpentry. Intruding on these idyllic visions are the deaths of the siblings—Ottla in Auschwitz and Franz from tuberculosis, and the realities of Palestinian life under occupation. Reunited as dybbuks in the present, the brother and sister see all too clearly that their utopian dreams—and those of Herzl—are unrealized. Franz’s nightmares and dark presentiments surface in the form of some of the creatures arising from his fevered imagination. If we have sympathy for the siblings at the end of the play, it is because their earlier vision still has the power to inspire.

Index

A Abramson, Glenda, 135, 136, 138 Aeschylus, “The Persians”, 1 Al-Kasabah Theatre, Ramallah, 153 Anouilh, Jean, “Antigone”, 72 “Judith”, 72 Aristotelian catharsis, 13, 147 Artaud, Antonin, 31, 32 Ashtar Theatre (Ramallah), and influence of Boal, 153 Atlan, Liliane, 4, 31–38 “An Opera for Terezin”, 34–38 “Mr. Fugue”, 32–35 Aufsess, Baron von, 92, 210 Auschwitz, 3, 21, 22 B Baharav, Motti, “The Gazans”, 143 Barnes, Peter, “Auschwitz”, 2 Ben-Aharon Guy, 7, 151 Berry, Kathleen, 14 Boal, Augusto, and “Forum Theatre,” “Invisible Theatre”, 10, 11, 153 Bousquet, René, 19 Brain, Ezra, 13

Bread and Puppet Theater (Vermont), 15 Brecht, Bertolt, 17, 133 “Days of the Commune,” “Fear and Misery of the 3rd Reich,” “Life of Galileo,” “Mother Courage”, 10 epic vs. dramatic theatre, Verfremdungseffekt , 10 Buton, Yitzhak, “Hamdo and Son”, 143, 144

C Cahun, Claude (Lucy Schwob), 6, 89, 92, 209–210 Cameri Theatre (Tel Aviv), 137–139 Central Square Theatre (Cambridge, MA), 15, 155 Chekhov, Anton, 9 Chirac, Jacques, and Vichy complicity in Jewish deportations, 82 Colby, Sasha, 16 Company One (Boston), 15

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2021 I. Hedges, Staging History from the Shoah to Palestine, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84009-9

213

214

INDEX

D De Gaulle, Charles, 21 Delbo, Charlotte, 3–4, 21–26, 40 and husband George Dudach, 21–23 and Louis Jouvet, 87 “Les Hommes” (The Men), 4 “Those Who Had Made a Choice”, 87–92 “Who Will Carry These Words”, 23–26 Deportation of Jews from France, 19 Drancy concentration camp, 3, 19–21, 40, 41, 81 E Eady, Hannah and Edward Mast, “The Return”, 155 Euripides, “The Oresteia”, 8 Evron, Gilad, “Ulysses on Bottles”, 151 F Freedom Theatre (Jenin Refugee Camp), 153 G Galster, Ingrid, on Sartre, 76 Gatti, Armand, 3–4, 22, 25–31, 40 “Chronicles of a Provisional Planet”, 26–28 “The Love Song of the Auschwitz Alphabets”, 29–31 “Tatenberg”, 27–31 German Occupation of France, 2, 3, 16 “free zone” vs. “occupied zone”, 6, 20, 71 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, “Egmont,” “Götz von Berlichingen”, 9

Gramsci and hegemony, 8 Grumberg, “Zone libre” (Free Zone), 6, 84–87

H Haifa Municipal Theatre, 138 Harvie, Jen, 17 Hatzor, Ilhan, “Masked Faces”, 7, 144–146 Hauser, Arnold, 9 Hedges, Inez, “Children of Drancy”, 5, 40–41, 209, 210 “The Eagle and the Cactus”, 6, 89–92, 209–211 “Kafka in Palestine”, 7, 131, 211 Herzl, Theodor, 131–136, 211 Hirsch, Marianne and “postmemory”, 209–211

