The famous Oberammergau Passion Play, which has been staged periodically in Germany since 1660, is anti-Semitic, tainted with Nazism and “an offense against both history and religion, ” it is charged by Robert Gorham Davis, Columbia University professor and noted literatery critic.
The 325-year-old drama, which portrays the last days of Jesus on earth, has been staged for years in the Bavarian Alps. It is scheduled for presentation this summer in Oberammergau in West Germany for an expected audience of 400,000. Dr. Davis, a Protestant, made his charges in the March issue of Commentary, the monthly magazine published by the American Jewish Committee. He said the Passion Play pictured its “villains” as “anti-Christian Jews.”
“In a period of reviving anti-Semitism, brought finally to public attention by the defacing of the synagogues, the visitors to Oberammergau will see, under highly emotional circumstances, a play in which the synagogue is a rallying point for evil and in which Jewish people accept gleefully for themselves and their children blood-guilt for the murder of the Christian savior. ” Dr. Davis pointed out. He added that “the picture which the play draws of the Jews–usurious, bloodthirsty, possessed by ‘the fury of a blinded nation’s rage’–combines some of the worst of medieval and modern prejudices.”
George Lang, director of the Passion Play since 1922, was one of the first persons in Oberammergau to become a Nazi, Dr. Davis reported. He added that Lang was arrested in 1946 by occupation authorities because of his work for Goebbel’s propaganda ministry.
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