Love unto Madness

A fictionalized drama based on a true story, the play explores the forbidden relationship between an Auschwitz inmate and an SS Nazi guard. Helena is one of 999 Slovakian Jews brought to Auschwitz in 1942. She is forced to sing for an SS officer named Franz, who falls in love with her. Initially Helena hates Franz, because he is known to be brutal, but her feelings change as he consistently shows her kindness. They conduct a forbidden romance, and he saves her sister from the gas chamber. After the war, Franz tries to find Helena, but she is convinced their love is unrealistic and avoids him. Years later, Helena is asked to testify at Franz's war-crimes trial. This reignites in her a complex range of emotions: love, gratitude, anger, survival guilt, and traumatic memories. At the trial, Helena described the good things Franz Wunsch had done for her and others, but also the cruel things, especially toward male inmates. Franz was acquitted because the statute of limitations for his crimes had expired. During the trial, Wunsch claimed that his love for Helena had changed him. Some 30 years later, Holocaust researcher Laurence Rees wanted to interview the one-time couple for his documentary/book about Auschwitz; Helena agreed. However, Franz’s wife refused to let him—not because of the shame of his past, but because he had loved someone before her.
Format: Full-length drama
Cast Size: 7M/6F
Character breakdown:
David Tahari — Helena’s post-war husband
Helena Citronova — Auschwitz inmate. Strong, beautiful. Deeply conflicted about, but ultimately loving Franz.
Rita (last name unknown) Kapo in Kanada. Kinder than many in her position, she cares for Helena and Franz.
Franz Wunsch — head of Kanada. Complex man. Can be sadistic, but also loving and compassionate.
Max — more devoted to Nazism than Franz but a loyal friend.
Sarah — inmate. Helena’s closest friend in the camp.
Bella, Hannah, and other less-friendly inmates.
Roza Citronova — Helena’s sister. Older than Helena by a decade, she shares a strongly ambivalent relationship with the sister who helped save her life but not her children.
Prof. Laurence Rees — BBC Holocaust scholar, documentarian.
Four SS guards

Snapshot

Original or Prominent Production:
A staged reading of the original play was presented in 2023 by the Playwrights Alliance of Pennsylvania (PAPA). A shortened version, entitled You Can't Ban the Human Heart, was presented by PAPA in the Gretna Theatre's 2023 summer festival. Submitted to New Works of Merit and received honorary mention.
Original Source Material: Two documentaries by Maya Sarfaty: Love It Was Not and The Most Beautiful Woman. A PBS documentary: Inside the Nazi State. A book and documentary: Auschwitz: A New History by Laurence Rees. 999 by Heather Dune Macadam about the first transport of Jewish women to Auschwitz.
Nationality of Author: U.S.
Original Language: English
Production Rights Holder:

Barbara Trainin Blank

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