I Ibsen, Henrik, “A Doll’s House,” “Hedda Gabler”, 9 Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 2, 131–136 Israeli Stage (Boston), 7, 149 Israeli Wars: of Independence, 136 Lebanon War, 141 Six-Day War, 136 Yom Kippur War, 137

J Joan of Arc figure during the Occupation, 79

K Kafka, Franz, 7, 131–134, 211 Kafka, Ottla, 7, 153–155, 211 Kainy, Miriam, “The Return”, 137 Kaissar, Ken, “The Victims”, 141, 153 Kaynar, Gad, 138, 139

INDEX

Khalil, Hannah, “Scenes from 69* Years”, 154 Kindelan, Nancy, 5, 16, 17, 41 Knapp, Bettina, 39 Kushner, Tony, “Angels in America”, 11–13 L Leiris, Michel, on Sartre, 74 Leperlier, François, 92 Lerner, Motti, 14 “The Admission”, 7, 147–148 “After the War”, 149–150 and Aristotelian catharsis, 135 and Chekhov, 147 “I Was There”, 151–152 “The Murder of Isaac”, 145–149 Levin, Hanoch, “Queen of the Bathtub”, 6, 136 “You and Me and the Next War”, 136 Levi, Primo, “Survival in Auschwitz”, 2 Liberation of France in 1944, 72 M Marlowe, Christopher, “Edward II”, 1 Marsh, Patrick, 72, 78, 79 Matmor, Yoram, “An Ordinary Play”, 136 Mitterand, François, friendship with René Bousquet, 82 Montherlant, Henry de, “A New Day Breaks”, 80, 81 “Nobody’s Son”, 80 Moore, Marcel (Suzanne Malherbe), 6, 89 Mosaic Theatre (Washington DC), 149 Mundy, Josef, “The Governor of Jericho”, 6, 139–141

215

O Ophuls, Marcel, “The Sorrow and the Pity”, 81

P Palestinian Intifada, 142 Papon, Maurice, complicity in deportation of Jews, 82 Penumbra Theater, Minneapolis, 15 Pétain, Maréchal Philippe, 5, 19 Pithiviers concentration camp, 19 Plunka, Gene, 5

R Racine, Jean, 9 Rebellato, Dan, 17 Resistance in France, 2, 5, 6 “résistancialisme”, 21, 72, 81 Rimini Protokoll (Berlin), 15, 31

S San Francisco Mime Troupe, 15 Sartre, Jean-Paul, “Les Mouches, 6, 72–77 “Huis Clos” (No Exit), 76 Schiller, Friedrich, “Don Carlos,” “Maria Stuart,” “Wallenstein” plays, 1 “The Robbers”, 9 Segal, Gilles, “Le Temps des muets” (All the Tricks but One), 6, 80–81 Shabtai, Jacob, “The Spotted Tiger”, 6, 138–139 Shakespeare, William, 1 “Anthony and Cleopatra,” “Coriolanus,” and “Julius Cesar”, 1 Shamir, Moshe, “Tales of Lod”, 136 Shaw, George Bernard, “St. Joan”, 1

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INDEX

Shoah in France, 2–3 “Silk Road Rising” Project (Chicago), 154 Skloot, Robert, 2, 3, 5 Smith, Anna Deavere, 13 Sobibor concentration camp, 30 Sobol, Joshua, “The Last Act”, 138–153 “Shooting Magda”, 6, 141–143 Sophocles, “Oedipus Rex”, 8 Statute on Jews (Vichy), 19 Steiner, George, 4 STO (Obligatory Work Service), 21, 84

T Theater Offensive (Boston), 15 Theatre and social change, 8–15

Truffaut, François, “The Last Metro”, 71 U Urian, Dan, 136–138 V Vermorel, Claude, “Jeanne avec nous” (Jeanne with Us), 73 Vichy France, 5, 19–21 W Wallace, Naomi, “Fever Chart”, 7, 154–156 “21 Positions”, 155 Weiss, Peter, “The Investigation,” “Marat/Sade”, 2 Wilson, August, 14