Tags: South America

Mengele

After the fall of the Third Reich, Josef Mengele – the notorious Nazi doctor known as the 'Angel of Death' – evaded capture and fled to South America, where he lived under a pseudonym until drowning off the coast of Brazil at the age of 67. In Mengele, he washes up on a beach, having been saved by a mysterious woman whose gentle questioning and flattery spurs him to defend his actions during the Holocaust. Brief synopsis: In 1979 the notorious doctor of Auschwitz drowned whilst swimming off a beach in Brazil. This play imagines him washed ashore and confronted by the woman he assumes has saved him. Flattered by this enigmatic presence he attempts to justify the unjustifiable before facing a final, climactic judgment. Making powerful connections between past and present the play warns of buying into the rhetoric of bigotry.

The Other Man

The play, influenced by the manhunt of former Nazis in the 1960s, depicts the capture of an SS man hiding in Argentina by Israeli secret agents.

The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H.

At 90, Adolf Hitler is transported out of hiding in the Brazilian jungle. Such is the premise of George Steiner's novel The Portage to San Cristobal of A.H. is a faithful adaptation of George Steiner’s novella. The controversial work depicts the capture of a ninety-year-old Adolf Hitler in South America by Israeli Nazi hunters. The drama concludes with a trial structured as a 25-minute monologue given by Hitler, who directs his testimony to the audience. In this extended monologue, the Führer defends his horrific and genocidal actions by comparing them to other historical events. Among the historic atrocities he cites are the Belgian massacres in the Congo, Stalin's persecutions, and the United States’s bombing of Hiroshima.

The Writing on the Wall [Das Zeichen an der Wand]

The play was influenced by Adolf Eichman's trial in Israel. The protagonist is represenative of Eichman, a leading Nazi perpetrator who escaped to South America following the war. The perpetrator’s capture is facilitated by a survivor of the concentration camps. In an ironic twist, the businessman survivor’s life is saved by the Eichman character’s daughter, a prosecutor committed to bringing ex-Nazis to justice.