In 1941, Rudolf Höss, Commandant of the Nazi concentration camp known as Auschwitz, assembled his SS personnel in a secret meeting with the express purpose of introducing a new method for exterminating Europe’s Jews: Zyklon B, a deadly poison gas. Every soldier in attendance was sworn to secrecy, and no one questioned its usage. No one except a lone Jewish prisoner, forced to participate and humiliated throughout; the very prisoner upon which this “lesson” would be demonstrated
Review by Stephen Gilchrist
We climbed the narrow stairwell to the performance space above the White Bear pub in Kennington. We were met with a virtually bare, black setting. There was a table draped with a black cloth, woven into the hanging frontal was the stylized black eagle with outstretched wings perched atop a swastika enclosed in a circle the primary symbol of the Nazi regime.
Standing stock- still, up stage, was a man. A man dressed in SS concentration camp uniform of a cap, trousers and jacket, all of a grey-blue striped material. The man wears a yellow star. Hanging from his neck is a small blackboard on which is chalked “Ich bin Zurück.” This means ‘I’m back.’ He is a captured escapee.
He was there before the audience arrived and remained, still, staring, as they took their seats. The lights went down and in marched an SS officer with a swagger stick uniformed in Field Grey, the mark of the Wehrmacht, the soldiery of which he, Rudolf Höss, the real-life commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, claims to be a part. We, the audience are his soldiers, those working within the camp, to whom Höss addresses an hour-long lecture.
The lecturer explains how the Fuhrer has ordered the extermination of all Jews, how Jews must never be given sympathy or any empathy since they are a subspecies, the eternal enemies of the Reich. A new system of extermination has been invented and trialled on prisoners, Zyclon-B which is to be used in gas chambers which can dispose of 2.500 prisoners an hour. The prisoner Abraham Königsberg is to be the first Jew to be killed in this way.
Höss rants, demands, and manipulates his audience in a performative blend of populist emotionalism, rhythmic cadence, and aggressive body language, designed to whip us, his soldiers into a state of hypnotic fervour. He stares his audience down at, in this venue, uncomfortably close quarters, with his fiery rhetoric.
He humiliates his prisoner and beats him viciously into unconsciousness with his stick. This is real, it really is. He tries to dehumanise Königsberg, demanding he pray to Jesus to save the children in his barracks. In Königsberg’s back story, there is a remarkable twist. Just to say, for now, in WW1, he, Königsberg, was a patriot.
I happen to be of Jewish heritage and was shocked to silence but I know that other members of the audience were affected no less than I. This ‘Lesson from Auschwitz’ was one of the most powerful responses to holocaust denial I have ever seen demonstrated in any form of creative expression performed live for an audience.
This show, and how demeaning you may think it is to call this presentation ‘a show,’ was written, produced and directed by James Hyland. He has for some years specialised in one-person shows. He also plays Rudolf Höss. He is a remarkable performer and every aspect pf his performance is meticulously drawn, every movement, every stare, every swipe of his stick. He is frightening, evil, his increasingly mad oratory becoming ever more bombastic, frustrated by his prisoner refusing to concede his identity and self-respect under unyielding brutality. An astonishing performance.
Ashton Spear, a Canadian actor is Hyland’s ideal foil. He provides an extraordinary authenticity in his reactions to bestialise him. It is often a painful performance to watch, painful, but obligatory to look upon, and not away.
Hyland has put this stunning piece of theatre together from a number of sources, often using Rudolf Höss’s, own words together with those of Hitler and others. The audience left the house in stunned silence, whispering quietly to each other, shocked to their core by an important play which demands to be seen.
https://www.whitebeartheatre.co.uk/whatson/a-lesson-from-auschwitz
Written, Produced and Directed by James Hyland
Performed by Ashton Spear and James Hyland
Music by Chris Warner
Costume by Katie Males
