Author Description

"Fritz Hochwalder's Holocaust: Court for the Dead features a clandestine court, inquiring into the guilt or innocence of Jewish leaders involuntarily enmeshed in the deportation of fellow Jews to the death factories of the Third Reich. It is perhaps the drama closest to Hochwalder's central concern as an author, the ethical conduct of human beings. The play is based on historical events in Budapest in 1944-45 in which the SS offered to barter the lives of a million Jews for the delivery of 10,000 trucks. Selective use of background facts along with the construction of a dramatically effective plot put Hochwalder's drama into the "must read" category. It is the only play about the Holocaust in which Jews do not fight the oppressor but hold court for one of their own, who in spite of good intentions may have gone too far."--Jacket.