GHETTO (Geto)

Play by Joshua Sobol, 1983

Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol's award-winning drama Ghetto, first produced in Haifa in 1983 then in English translation in New York and London in 1989, is the first of three installments in his triptych concerning the Holocaust. Sobol's play dramatizes life in the Vilna ghetto in Lithuania shortly after approximately 33,500 Jews were murdered and buried in the Ponar forest during the summer of 1941. Sobol portrays several historical characters, such as Judenrat leader Jacob Gens, tailor and ghetto entrepreneur Weiskopf, ghetto librarian Herman Kruk, and Nazi ghetto liquidator Kittel. The play is a documentary drama in which Sobol employs historical information and eyewitness accounts from people such as Kruk (from his diary) to portray the vibrant life that existed in the Vilna ghetto.

After the mass murders at Ponar, the remaining Jews were herded into the ghetto (although Sobol's play mentions only one ghetto, historically there were two that were later consolidated into one). Gens attempts to use any means to keep the Jews alive; one such method is to start an acting company, for the actors are considered skilled workers and thus are entitled to food rations and soap. Although Kruk is vehemently against the creation of the acting company because he claims that it is sacrilegious to perform theater in a graveyard (a reference to those who died at Ponar), Gens believes that the theater will add vitality to the ghetto and allow the Jews to maintain their culture, spirit, and dignity—as well as serving as a diversion from the pain and suffering that they have experienced. Historically, as in Sobol's play, the theater was a huge success and even attracted Nazi soldiers such as Kittel. Sobol obtained his research about the theater from several sources, primarily from the ghetto theater director, Israel Segal, whom he interviewed in Tel Aviv shortly before writing the play. Segal serves as the model for the puppeteer Srulik in the play.

Jacob Gens, as ghetto leader, is in a precarious position for he attempts to save as many Jewish lives as possible while trying to maintain a working relationship with the Nazis, under whose control his power rests. He wants to help his people but must appease Kittel; thus his power is actually rather limited. Gens reluctantly agrees to selections but attempts to save as many Jews as possible. His path converges with the tailor Weiskopf, who creates a uniform-mending factory within the ghetto: Nazi uniforms are repaired in the ghetto, thus saving the Nazis much time and money because the uniforms do not have to be sent all the way back to Germany. Weiskopf achieves great fortune in the ghetto while many other Jews starve and are impoverished. A struggle ensues between Gens and Weiskopf because the ghetto leader wants to put as many Jews to work as possible in order to save their lives, yet the tailor wants to limit the number of his workers in order to make more money and save the Nazis some money as well—even at the expense of Jewish lives. Weiskopf becomes, to a large extent, a collaborator with the Nazis and even seems to want to become one. He becomes excited when he is led to believe that he will get to meet Hermann Göring, as if he considers the Nazi a hero. Shocked that Weiskopf is starting to comport himself as a Nazi, Kittel arranges for the destruction of the tailor. Weiskopf is a selfish person who becomes an opportunist in the ghetto. When Kittel asks him the difference between partial and total liquidation of the ghetto, Weiskopf responds that partial liquidation occurs when 50,000 Jews are slain but he is spared, and total liquidation occurs when he is killed. Although the comment seems to be a joke, Weiskopf's actions suggest that he means the quip sincerely. Sobol thus manifests the selfishness and egoism that some Jews exhibited when faced with such a desperate situation. Although Sobol was accused by some critics for portraying collaboration during the Holocaust, the playwright counters that such behavior is historically true and based on documented evidence. As a playwright, Sobol dramatizes the actions of the characters onstage, yet he refrains from judging them.

In many interviews Joshua Sobol states that in Ghetto he attempts to portray the vibrancy of the people and the culture in Vilna under Nazi occupation. He wants his characters to act with a sense of desperation and vitality, as if they know that their lives can be taken away from them at any time. The theater manifests this vitality and also represents a form of Jewish resistance against the Nazis. Sobol concentrates on complex issues, such as collaboration, the ghetto police, selections, and the question regarding theater in an area where tens of thousands of Jews have been murdered. The clothes onstage are a constant reminder of those unfortunate Jews who lost their lives at Ponar; these clothes are then worn by the characters who have survived. Elie Wiesel has criticized Ghetto because of the portrayal of complicity as well as other unscrupulous behavior by Jews in the play. Sobol, however, fervently defends his play from Wiesel's criticism, indicating that the characters and content of the play derive from historical documents and eyewitness accounts.

—Eric Sterling