Taking Sides, Playreaders || St. Paul’s Anglican Church

Taking Sides, Playreaders

Tuesday-Thursday, February 19-21, 2019

St. Paul’s Church, Cardo 6

A POWERFUL DRAMA EXAMINES WHETHER A GREAT CONDUCTOR WAS ALSO A NAZI

By Fredric Dannen

On two occasions in the 1990s, I was a guest on the Charlie Rose show, both times discussing the most controversial article I had ever written as a journalist. John Demjanjuk, a Ukrainian-born American citizen living in Cleveland, had been extradited to Israel to stand trial for being “Ivan the Terrible,” the sadistic gas chamber operator at the Treblinka death camp in Poland during the Nazi occupation. He had been found guilty in a months-long trail broadcast live on Israeli radio, and sentenced to hang. The verdict was appealed to the Israeli Supreme Court based on newly discovered evidence pointing to a different man. My own reporting, in Israel and elsewhere, bolstered the argument that Demjanjuk was not Ivan the Terrible. Citing my article on the case, published in Vanity Fair, a federal U.S. court reversed the order of extradition. Later, the Israeli Supreme Court, in a supreme act of courage, accepted the new evidence, vacated the conviction and death sentence, and sent Demjanjuk back to Cleveland.

The trouble was, Demjanjuk was not wholly innocent, and I said as much in my article and in interviews. Most likely, he had been a prisoner of war in Chelm, Poland, and improved his own chances of survival by becoming a guard at Sobibor, a different Polish death camp. I could find no evidence that he had ever committed a hands-on murder, but I could not rule it out. I argued on the Charlie Rose show (against my principal antagonist, the attorney Alan Dershowitz), that even a man such as Demjanjuk was entitled to due process. As a Jew, the whole experience made me profoundly uncomfortable.

Recently, I came across a brilliant 1995 play by Ronald Harwood called Taking Sides, set in post-war Berlin, and based on true events. U.S. Army Major Steve Arnold has the job of interrogating Wilhelm Furtwängler, possibly the greatest conductor of the 20th century, to determine whether Furtwängler should be condemned as a Nazi collaborator. Furtwängler was not forced to leave Germany in 1933, like many other musicians, because he was not a Jew; instead, he remained the conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, and accepted honorary titles and privileges from the Nazi regime. Despite his unquestionable distaste for the leadership of the Third Reich, Furtwängler performed at a Nazi rally, and conducted a concert for Hitler’s birthday.

“You were their boy, their creature,” Major Arnold tells Furtwängler. “You were like an advertising slogan for them. This is what we produce, the greatest conductor in the world. And you went along with it.”

Furtwängler, for his part, mounts an empassioned defense for his actions. “I could not leave my country in her deepest misery,” he says. “To have left in 1933 or ’34 would have been shameful. I remained here to give comfort, to see that the glorious musical tradition, of which I believe I am one of the guardians, remained unbroken, was intact when we woke from the nightmare. I remained because I believed my place was with my people.” Furtwängler’s insistence that he was not a Nazi collaborator is bolstered by documented evidence that he helped many Jewish musicians escape persecution.

On Tuesday through Thursday, February 19 to 21, at 7:30 pm at St. Paul’s Church, Cardo 6, San Miguel Playreaders will present Taking Sides, with John Wharton as Steve Arnold, and Jim Wright as Wilhelm Furtwängler. Henrietta Weekes, Joey Pawelko, Richard Fink, and Phoebe Greyson round out the superb cast. Lighting and sound will be handled by Moisés Alzuro. I am directing the play. Tickets will be sold at the door at 6:45 each evening on a first-come first-served basis.

Admission is 30 pesos.

We look at Saint Paul’s as a unique parish for many reasons.  We are located  in the heart of Mexico— an Anglican church  in a predominantly Catholic country.  Our congregation consists of both expatriates  and Mexicans—many of whom are retirees.  We have parishioners who are with us for only a portion of the year.  And, being a popular tourist destination, we have many visitors join us during different times of the year.  The Gospel, on most Sundays, is read in both Spanish and English.  We were  founded more than fifty years ago. We value our strengths, especially our long tradition of helping the community of San Miguel de Allende.  Feed the Hungry, a nonprofit organization, was started in our Parish kitchen and now feeds over 4,000 children daily through-out the school year.  Saint Paul’s saw the need to help the poorest children in San Miguel to get a head-start on their education and formed Centro Infantil San Pablo—a pre-school for three to five year-olds, which is now independent.  We are proud of these achievements and continue to contribute to them both monetarily and with volunteers from the Parish.  We value pastoral care, for ourselves and for the community  in which we live.  We are proud to have had three ordinations in the last few years— our two Deacons to the priesthood and our former Rector’s son as a Deacon.