Answers to Student Questions
I have been asked excellent questions by students with whom I have spoken via Zoom about THIN EDGE OF THE WEDGE.
Here are my answers to some of those questions:
Q: What is my end goal with this play?
A: My end goal is to encourage young people, especially by the examples of the acts of saviors, to speak up against antisemitism and other forms of hate, including bullying and name-calling.
Q. Why am I interested in educating this young generation?
A: Because young people will inherit the world, and if they don’t take an active role in making that world a safe place for all, it is they themselves that will suffer the consequences.
Q. What are examples of antisemitic comments that young people should recognize?
A: Comments that all Jews are such-and-such (usually negative). No group of people is monolithic, and saying such-and-such about an entire group of people is usually offensive. When directed against Jews, this is often antisemitic.
Q: What parts of the play affected me most?
A: When Judith’s mother, on her way to the gas chamber, yells at her daughter to run faster to escape being shot by the guard. Also, when Jack Price says that you only made a mistake once — you don’t live to make a mistake again.
Q: Why did the Jews not leave Nazi Germany?
A: Many of the Jews in Germany (as well as Austria and Czechoslovakia when these two countries were taken over by Germany before the start of WWII) desperately tried to overcome huge obstacles in order to leave. The Nazi emigration laws and the immigration laws of countries such as the U.S. hindered many of these would-be refugees to escape.
The Jews in the countries the Nazis then occupied after starting WWII (Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Belgium, the Netherlands, etc.) had almost no chance of escaping.
Q: Why did I use monologues rather than dialogues in the play?
A: I could not use dialogues because this is a nonfiction play and no one of the real people in the play interacted with another person in the play.
Q: Why did I write this material as a play rather than a story?
A. The immediacy of a play is more impactful than a story. With a play the audience is “up close” to the events.