ADAM

Play by Joshua Sobol, 1989

Adam (1989), the second of three plays in a Holocaust triptych by Israeli playwright Joshua Sobol, dramatizes the historical struggle for power in the Vilna ghetto between Judenrat leader Jacob Gens and United Partisan Organization (UPO) leader Yitzhak Wittenberg, whom Sobol calls Adam Rolenick in the play. Unlike in Sobol's most popular and widely known drama about the Holocaust, Ghetto, Gens in Adam is not portrayed favorably but rather as an accomplice of the Nazi ghetto liquidator Kittel. In this play Gens and the members of the UPO disagree strongly on the most suitable course of action to take against the Nazis. Gens, believing that the Russian army will rescue them in a few months (they are approaching from the east), demands that the Jews be patient and act peacefully in order to avoid the attention and the wrath of the Nazis. The UPO believes, contrariwise, that the Jews in the ghetto must arm themselves with weapons and fight against the Nazis because the liquidation of the ghetto is inevitable; they must take their fate into their own hands and, if successful in their attempt to fight their way out of the ghetto, join the partisans in the forest. The clash in the methodology pits the two sides on a collision course because Kittel is under orders, as a consequence of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, to liquidate any ghetto that shows evidence of armed underground activity. Therefore, the actions of the UPO could potentially save the lives of the Jews in the ghetto or at least allow them to die with dignity, but, conversely, their actions could incite the Nazis to destroy everyone in the ghetto. Both Gens and the members of the UPO have a plausible argument, but Sobol chooses to tell the story primarily from the perspective of Rolenick (Wittenberg) and his lover, Nadya, who survives the ghetto and whose purpose in the play is to serve as a narrator of the action and an eyewitness.

After a Lithuanian partisan named Kaslaskas is captured by the Nazis and, under torture, provides them with Rolenick's name, Kittel decides to capture Rolenick so that he can torture him, thus finding out all the information he can regarding the armed underground resistance in Vilna. Because of his desire to prevent the liquidation of the ghetto, which would occur if armed resistance and contact with partisans were discovered, Gens works against the UPO, arranging to turn their leader, Rolenick, over to Kittel. When Gens sets up a meeting at night with Rolenick, Kittel is there with some Nazi soldiers to arrest the UPO leader. To Kittel's surprise there are UPO members conducting surveillance of the arrest; they attack the Nazis and free Rolenick, thus allowing him to hide in the ghetto. The UPO attack on Kittel's Nazi officers is simultaneously a success and a failure, for the underground rescues their leader but at the same time exposes their military operations and insults the Nazis, jeopardizing the lives of the 15,000 Jews who inhabit the Vilna ghetto. Gens is then faced with an ultimatum from Kittel: turn Rolenick over to him within a few hours or the ghetto will be liquidated and all of the Jews will die. Once again Gens comes into conflict with the UPO. Kittel successfully turns the Jews against themselves: Gens sends a frantic message to his constituents, claiming that all of them will die unless they find Rolenick within a few hours and turn him over to Kittel. The inhabitants of the Vilna ghetto proceed with a desperate search for Rolenick; the members of the UPO decide initially to fight in order to protect Rolenick, yet they back down because that involves fighting against and injuring their fellow Jews. Ultimately the UPO agrees reluctantly to surrender their leader, much to his dismay. Rolenick asserts prophetically that any organization willing to surrender its leader will never succeed.

Adam Rolenick turns himself over to Gens, who, surprisingly, is rather disappointed. Gens has expected—and even desired—an armed revolt against the Nazis. Gens, therefore, is a very complex character: He works against the armed resistance because of his role as ghetto leader, but he, conversely, sympathizes with the movement and would have enthusiastically joined it if the revolt had occurred. Because Rolenick turns himself in, however, the UPO becomes fragmented and never attempts the military battle that they had planned. As Rolenick correctly predicts, the ghetto is ultimately liquidated with no resistance, as the Jewish inhabitants, who turned against the underground movement, go meekly to their deaths. As for the members of the UPO, some of them escape to the forest, where they join the partisans.

In Adam Sobol dramatizes one instance, based on historical documents and eyewitness accounts, of how the Nazis successfully turned the Jews against themselves. The Jewish inhabitants of the ghetto wanted so desperately to live that they, ironically, helped to destroy the only organization that could have saved them.