soc.history.war.world-war-ii

"Marvin" wrote in message
news:w1RDIB.A.pW.jVctHB@sol01.ashbva.gweep.ca...

> I saw Ralph Hochhuth's play, "The Deputy" in London. I
> don't recall the year, but the play was first staged in
> Germany in 1963, and I think I saw it soon after. The
> audience was stunned. When the curtain closed at the end,
> there was no applause. The audience just sat quietly, then
> people got up one by one and walked out.

The London audience's reaction may combined any of
several causes:
1 = reaction to the way the play was staged, rather than
what it said about the Vatican during the Holocaust;
2 = surprise, for those aware the new Israeli state had
specially honoured the wartime Pope for his role in
saving Jews from the Holocaust; playwright Hochhuth
argued that the Vatican connived at the roundup and murders;
3 = Judt's thesis that in the 1960s educated (British) people
simply did not know about the Holocaust.

--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)