THE VICTIM / Divadlo Continuo

RENTING
One actor, dozens, hundreds, and thousands of human lives. One person's fate against the background of human tragedy. Immediately following a performance which tries to understand the inexplicable, there will be a discussion with the artistic team and Mrs. Erika Bezdíčková, herself a survivor of the concentration camps.

Attention! Tickets for this performance at: zuzana@continuo.cz or at: 777 790 709. On the day of the performance the tickets are on sale one hour before the start of the performance at the box office of Alfred ve dvoře theatre.

Victim
May 1949, Genoa, Italy, the port waiting room. He is leaving Europe, maybe forever. He wants to get to America, he wants to forget …

Historical background
While concentration camps in Germany and Poland were being liberated in 1945, the world started to be informed about what had happened behind the walls and barbed wires of the camps. As recently as at the end of World War II a search for those people who had been responsible for the bestiality in the camps started. Many of them were arrested and brought to justice, many others absconded. Unfortunately, the latter were helped by their former Nazi colleagues, representatives of the Vatican or the Swiss Red Cross.

Play
The VICTIM, a devised project by Ivan Jurečka, directed by Pavel Štourač is theatre fiction. It tells a story of a man who on a day in May 1949 enters the harbour waiting room. He is going to go overseas. While he is being checked-in, he is detained, then questioned and taken to court. During the trial, the appeal and a new trial, the real identity of the man and some shocking facts about what had occurred in Auschwitz leaked out. Selections, maltreatment, mass executions in gas chambers and especially pseudo-scientific experiments that the accused carried out on the prisoners. Finally he is found guilty and sentenced to death.

However, this story never happened. Although the facts about the people responsible for the genocide of the Jews during World War II were known in that time.
Special thanks to:
Erika Bezdíčková, Marta Kottová and Adolf Burger for their personal testimony as well as their valuable consultations during the preparation of this production.

Photo: Petr Moravec Photo: Petr Moravec Photo: Petr Moravec Photo: Petr Moravec Photo: Petr Moravec Photo: Petr Moravec Photo: Petr Moravec Photo: Petr Moravec Photo: Petr Moravec