Tag Archives: Nazi drama

The Jewish Wife (Die jüdische Frau)

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  • The Jewish Wife (Die jüdische Frau)

2/20/26 (Fri)

I learned of Brecht’s 1935 short piece in researching Crooked Cross and found a performance online. The setting is again contemporary Germany. The first 20-25 minutes of the 30-minute work constitute a monologue by a woman who is calling friends to let them know that she’ll be leaving for Amsterdam for a few weeks – she tells her bridge partner to find someone to fill in, and ensures another friend that the planned dinner next week will go on despite her absence as her husband will still be there. She calls a servant to ask if she’ll take care of the husband, an eminent scientist, while she’s away, saying this time, though, that she’ll be back in a few months. We come to realize that this is no ordinary journey. We learn that she is Jewish, and her husband is not.

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Crooked Cross

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  • Crooked Cross

2/18/26 (Wed)

A stunningly prescient UK drama from 1935, making its US debut (and its first production anywhere since 1937). The invaluable Mint Theater, which specializes in unearthing forgotten dramas, had made it available for streaming through this weekend, and I happened to read about it just in time. Having coincidentally just watched The City Without Jews from the same era, I find it pretty clear that no one could be ignorant of what was going on in Germany at the time, though there was presumably still a September 10th mentality that left the genocidal murders beyond imagination.

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