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The Bureaucrat
Author(s): Philip Pinkus
The Bureaucrat describes the Holocaust, Auschwitz, from the perspective of Rudolf Hess, its commandant, as he wrestles with the problems and agonies of creating the perfect killing machine, while at the same time loving his wife and children and going through the motions of a normal life. His constant struggle is to make this machine as efficient as possible. He is no psychopath, he is no monster, he is simply a human being, one of us. Yet he can commit the unspeakable, struggling not to think about it, like any good bureaucrat.
Format: Full-length drama
Cast Size: 5M/2F
Character breakdown
Ilse Hess, commandant’s wife
Rudolf Hess, commandant
Gottfried Palitzsch, executive officer
Ernst Grabner, executive officer
Josef Mengele, medical officer
Heinrich Himmler
Rivka, Jewish prisoner