The Investigation

by Peter Weiss

Book Overview

The Investigation is a dramatic reconstruction of the Frankfurt War Crimes trials, based on the actual evidence given. This testimony, concerning Auschwitz and the atrocities which were enacted there,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0714503010
• ISBN13: 9780714503011
• Release Date: July 2000
• Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

For neither alcoholics nor the sleep deprived

Reading Saer's The Investigation provides both pleasure and pain. Endless sub-clauses prove excruciating for those who are memory challenged, ensuring that many sentences will need to be re-read and then, at times, read yet again. Proust is less convoluted in the construction of his text. However, whilst Saer's sentences are wonderfully punctuated and incredibly constructed, many a time, the meaning lost, one simply chooses not to re-read sentences simply because, at the end of the day, they add little to the progression of the narrative and, one suspects, have little merit in themselves. Nevertheless, one also stumbles on passages of exceptional beauty and superb insight. It very much appears that Saer has set out to toy with the reader and, as a formidable writer, is most capable of doing so. I admit to being a fan of neither Borges nor Cortazar (whilst appreciating the odd work of both) - it may be that Saer's work has a different audience in mind to one consisting of readers like me. Having laboured through Nobody Nothing Never, I was reluctant to embark upon The Investigation - I have, overall, been pleasantly surprised and will be keeping my eyes open for other works. NB the first review of The Investigation posted on this site is a review of another work entirely.

The Investigation

The Investigation is a poetic condensation of the court record of the trial, held in a German court in 1964-1965, of twenty-one persons who participated in the destruction of four million people at the concentration camp of Auschwitz in the years 1941-1945 Peter Weiss, whose Marat/Sade was hailed throughout the world as a major theatrical innovation, has chosen this way to bring these events to the stage. The dialogue of The Investigation was not invented. Rather, the actual testimony of the accused and their accusors has been distilled to bring out what is essential to the author's vision. Central to that vision is a documentation of the outstanding negative achievement of our civilization: the use of the concentrated power of a modern technology by a sophisticated leadership to draw a highly civilized people into participation, active or passive, in the irrational destruction of a segment of its own population which had been designated worthless. From the testimony of the survivors comes a literal and sickening account of the procedures at Auschwitz, the gas chambers, the mass cremations, the starvations, the brutality, the medical experimentation - all parts of a routine whose goal was impersonal efficiency in exterminating large numbers of people. But the accused, who since the war have led conventional and useful lives, cannot be made to understand that obeying orders at Auschwitz twenty years ago constituted a crime. "The witnesses felt guilt," Peter Weiss has said of the trial; "the accused felt none." The Investigation raises inescapable questions about the citizen's relation to the society in which hew lives. To what extent is he accountable for his own actions? Does conformity with a prevailing social of political code of behavior absolve him of individual responsibility? If his government, purporting to act for the good of the whole society, enforces a code that conflicts with his own convictions, should he resist - and when - and how? --- from book's back cover

The absolute best and absolute worst play I've ever done.

Not meant for anyone younger than 18. But definitely a play that every single person on the planet should experience. If nothing else, it will remind you of how dangerous the world can be if we don't take care of each other, and what will happen again if we continue to turn our backs on the horrors that still go on today. As an actor who has had the opportunity to perform a production of 'The Investigation' I offer a word of warning. This play will upset you, anger you, and destroy you. Merely reading the words on the page is bad enough, performing them - trying to re-emulate what really happened turns you inside out. As my director said - 'You'll be glad you did this, you'll be even gladder when it's over'. What is contained within the pages of this play is the human condition at it's absolute worse. You read about the ones who survived - and what they had to do in order to survive, and you read about those who were just 'following orders'. And the question you ask yourself when you are finished reading this is not 'What would I have done?', but, 'Would I have survived?'

unforgettable

One of the most powerful readings of my life. I'd never heard of Weiss though I knew about the holocaust. Thinking of the death of millions of jews, gypsies, communists, mentally retarded and other 'undesirables' is always hard. A Series of Cantos from the transcripts of trials of Nazis in Germany after WWII. Weiss focuses on inviduals from this mass of innocent victims producing a tale to chill the heart, make any human cry and fill up with rage at the same time. The monstrous nazis have no shame or sense of guilt. Those who have survived the butchery give their case to the derision of those in the dock. Prosiac in language, overwhelming in tragedy. The sadistic ... Nazis are exposed. The simple humanism of their victims is eloquent and the reading is unforgettable