Tags: priest

And the Rat Laughed [צחוק של עכברוש]

An opera based on Nava Semel's novel And the Rat Laughed, composed by Ella Milch-Sheriff. When a child asks her grandmother about her childhood for a school paper, the grandmother tells her story for the first time. She was born in Poland, and was given by her parents to a peasant family so that they would keep her safe. The peasant family takes away her name and identity, forcing her to become Christian. They starve her, and the family's young boy rapes her. Her only companion is a rat she calls "Stash". After a year, she's given to the catholic priest to be killed as revenge for Jesus’ crucifixion. But the priest hides her in his church and helps her rebuild her crushed body and soul. In the year 2099, two researchers are studying the myth of a "girl and rat" who survived the Holocaust.

Kolbe’s Gift

The story of Maximilian Kolbe, a gifted Franciscan priest who offered to take the place of Franek Gajowniczek, a Polish soldier interned in an underground bunker in Auschwitz, 1941. Kolbe died in the soldier’s place. He was canonized in 1982 and declared a martyr of charity.

Kolbe: A Saint in Auschwitz

Written by the former parish priest of Dalkey County in Dublin, the play, subtitled The Saint of Auschwitz, recreates the events surrounding Maximilian Maria Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan friar, imprisoned for hiding Jews, volunteered to be executed in Auschwitz in place of a Polish stranger (arbitrarily chosen as one of ten prisoners to die because of an escape), and ministered to other prisoners in the death camp. Kolbe was later named a saint and called "the patron saint of our difficult century."

Remember My Name

A young Jewish French girl is separated from her family and becomes a fighter for her homeland and her own survival, protected by a priest, a widow, and a teacher, who is a member of the French resistance. A Nazi officer unsuccessfully attempts to capture the girl and those who are aiding her.

The Choice

A former Nazi war criminal has become a Catholic priest helping troubled teenagers give up their violence and racism in New York City's Lower East Side. He is found by an impassioned hunter of former Nazis in hiding. The priest agrees to give himself up but only after he shows his hunter what he is now trying to do in order to repent for his past.

The Deputy [Der Stellvertreter]

A German officer, stationed in a death camp, comes to Rome to try to convince Pope Pius XII to speak out and act against the destruction of European Jewry. He is aided in his quest by a young priest. The play presents scenes of Jews in hiding in monastaries, as well the hunting down of Jews by the Nazis in Rome. Pope Pius XII is finally presented and refuses to intervene. The priest who has sided with the German joins the Jews being shipped to the death camps. Hochhuth argued that his drama was based on historical documents.
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