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February 20, 2004
Examination of Demjanjuk trial
Chutzpah! play explores a person's potential to be an Ivan the
Terrible.
JONATHAN GARFINKEL SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian American, was accused of being one
of the most sadistic Nazis, Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka. Was
Demjanjuk guilty? And what was he guilty of, exactly? My obsession
with this trial turned into a play ... with songs and live accordion,
a sexy German mistress of ceremonies, a few jokes, for good measure,
and the ghost of Ivan the Terrible.
My play, The Trials of John Demjanjuk: A Holocaust Cabaret,
has been deemed controversial. I have always felt that the only
controversial aspect of the production is that it is provocative,
in that it explores a very difficult and complicated trial from
unusual and challenging angles.
The actual trial of Demjanjuk was anything but a simple, open-shut
affair, as was originally thought in 1978, and my play attempts
to express that. The twists and turns in the case are enough to
fill an 800-page novel, let alone a 90-minute play. Conspiracy theories,
"absolutely certain evidence" later found to be false,
a Jewish lawyer defending an accused Nazi, and Ivan the Terrible
of Treblinka at that, an almost mythical genocidal maniac –
the characters and the stories are epic and, by their nature, theatrical.
As a writer and a Jew interested in the effects of the Holocaust,
this is material that resonates with profound themes and questions
on the nature of guilt, memory and retribution.
There are several elements of The Trials that make the piece
"provocative." First is the very form of the piece: the
cabaret. Jennifer Herszman Capraru, director and dramaturge of The
Trials since its inception, originally proposed a cabaret form
when I was attempting to turn a poem about the Demjanjuk trial into
a play. I immediately was attracted to the idea and went full-throttle
ahead. I started to write songs to tell the narrative, which then
freed me up to present the scenes in a variety of voices: courtroom
naturalism, absurdist comedic sketches and surreal visitations in
Demjanjuk's cell by his conscience, in the guise of Ivan the Terrible.
It is the cabaret form that holds these strands together.
Another reason I am so attracted to the cabaret style is that it
is a powerful metaphor for the trial itself. This was the first
televised trial in Israel and the courtroom was placed in a former
theatre. There was also the accusation by the defending lawyer,
Yoram Sheftel, that the trial was a show-trial for the Jewish people.
Although I don't completely agree with Sheftel's assertion, one
cannot escape the very public and, hence, theatrical nature of this
trial. The cabaret plays into this exaggeration, into the trial's
complexities, which at times resemble a carnival.
But the cabaret form also provides a distancing effect that allows
the audience to listen to material that is otherwise overwhelming.
There is an element of unreality to the Holocaust for someone like
myself who was not there: How could such horrible events have happened?
And how do we talk about them? The songs, especially, allow us to
do that, in a non-sentimental and engaging way. In past productions,
the music engages people and even makes them laugh, without giving
short shrift to the historical facts. In the end, the cabaret is
used to fulfil the purpose for which it was originally intended:
social commentary, in an entertaining and challenging way.
The other provocative element of the piece is that the story is
Demjanjuk's story. He is the central character of the play and is
portrayed humanely and, at times, sympathetically. One of my fascinations
has always been the question of what went on in his mind. This has
been one of the great challenges in writing this play. If he was
guilty of being Ivan, how could he have been such a kind and loving
family man in suburban Cleveland? If he was not guilty, how did
he endure the years of the trial, the pressures, the solitude? Or,
if he was guilty of something, but not of that which he was accused,
what is the truth of what he did? The Trials explores these
questions. It presents the facts, and the audience is the judge.
In the end, though, what interests me is not whether Demjanjuk was
Ivan or not, but that Demjanjuk was capable of being an Ivan. To
call the perpetrator a monster is only half a truth. That the perpetrator
can be both man and raging beast is what truly horrifies us and
begs the question, how is any human being capable of becoming a
monster, such as Ivan the Terrible of Treblinka? That Demjanjuk
is a simple immigrant is ideal from an author's perspective. That
we might be able to identify with him and even feel sorry for him,
as a victim of the forces of history, is my goal.
The Shoah was a catastrophic event whose tremors are still being
felt today. It is, as Elie Wiesel reminds us, vital to our memory
as a people, but it affected all peoples of central and eastern
Europe: Jews, Ukrainians, Poles and Germans alike. The Trials
is about the devastating effects it has had on these people and
the monstrous shadows that linger in Israel today. The Trials
is not meant to be an answer, but a series of questions. For, in
the end, theatre is about challenging our ideas of what we believe
to be true, in an attempt to understand the world and live more
humanely.
Jonathan Garfinkel is a poet and playwright living in
Toronto. His poems have been published in journals across Canada
and he has recently completed his first book.
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