When Hannah Arendt Was Arrested

Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany in January of 1933. In February a fire destroys the Reichstag (Parliament building). Hitler blames it on socialists and communists, and enacts the first of what will be a torrent of repressive laws against political opponents, but especially: Jews.

In March, a young policeman who has eagerly busted criminals has just been “promoted” into an enterprising political police force that will soon be called the Gesapo. And in this new post, one of the first people he arrests is a young Jewish woman who has been denounced by a librarian for reading books that the new regime has only just ruled to be anti-government propaganda.

Thus is Mrs. Hannah Stern, neé Arendt, transformed from a bookworm with a PhD in philosophy into one of the key thinkers of the 20th century, later to be world-famous for her insights into how ordinary, “banal” people can wind up serving an evil empire. 

Her actual history is not quite so neat, but Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library is a stage play about what could possibly have happened during the eight days when Hannah (and her mother!) were held in jail, charged with “treason.”

It’s a play of issues that still resonate. Forget the simplistic clichés like: What would you have done? Playwright Jenny Lyn Bader wants us to consider deeper questions, like: Where do you draw the line between thinking for yourself and going with the flow?

Karl Frick, the officer (Brett Temple), is about the same age as Hannah (Ella Dershowitz). He’s had a good education with enough philosophy classes to understand much, if not all, of what Hannah talks about.

The play is as much about him as about her. Before “last Tuesday” he was a “detective trainee” busting lawbreakers. Now he’s “a full inspector”; but the new laws he has to enforce are poorly defined and continuously updated. So he’s confused. The criminals he’s used to arresting, he says, “didn’t spend afternoons among books.” 

Hannah, meanwhile, has a dilemma of her own. Raised as an assimilated Jew, she’s an intellectual torn between identifying herself as a German or a Jew. She insists she’s not a Zionist, but suddenly a Zionist group is offering her a lawyer.

Ironically, an attorney (Drew Hershfield) only adds to the trouble that Mrs. Stern (Ella Dershowitz) faces in a Gestapo jail cell. Photo by Valerie Terranova.

Erich Landau (Drew Hirshfield) introduces himself as “a very established attorney.” Wounded and given the Iron Cross for valor, he’s convinced that, “The new [antisemitic] laws do not apply to veterans of the Great War.”

Hannah needs legal help. But they both know that accepting it from him would mark her as a Zionist too, and thereby possibly strengthen the case against her.

That’s the play. Three conflicted characters directed by Ari Laura Kreith, in a bleak white-brick jail cell set-designed by Lauren Helpern and lit by Cameron Filepas, with period-appropriate costumes by Deborah Caney, and sound design by Megan Culley.

Karl and Hannah exchange some almost-friendly banter. He has searched her house and brought back several of her books. “We had been hoping to find some evidence.” “Oh dear,” she says. “Evidence? Of what?” “Why don’t you tell me,” he replies. “I am, after all, supposed to be the one asking the questions.”

He’s confiscated her doctoral dissertation and notebooks too. So she asks, “Has the police force read all of my work?” He responds: “Why do you think you’ve been here so many days? We had to divide them up or we wouldn’t have been able to arrest anyone else all week. And you didn’t hear this from me, but some of the men on the force are not fast readers.”

Black humor can take the audience only so far. We know that actual Jewish war veterans, limned here by the attorney, will not in fact escape persecution. We also know that the real Hannah Arendt did have Zionist connections. And that she was released without charge, fled the country, fled Europe as well, and ended up in New York.

The play sets up her exit. She “needs someone in her corner,” and it’s not the lawyer: it’s Karl. “I will let you out myself,” he tells her, “when the [guards’] shift changes. Your mother, too. . . . I will not be able to get your identity papers back. But I can make sure you get out of here tonight.”  She says, “Karl, I thank you.” To which he replies, “It’s the least I can do. This is all my fault.”

As noted, this play is not history. But as Hannah tells Kurt, “The best made-up stories have truth in them.”

In the opening photo, the new “political” policeman (Brett Temple) is surprised to find himself talking about philosophy with his prisoner (Ella Dershowitz). Photo by Valerie Terranova.

Mrs. Stern Wanders the Prussian State Library will be performed through November 10 on the Luna Stage of the 59E59 multiplex at 59 East 59th St. For tickets and other information, visit the website.