In The Bunker

Feel free to disregard.

I knew this was going to happen, but did it happen because I thought it might happen, thus making it more possible for it to happen? Or am I just thinking myself into a downward spiral?

The answer is yes and yes.

And the question is, 'What the hell am I thinking writing this play?'.

Let's just go beyond the obvious questions of why I would want to write about the children of one of the most evil men in the Third Reich. Let's get beyond why I am mixing in pieces of King Matt the First's story, written by a Jewish-Polish pediatrician Janusz Korczak. Let's get beyond how, if I do this wrong, it could piss off a whole lot of people. It could piss off a whole lot of people regardless, but the people I'm cool with being pissed off about it are not the ones I am worried about. I don't want people to see this play as an attempt to make Hitler and Goebbels and other Nazis look like they might have been nice people, because history has shown, they are NOT nice people. There was nothing nice about the whole situation. I don't want people to think I am trying to glorify Hitler and others.

There's another play I'm thinking about as a companion piece to this one. It's slated to be called 'The King of Children' and it's about Janusz Korczak. He's a fascinating man http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Korczak.And I wanted to write about his last days, a similar motif to what I want to do with 'In the Bunker'. And I was thinking about how the children in the Warsaw Ghetto would have lived during those times, and then that idea went over to 'In the Bunker'.

I took the character of King Matt from Korczak's book and made him Hedda Goebbels' imaginary friend who is with her during the last ten days of her life. His story is told just as much as Hedda's.

But here's the problem. There are some things we do know about the last ten days in the bunker. I just don't know how much of it I really need to adhere to.

I suppose I shouldn't care about any of it--take what I need and throw the rest away. The point of the play is not historical accuracy--it's more about what the children experienced and how they coped with the war and with death (it seems that the eldest knew something bad was going to happen, and while she didn't tell the other children, she was in a bad mood constantly with the knowledge of her own death hanging over her head).

I'm just going to do some more reading, I suppose and see where that reading takes me. I am considering a nap shortly--perhaps I will awakened refreshed.

I hope i can live up to your expectations! :)

Okay, I must admit I'm excited to read this one.  I'm always wondered about the Goebells children in particular, being a WWII nut, and especially after seeing the German film "Downfall."  Can't wait!

It was wierd because I don't even know how I got started thinking about the Goebbels children. As I was reading more about them, Hedda just jumped out at me, and really was bugging me to tell her story, and she's really cute and precocious so I said, all right, kid, tell me a story.

I've been doing a lot of reading about them and the culture they came from. I wanted to show what it would have been like from a six year old's angle, mostly because to her and her siblings, this would have been normal, just as much as I thought my dad drinking himself to sleep in his chair was normal until I learned otherwise. Only, Hedda and her siblings don't get to learn otherwise.

I had a REALLY creepy dream last night about the Holocaust, that I was part of the liquidation and somehow I got saved by a friend who then tried to pass me off as a German actress who was thought to have been dead. It's just gonna haunt me all day.

sounds great, and more than a little creepy. i hesitate to ask, but what happened to them?

EDIT: Never mind. Wikipedia saves the day again (sort of. Now I'll never get to sleep.)