Mister Fugue, or Earth Sick [Monsieur Fugue, ou le mal de terre]

Author(s):

The play dramatizes the trip of four children, sentenced to death by Nazis, in a truck on the way to their slaughter. The children act out future life events they have heard from their parents. They are accompanied by a German soldier, who is convicted of assisting Jewish children, and who is also on his way to the death camp. The character of Mr. Fugue, the German soldier, is ironically based on Janusz Korczak, who ran the ghetto orphanage in Warsaw, and who accompanied his children to the Treblinka extermination center.
Format: Drama

Snapshot

Notes:

For additional reading, see Gene A. Plunka, Holocaust Drama: The Theater of Atrocity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, pp. 65–70.

Original or Prominent Production: Comédie de Sainte Étienne, Paris, France, 1967.
Original Source Material: The character of Mr. Fugue is loosely based on Janusz Korczak, a Polish-Jewish physician who accompanied orphaned children to Treblinka.
Nationality of Author:
Original Language: French
English Language Translator: Marguerite Feitlowitz
Publisher:

In Plays of the Holocaust: An International Anthology by Elinor Fuchs,  editor, Theatre Communications Group, 1993

Experience(s) Chronicled: |

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