cover art from York Theatre Royal
“Forty-nine years ago next Monday a certain Ricardo Klement, living obscurely in
Buenos Aires, was identified by a group of Nazi-hunters as the man responsible
for arranging the transport of millions of European Jews to the death camps. His
true name was Adolf Eichmann.
He was smuggled out of the country—illegally, but only diplomatic pedants
protested—and in Jerusalem he was tried, found guilty of crimes hitherto thought
unimaginable, hanged, cremated and his ashes dropped into the sea.
It is all too easy to call such men evil and leave it at that, but so many
questions then remain unanswered, including the fundamental one of “How did this
person come to commit such crimes?” Donald Freed’s gripping drama, subtitled
“Eichmann in Jerusalem”, presents us with an attempt to understand.
…The trial is still months ahead; what Freed shows us is an exploration of
his state of mind by a Dr Baum….
Some people, Freed argues, will always defend their crimes by playing the
obeying-orders card, which gives Eichmann’s statement— “I am guilty only in the
eyes of God” —an unnervingly contemporary ring.
1 M, 1 F
I S B N 978-0-88145-471-0
$14.95
the play is also available in the collection
Plays By Donald Freed, Volume Two
read the first scene or scenes on line