WHO SHALL LIVE, WHO SHALL DIE

by Daniel Stern ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 26, 1962

A return to the theme of responsibility, guilt and something more -- the uses of absolute freedom. In this revival of a concentration camp world through the interplay of upcoming director Judah Kramer and the man who has tracked him down after fifteen years. Juda, going into the production with At the Gates, a play destined to reveal to him the actuality of his boyhood at Auschwitz, when he chose to delete the names of his mother, sister and himself from an extermination list and replace them with others, encounters Walkowitz, risen out of that era to work his revenge for the death of his parents. Determined to wake Jud from his sleepwalking, he systematically attacks his marriage, his father son relationship with a former director-teacher, and the play itself, then reveals his when he finds he cannot break Jud. His suicide is inevitable, leaving Jud to mourn him and to know the faces of the dead will be with him through all the light of his days, remembered and acknowledged. The argument, perhaps for its complexity, is insistent here and the plot is only its way of being heard, not with clarity for all its earnestness.

Pub Date: Feb. 26, 1962

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1962

Categories: FICTION