By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“)
With the rapid rise of blatant antisemitism in the world today, there is probably no better time than now for the presentation of Moisés Kaufman and Amanda Gronich’s Here There Are Blueberries. A finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the play is a modern, scientific whodunit thriller about the Holocaust and in particular removes the veil of anonymity from the top tier of Nazi sociopaths who slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent Jews at the Auschwitz death camp.
Unlike conventional mysteries that reveal the identity of the killer at the denouement of the work, we know in advance who perpetrated the crime. History tells us it was Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. But until Here There Are Blueberries, only a handful of Holocaust scholars could point out who the actual shadowy figures from all walks of life were who ran the camp, selected those who would be immediately exterminated and ran the über efficient process of gassing and cremating the victims.
Like Agatha Christie’s fictional Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple, Kaufman, who also directs, and Gronich introduce us to the real life, latter-day detectives who painstakingly research a mysterious book of 116 photographs sent to the United States Holocaust Museum.
“This is where it begins,” Elizabeth Stahlman says, peering out from a dimly lit background in her role as the museum’s head intake archivist of paper artifacts, Rebecca Erberding.
A retiring U.S. colonel emerges from the darkness to offer a volume of photographs he salvaged in 1946. The letter, one of hundreds that arrive on an annual basis, promises photos from Auschwitz.
She is skeptical as to the value of this never before seen album. She is certain, though, that Auschwitz, the largest of the Nazi facilities, is used synedochically to represent all concentration and death camps by the general public. She knows the Nazis were far too careful to document their crimes against humanity. Still, her job and that of others like her, is to investigate and she is naturally curious. She encourages he send what he has for careful examination.
Stahlman is beautifully directed by Kaufman, standing stoically as the audience begins a journey with her as the guide. When the box arrives a few days later, Erbelding describes the contents as “a mess.” Many of the photos are water damaged, but the captions are in German and oddly enough there are no photos of victims, only German officers and well-coifed ladies smiling towards the camera lens.
It is established at the outset of the play that cameras with Leica lenses were the popular hobby of the German people. Capturing images of their lives in their daily pursuits of happiness, amateur photographers captured these frozen moments in time.
The candid shots displayed via David Bengali’s brilliant projection designs at first are innocent looking images of families and friends, but disturbing small reminders begin to surface. Beach goers playing in the sand are seen in the foreground while a solitary Nazi flag flies in the background. Teenagers having fun extend their arms outward in a fascist salute. An accordion is heard in the background as five youngsters ranging in age from two or three years to eight or nine proudly display their Nazi flags for all to see.
The photographs from the album are thus silent sentinels whose figures are highlighted by Bengali as the archivists continue to pour over the artifacts and disturbing details begin to emerge from their painstaking research.
While continuing her examination of the photos, Erbelding makes the first of several astonishing discoveries. These images are, indeed from Auschwitz. The camp commandant, SS Major Richard Baer, is clearly identified and there before her eyes is the first documented evidence of Dr. Josef Mengele, the so-called “Angel of Death,” seen at Auschwitz. Mengele’s complicity in the myriad deaths of Jews was witnessed by thousands of survivors who saw him select those marked for destruction and those who would be used as laborers in the camp.
As Stahlmann continues in her role as the Holocaust researcher, she explains she recognized Mengele’s image right away because she had written an academic paper on him. But as the youngest of the archivists, she feels somewhat overwhelmed. She takes her find to fellow researcher Judy Cohen, played by the remarkable Kathleen Chalfant. Cohen is surprised to see Mengele, but is even more astounded to see the image of another man who was “much more important than Mengele.”
That’s the figure of Rudolph Höss, the subject of the recent Academy Award winning film “The Zone of Interest,” the man who actually designed, built and oversaw the structures at Auschwitz. Cohen elaborates further: Höss and Mengele are considered two of the most notorious figures to ever walk the grounds at Auschwitz. These are the first of but many discoveries the photo album yields to the researchers.
No one at the Holocaust Museum has ever seen photos of this type. There are no victims, the mainstay of their research. These images show the high command of Auschwitz as well as those responsible for the everyday administration of the camp. The museum’s mission has always been to honor the memories of the slain and humanize them rather than focus on the perpetrators of the Holocaust. They are tentative as to how they should proceed.
