The great thing about ‘The Jewish Council’ is the way in which the appearance of normality is made visible – Joop

In a well-ordered society like ours, injustice, exclusion and persecution are accomplished by scrupulous officials who enjoy the public’s trust.

Ben Hamburger has fundamental criticism of the series “The Jewish Council”. The audience is distracted from what is important because the moral dilemmas of the main characters take center stage. As a result, the viewer misses the heart of the matter: the diabolical structure that the Nazis had built up. Somewhere in his piece Hamburger mentions Bertolt Brecht. “Bertolt Brecht put the structure on stage as a character.”

That’s the key phrase. The great German playwright and dramatist is said to have indeed discussed The Jewish Council poorly. He contrasted the bourgeois form, of which the EO provides such a splendid example, with the so-called epic theatre. This aims to give the public understanding for the wrong structures of society. Then it should not be distracted from the main point by the drama of the protagonists or emotional elements in the story. After all, the point is not to appeal to feelings but to reason. Otherwise political awareness cannot be achieved. There is no attempt to imitate reality on stage, as happens in The Jewish Council. It must be clear that play is taking place. There are all kinds of ways to achieve this: an alienating setting, a narrator outside the action, exaggerated acting.

Brecht achieved special results. Think of the Threepenny Opera or Mutter Courage und ihre Kinder. You have to come from a good background to turn epic theater into something decent. Around 1970, the Brecht method started a kind of revival and my contemporaries certainly remember the irritating and annoying shit that this often resulted in. One may also wonder whether epic theater is the only solution if you want to expose things. Isn’t an approach that focuses on the ethical dilemmas of the main characters ideally suited? Precisely because viewers are invited to delve into their lives, souls and emotions? At the same time, one may wonder whether such an approach really leaves the structures in the background.

The great thing about the drama series The Jewish Council is the way in which the appearance of normality is depicted. Most scenes take place at the protagonists’ home, at the office, in the children’s clinic and – sometimes – in the café. Everything is calm and orderly there. Violence is barely visible throughout the series. Professor Cohen takes his briefcase to his chairman’s room every day, where he is treated with the respect that was commonplace for chefs and bosses eighty years ago. The meetings follow a regular schedule. Accurate performance of duties is a priority for almost everyone. SS Sturmbahnführer Aus der Fünten does not like to be contradicted, but in general he acts like a well-behaved officer. It is not without reason that the walls in the Holocaust museum are covered with laws and regulations.

An essential feature of the German occupation in general was the fact that life seemed to go on as usual, apart from some inconvenience. In general, you received your usual newspaper, although there were some changes in content. In the first years there was even a boom and a lot of money was made in the nightlife. If the blackout curtains were carefully closed after sunset, it could be very cozy at home with the radio on and games on the table. When those Jewish people suddenly moved, new neighbors arrived. They turned out to be just as nice people. My mother said after the war: “You can say whatever you want about the Krauts, but they made good music.”

For the rest, they didn’t want anything from the Krauts at her house. My grandfather was at sea in the merchant navy. His family received financial support from the illegal Zeemanspot because the occupying forces had forbidden the shipping companies to pay the wages of sailors. The big game with the Dutch Bank and the financing of the Resistance later emerged from that Zeeman spot, but that is another story. Ir. Willem Hupkes, director of the NS, who had the trains departing from Westerbork, was standing on the golf course when he received the message that the government in London had declared a railway strike.

On January 20, 1945, Het Vaderland wrote:

“Slowly but surely, sugar beet is entering the lives of the residents of The Hague, although for the time being only the coupons, which open up perspectives on future portions of beets, here and there the introduction is already a little more intimate. So one day you may run the risk that when you visit a restaurant, you suddenly see a plate of beetroot porridge on the menu. This means that on that day a demonstration will be given in the kitchen of the relevant institution of the possibilities that sugar beets provide for the restaurant business. Yesterday we were present in the Gouden Hoofd, where we observed the audience’s reaction to the audience, which was still unknown to him. A reaction that was the same for everyone. First ask, then taste it carefully and then pay attention to the very tasty looking and tasting liquid. Not a drop remains from yesterday. We hasten to add that this was only a single demonstration. The time when porridge will have become commonplace in restaurants has not yet arrived. However, there is an urgent need for urgency.”

Anyone reading this now will think of the word “surrealism”, although it is not used entirely correctly.

This surrealism is the great lesson of The Jewish Council. And the fact that in a well-ordered society like ours, injustice, exclusion and persecution are carried out neatly according to the correct procedure by meticulous officials who enjoy the trust of the public.

That is the great lesson of The Jewish Council for now, for us, for later, now that two reliable men are facilitating a future in The Hague.

The appearance of normality and innocence or: “You can say what you want about the Krauts, but they made good music.” The composer Willy Richartz was so useful to the Nazis that Goebbels included him on the list of “God-favored”. It featured artists who were so important for propaganda that they did not have to be employed. After the war he founded an organization of German composers.

For the rest, I am of the opinion that the surcharge scandal should not disappear from public attention, nor should the affair surrounding Groningen natural gas.

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