ALBUM KARLA HÖCKERA is a documentary theatre project exploring the recently discovered (2006) album of photographs that shows the Auschwitz concentration camp in 1944 entirely from the perspective of it owner: SS Officer Karl Höcker.  The piece is directed by Paul Bargetto with texts by Malgorzata Sikorska-Miszcuk performed by Marta Król, Grzegorz Sierzputowski, Tomasz Sobczak, Krzysiek Polkowski, and Helena Chorzelska with production design by Agnieszka Kaczynska.  It was developed at the Sopot Non-Fiction Festival in 2014 followed by an intensive research and rehearsal process at Klub Karuzela as part of Centrum Kultury Bemowo‘s residency program with the generous support of the Adam Mickiewicz Institute.  It premiered at the Instytut Teatralny in January 2015 and was produced by Agata Balcerzak. It has since been presented at the 2015 Malta Festival in Poznan, and the 2015 Sopot Non-Fiction Festival.

Review in English by Andrew Haydon

Article in English in polishhistory.pl by Alan Lockwood 

Review in Polish by Małgorzata Bierejszyk

Photos by Honorata Karapuda

Album Karl Hocker is an attempt to understand the historical catastrophe of Auschwitz from the largely unexamined perspective of the perpetrators. Using documentary theatre techniques, improvisation, research and scripted drama, the piece explores the all too human men and women who carried out the final solution. By reanimating the photographs, the audience is invited to bear witness to the ordinary daily lives of the workers, managers, and executives who ran the Auschwitz death factory. The piece challenges traditional narratives and assumptions about the executioners of the Holocaust, unmasking the monsters of popular imagination, to reveal the ordinary and familiar face of human tragedy.