A Bavarian village in the beautiful landscape of the Ammergau Alps, famous today for the Passion Play that is staged once every ten years that sees around half a million visitors from all over the world.
The tradition of the Passion Play dates back to the year 1633, during a particularly severe season of suffering and death from the plague in the midst of the ">Thirty Years' War, the villagers made a vow that, should the Lord spare them, they would perform the play of the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ every ten years. From that day, it was said, there were no more deaths from the plague. Ever since the villagers have kept their promise—though they had to postpone the 1920 season to 1922 due to severe food shortages and the ones for 1770 and 1940 were cancelled because of a ban and the war—beginning with the first Passion Play at Pentecost in 1634 staged on a makeshift stage in the cemetery over-looking the graves of the plague victims. In the 41st season in 2010, about half of the village's 5000 inhabitants, including many children, participated in the play as performers, musicians, singers, and other roles in its staging. The five-hour long performanance—more than 100 in 2010—begins with the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem and ends with the resurrection and transfiguration, and features real live animals like camels and donkeys.
Like everything pre-WWII German, the Oberammergau Passion Play had its share of Nazi-related stains. That many members of its cast should, during the pre-war years, join the Nazi Party, is is hardly surprising, given that even the Protestant German church turned Nazi. The mayor of the city, Raimund Lang, embraced the anti-Semitism of the Nazis, proudly proclaiming that the Passion play as "the most anti-Semitic play that we have." The actor who played Jesus for the 1950 and 1960 seasons even participated in the ">Kristallnacht. The charge that the Play remains fundamentally anti-Semitic because, towards the end of the play, the Jews proclaim their collective guilt for the death of Jesus, proclaiming, "His blood upon us and upon our children." This is hardly fair, since that line came straight out of the most Jewish of the gospels, Matt 27:24.
Further Reading:
James Shapiro, Oberammergau: The Troubling Story of the World's Most Famous Passion Play. New York: Pantheon, 2000.
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