And to think it all started with "Pippin!!!!!!!!!!!!"
When Monsieur and I went to see the show, two weeks ago, with Tovah Feldshuh, and waiting for the curtain to go up, I was reading her credits in Playbill. One thing mentioned was the 1978, then groundbreaking NBC mini-series, "Holocaust," which many remember as having brought Meryl Streep to national attention. As did I! "Was Tovah in that?" I wondered, for I had watched it back then. But, that was 35 years ago. So, I decided to watch it again. I could only get through half, because to watch this horror dramatized was relentlessly unbearable. I actually sobbed in spots, so loud, Monsieur could hear me in the next room. He suggested it might be too much for me.
But there were things I had to find out. Then I discovered that Gerald Green, who had penned the screenplay, had novelized it, back in the day, and it was quite popular. Hard to get, now--but I was able to get it onto my Kindle. And I read it, which, while the subject matter was equally unpleasant, it was somehow easier to take. It would take me less time to read it, than to view the whole thing, and, there were times, when I could, and did, put the book down, and get up and walk around, before coming back to it.
I found out what I wanted. And got some ideas about what I did not.
First, the good news. The two principles who survive are Rudi Weiss (played by Timothy Bottoms) and Inga Helms Weiss (Meryl Streep). Let's face it, Meryl is MERYL; I daresay she could have come through the thing singlehandedly, herself! And, as an actress, she did well by this period; three years after her triumphant performance as Inga, she won an Oscar for an even more tragic role, set during these times, and after--the haunted, and haunting heroine of "Sophie's Choice," in 1982!!!!! Gutsy actress, Meryl, to step into the hell of enacting the Holocuast twice!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But another performance, too good to overelook, but so small, it easily could have been, was
Britisher Deborah Norton, in the role of Marta Dorf, the wife of Major Erik Dorf, chillingly played to Emmy winning perfection, by Michael Moriarty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That Marta Dorf! If this work were more widely known, she would be one of the great Fictitious Bitches Of All Time. When you see Norton's performance, you realize it was people like Marta--and there were women just like her--who were the real cause of the Holocuast, and kept it going!
Not only that, many of them, like Marta, had more balls than their husbands. Had Marta been elevated to Major, instead of husband Erik, the SS might, unfortunately, still be in power.
Marta Dorf was born Marta Schaum, in Bremen, the town of the famous musicians, in the fairy story. She is educated for nothing, but to please a husband, and raise children. But she has an uncle with alliance to the Party. And she shares these views, because she believes in the certainty of her insatiable ambition. To have the life she craves for herself and her children, she realizes they will all have to embrace the New Germany!!!!!!!!! Her husband, when the story starts, is a poor, recently graduated law student, the son of a baker, with Socialist leanings, who worked himself through law school, after his father, who had been a Socialist, kills himself, due to financial ruin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Erik Dorf, at the start, is apolitical. Marta goads him into joining the party, and, as the series continues, we see the banality of his evil evolve. But it evolves through Marta's, whose evil evolves too--coveting social interaction with higher ups, visits to the opera, and expensive clothing, and acquiring everything for themselves, at the expense of a people she chooses to look down upon for here own selfish concerns!!!!!!!!!!!! Bitch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You have got to see the Christmas scene, darlings, where Uncle Kurt, who is slowly getting the Dorfs' number, (his brother was Erik's father, Klaus, the one who took his life!!!!!!) is sitting around with them all, on Christmas Eve, singing "Silent Night." Butter would not melt in this bitch's mouth!!!!!!! Young Peter Dorf proudly wears a Hitler Youth uniform, and wait till you hear about daughter Laura!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Peter, who is interested in science, is given a gift of mice, to breed and study. When he remarks that he will kill the sick ones born, his mother reprimands him, speaking of the value of life, and God's creatures, while all the while millions of God's Jewish creatures, at her behest, are marching into the ovens, to fill her coffers!!!!!!!!!!!!! What a piece of work!
Then comes the moment. where the piano is discovered to be a Bechstein, appropriated from a doctor's office! It turns out to belong to Dr. Josef Weiss, (Fritz Weaver) whom Marta was once treated by, and whose entire family is in prison, dead (young Anna), or on the run (Rudi!!!!!).
That bitch Marta! Then, inside the piano, are discovered hidden photos of the Weiss family, in happier times. Both Marta and Erik recognizes them, and Marta then orders daughter Laura, like a commandant to an underling, to burn the photos. And that Laura, a real blonde, Debbie Dykeman, Germanic bitch type, burns them in the furnace, as we, the audience watch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When this show was being aired, TV Guide ran a full page, movie poster-like ad, for it. When it got to Marta it said, "Deborah Norton...as Marta Dorf....the perfect wife....the perfect mother...the perfect Nazi!!!!!!!!!!" You better believe it, dolls! More perfect than her husband!
Because there follows, after this, a bedroom scene between the couple, in which Marta practically castrates her husband, psychologically. Erik is beginning to crack, questioning the right of the violence he is perpetrating daily, at the camps! Marta, with no regard for the humanity lost, bolsters him, trying to reinforce the rightness of his ways. But that is because, she needs to believe it , too!
The one sad thing about Marta is that she really does love her husband, and her children. What is sad is she loves them less for themselves, and more for what they can provide her.
Which is why she is such a bitch!!!!!!!!
In the novel, this is proven further! As the war goes on, the Dorf marriage disintegrates, to the point where they are no longer sleeping in the same bed, as husband and wife. But Marta does not care, as long as she has what she wants!!!!!!!!!!!!
When the end comes, Dorf, like his father, like many in the Nazi regime, take the suicide way out, by way of a cyanide pill. Marta has pledged to keep alive the memory of her husband, as a faithful servant of the Reich, (ugh!!!!!!) both to herself, and the children.
The novel, and miniseries, do not say what happens to them!!!! But I will tell you!!!!!!!!!!
When the Reich falls, they lose the house, and everything. Marta and the children are thrown into the streets. Peter is reduced to scrambling and smuggling for food, so they can survive. Like Aron, the young Jewish smuggler, during the Holocaust!!!!!! People who recognize them denounce them, and throw dirt at them! As they deserve!
Marta has no education or skills. She tries to make it as a prostitute, but does not have the stomach for it!!!!!!!!!!
In time, they realize they have to get out of Germany. They sneak onto a freighter, bound for America, winding up in some NYC enclave, like Yorkville, or Astoria. There, Marta is reduced to falling back on the business she once looked down on her father-in-law for--opening a bakery. The business becomes successful, she learns capitalism, but occasionally people from her past appear, and harass her at every turn. Even in America, there is no escape for herself and her children.
They have the bakery. They have security. But they also have to live with the memories of the father they helped to destroy, the Hell they helped to create!!!!!!!!!
How do you suppose Marta and those children will do that?????????????
I leave that up to you, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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