Through tiny clues left behind in the album and some scientific sleuthing by the archivists, they are able to cross-check the Nazis’ own massive records. Their final determination is that it is Karl Höcker, an SS 1st Lieutenant and adjutant to camp commandant Baer who is the party responsible for taking the photos and assembling the photo album. Scott Barrow performs as Höcker, who we learn had been a failed former bank teller prior to joining the war effort, suffered an injury and was eventually transferred and promoted to be Baer’s right hand man. Baer, we learn, was prepared to be come the Auschwitz commandant by first being a confectioner and chocolate maker.
The juxtaposition of these innocent-looking people happily comporting with one another as thousands of victims are literally dying just beyond the camera’s lens is chilling. Even the young women of the Helferinnen, who answered the phones and ran the radios, are oblivious to the suffering going. The title for Kaufman and Gronich’s engrossing tale comes from a series of six photos with Höcker engaged in enjoying an impromptu sampling of blueberries with the teenaged beauties. The images subtitled in the album “Here There Are Blueberries” show Höcker and the women laughing and mugging the camera, belying their malevolence. As we learn, even they are complicit in the inhumane suffering and slaughter.
When the archivists drill down their research, they determine the bone-chilling reason for the celebratory mood in several of the photos. Hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews and undesirables had been slaughtered at Auschwitz over a two-month period, thus setting an ignoble record and the reason for the party-like atmosphere.
Each of the pictures in the Höcker album captured these brief moments in time that gave little indication as to the horrors at Auschwitz. It is in stark contrast to what many people imagine about the Nazis – that they were soulless, inhumane monsters. To see them relaxing and singing songs is incongruous with our sensibilities that Nazis could only be pure incarnate evil. But these photos indicate otherwise and, perhaps, make us consider that we, too, could one day be swept up in a national madness that would condone similar aberrant behavior .
Both the son of Rudolph Höss, Rainer Höss (Charlie Thurston), and Höecker’s grandson, Karl Höcker (Scott Barrow), serve to remind us the terrible legacy left behind for surviving family members of Nazis.
Meanwhile, Grant James Varjas who plays Peter Wirths, the son Eduard Wirths, the chief SS doctor at Auschwitz, connects with Jonathan Raviv, who portrays Tilman Taube, the grandson of Heinz Baumkötter, the chief physician at another concentration camp, Sachsenhausen. One of Hoecker’s photos actually shows the two doctors engaged in conversation with each other. Both Peter and Tilman’s father and grandfather, respectively, left surviving family members with a shared history of shame endured by them or most often hidden by their other family members.
Eventually, using Kaufman’s guiding hands with co-writer Gronich and Amy Marie Seidel’s turn as associate director and dramaturg, the play turns its focus on actual Holocaust victims that are linked via a rare photo album that documents atrocities. Improbably saved by survivor Lili Jacob, who lost her entire family during the start of the very campaign celebrated by the Nazis, she discovered this rare cache of photos that actually documented her and her family’s arrival at Auschwitz. She also kept the photos and donated them to the museum. Both this extraordinary find and the Höcker album should have been destroyed, but somehow managed to find their way into the hands of the Holocaust archivists who were able to discover their true value. The remarkable coincidence allows the focus of the play to shift from the perpetrators to the victims.
The lighting design by David Lander and the sound design by Bobby McElver enhance the projections that serve as constant characters on stage. Derek McLaine’s clever scenic design turns the stage into an improvised museum replete with light tables.
Ultimately, it is the survivors whose memories should linger long after the curtain has run down on Here There Are Blueberries. While we now know the confirmed identities of those captured in the Höcker album, we can thank the incredible skill set each of the archivists and their combined efforts that led to this production.
On its face, this play serves as a compelling mystery that is ultimately solved scientifically but it also questions our own character and morality and renders an undeniable indictment of the human race. Caught up in the maelstrom of the national Nazi madness, seemingly good people were unable or unwilling to do the right thing. As Melita Maschmann (Erika Rose), a former propagandist for the Nazis emphasizes: “The frontier between good and evil can run straight through the middle of us without our being aware of this. The ghastly thing was it was not only gangsters and roughnecks, but decent, intelligent people who did this.”
Here There Are Blueberries (90 minutes with no intermission), is a co-production of New York Workshop Theatre and the Tectonic Theater Project and has been extended at 79 West 4th Avenue in New York City through June 30. For tickets click here.
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