The Stroop Report

During the Holocaust, some fought back… Hear their story in this World Premiere of The Stroop Report.

The play follows the lives of 7 Jewish residents of Warsaw from the entrance of the Nazis to the end of the uprising in the ghetto. The importance of the uprising to Warsaw was that it was the first and largest resistance by the Jewish population of the war. The characters are famous, infamous, and unknown. MOst are based on real people, although individuals have been combined into single characters in order to keep the cast within reason while at the same time stelling the story of the ghetto.

Jurgen Stroop was the SS General in charge of the final liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. As a gift to Heinrich Himmler, 3 leather bound copies of The Stroop Report were produced. This is the story behind that report. These volumes included his daily dispatches, a brief history, and photos. Stroop’s lectures in the play are from this report, and reflect Nazi doctrine.

The Stroop Report won The Murphy Foundation playwriting competition for 1998-99. The Foundation and Hendrix College are putting on a wekk long workshop of the play culminating in a staged reading on February 25, 2000. In addition, although there was no winner of the Ozark Stage Works National Playwriting Awards, The Stroop Report was one of only 3 plays cited as excellent literary work.