Berlin—Amsterdam—Westerbork: Revue and the Aesthetics of War

Revue and vaudeville theatre became a mass cultural phenomenon at the beginning of the twentieth century, entailing a highly ambivalent critical discourse. The following contribution focuses on the revue evenings in the Dutch transit camp Westerbork, which were organised by the popular German-Jewish revue artists Willy Rosen and Max Ehrlich with the support of the camp administration. The analysis focuses on two significant aspects of revues: first, the dramaturgy of montage, rhythm, and fragmentation characteristic of revues, reflecting the time experience of industrialisation and the logic of the capitalist market economy; second, attention is paid to the organisation of time in revues. Revues negotiate topical socio-political issues and cultural phenomena in satirical sketches and songs. A central element is the re-mediation of popular films, operettas, and songs, which are continuously re-situated and thus designate continuities and disruptions. The analysis of the last revue in Westerbork “Ludmilla, oder Leichen am laufenden Band” (“Ludmilla, or Corpses on the Conveyor Belt”) shows how the artists staged a seemingly superficial critical negotiation of the contemporary situation by metatheatrical commentary. Nevertheless, at the same time, this dramaturgical structure designated the “reality of concentration camps” in incomparably clear-sighted terms.