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Play About Nazi False Flag Operation That Launched World War II Is Stunning
Ken King and Richard Hollis in “Canned Goods” presented by the American Theater Group. Photo: Lianne Schoenwiesner, Spotlights Photography.
The three innocent men held in jail have a feeling they’re going to be killed.
They don’t know how or when, and it’s not easy to get answers from the SS Major, who toys with their minds and their souls. In their own way, they try to battle back.
That’s the setup for the unforgettable play Canned Goods presented by the American Theater Group.
The show gets its name from “Operation Grandmother Died,” in which Hitler needed the world to see some reason for invading Poland — so a false flag operation was launched to make it appear that Poles attacked Germans in a radio station in the German border town of Gleiwitz. Those who would be sacrificed were called “canned goods” by Germans, and at least one corpse was used to make it look more legit, as if the person was killed in the attack.
SS Major Alfred Naujocks was in charge of the plot, which was a success. Ken King delivers an out of this world performance as Naujocks, who has boxed before and enjoys verbally jousting with the three prisoners — Birnbaum, Kruger, and Honiok.
Birnbaum, a Jew who has been taken from Dachau, is played magnificently by Simon Feil, who displays wit and humor. His character is the first to realize they are going to be killed, and has the nerve to ask Naujocks why he was starved in one camp but is now being fed well.
Feil has a cryptic chemistry with Steven Rattazzi, who plays Kruger, a naïve man who thinks kissing up to the SS major and complimenting his hat may save his life. Rattazzi has an uncanny intensity and displays excellent comedic timing and an ability to nail the heavy moments, like when he asks the SS major if they will be killed.
Birnbaum is clever, and his boisterous banter is his rebellion. Kruger is antisemitic and explains why he felt he had a right to steal from his Jewish boss, who withheld a bonus. As Honiok, Richard Hollis is impressive, giving the role the feel of a deer in the headlights. Dalton Gordon is also convincing as a menacing prison guard.
It’s hard to believe that this is Erik Kahn’s debut play, because the script has a mature brilliance that is not often found when combining fictional characters along with real ones. Paired with Charlotte Cohn’s direction, Canned Goods is a slow-burning eerie emotional earthquake that buries you in rubble. Falling somewhere between an amazing episode of The Twilight Zone and Jean Paul Sartre’s No Exit, the 80-minute show is claustrophobic and chilling. Kudos to Kahn and Cohn for one of the most controversial and provocative endings to a play I’ve ever seen.
The play has incredible parallels to today, something Cohn told me about in a discussion after a recent performance at The Sieminski Theater in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. “It’s incredible to see the parallels for today. There is propaganda and political theater. We have to always learn about history but look at what’s behind what’s happening today and perhaps become more empathetic and be able to walk in someone else’s shoes. Maybe it can move us towards peace, somehow.”
Canned Goods is a fresh look at how evil is justified, war is theatrical, and how — while we may think we are the king of our proverbial castles — we might be pawns and we can easily be knocked off the board altogether, even if we don’t make a wrong move. Sometimes, the best weapon is the right question.
The author is a writer based in New York.
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Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd
Magdeburg Christmas market, December 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Christian Mang
i24 News – A suspected terrorist plowed a vehicle into a crowd at a Christmas market in the German city of Magdeburg, west of the capital Berlin, killing at least five and injuring dozens more.
Local police confirmed that the suspect was a Saudi national born in 1974 and acting alone.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz expressed his concern about the incident, saying that “reports from Magdeburg suggest something bad. My thoughts are with the victims and their families.”
Police declined to give casualty numbers, confirming only a large-scale operation at the market, where people had gathered to celebrate in the days leading up to the Christmas holidays.
The post Germany: 5 Killed, Scores Wounded after Saudi Man Plows Car Into Christmas crowd first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s New Rulers Name HTS Commander as Defense Minister
A person waves a flag adopted by the new Syrian rulers, as people gather during a celebration called by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) near the Umayyad Mosque, after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria, Photo: December 20, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo
Syria’s new rulers have appointed Murhaf Abu Qasra, a leading figure in the insurgency which toppled Bashar al-Assad, as defense minister in the interim government, an official source said on Saturday.
Abu Qasra, who is also known by the nom de guerre Abu Hassan 600, is a senior figure in the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group which led the campaign that ousted Assad this month. He led numerous military operations during Syria’s revolution, the source said.
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa discussed “the form of the military institution in the new Syria” during a meeting with armed factions on Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.
Abu Qasra during the meeting sat next to Sharaa, also known by the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Golani, photos published by SANA showed.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir said this week that the defense ministry would be restructured using former rebel factions and officers who defected from Assad’s army.
Bashir, who formerly led an HTS-affiliated administration in the northwestern province of Idlib, has said he will lead a three-month transitional government. The new administration has not declared plans for what will happen after that.
Earlier on Saturday, the ruling General Command named Asaad Hassan al-Shibani as foreign minister, SANA said. A source in the new administration told Reuters that this step “comes in response to the aspirations of the Syrian people to establish international relations that bring peace and stability.”
Shibani, a 37-year-old graduate of Damascus University, previously led the political department of the rebels’ Idlib government, the General Command said.
Sharaa’s group was part of al Qaeda until he broke ties in 2016. It had been confined to Idlib for years until going on the offensive in late November, sweeping through the cities of western Syria and into Damascus as the army melted away.
Sharaa has met with a number of international envoys this week. He has said his primary focus is on reconstruction and achieving economic development and that he is not interested in engaging in any new conflicts.
Syrian rebels seized control of Damascus on Dec. 8, forcing Assad to flee after more than 13 years of civil war and ending his family’s decades-long rule.
Washington designated Sharaa a terrorist in 2013, saying al Qaeda in Iraq had tasked him with overthrowing Assad’s rule and establishing Islamic sharia law in Syria. US officials said on Friday that Washington would remove a $10 million bounty on his head.
The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people, caused one of the biggest refugee crises of modern times and left cities bombed to rubble and the economy hollowed out by global sanctions.
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Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
i24 News – Sweden will no longer fund the U.N. refugee agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) and will instead provide humanitarian assistance to Gaza via other channels, the Scandinavian country said on Friday.
The decision comes on the heels of multiple revelations regarding the agency’s employees’ involvement in the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Sweden’s decision was in response to the Israeli ban, as it will make channeling aid via the agency more difficult, the country’s aid minister, Benjamin Dousa, said.
“Large parts of UNRWA’s operations in Gaza are either going to be severely weakened or completely impossible,” Dousa said. “For the government, the most important thing is that support gets through.”
The Palestinian embassy in Stockholm said in a statement: “We reject the idea of finding alternatives to UNRWA, which has a special mandate to provide services to Palestinian refugees.”
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel thanked Dousa for a meeting they had this week and for Sweden’s decision to drop its support for UNRWA.
“There are worthy and viable alternatives for humanitarian aid, and I appreciate the willingness to listen and adopt a different approach,” she said.
The post Sweden Ends Funding for UNRWA, Pledges to Seek Other Aid Channels first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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