Crimes Against Humanity

Synopsis:

It is November, 1942.  Raphael Lemkin, a Polish, Jewish lawyer, having escaped Nazi Europe, arrives at the home of Albert Einstein, at Princeton.

Having witnessed the atrocities being carried out by the Nazis, and carrying a suitcaseful of proof, he wishes to ensure that, at war’s end, the Nazis are held accountable.  But there is no law on the books that addresses the scale of their depredations, nor even the legal terminology to encompass their crimes.  And so, he has coined the terms ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ in order to facilitate legal redress.

With the intention of convincing the League of Nations to enact international laws to punish such crimes, he is approaching Einstein in order to convince him to sign on to this endeavour, as his famous name will lend weight to the project.

However, it just so happens that he has chosen the very day that J. Robert Oppenheimer has come to bid farewell to his friend, Einstein, as he is about to take up residence at Los Alamos in order to undertake the Manhattan project – the project to build an atomic bomb.  His destination, of course, is top secret, so he cannot tell Einstein where he’s off to or why but, being far more worldly than his famous friend, he realises that the day might well come in which both he and Einstein are in the dock on the receiving end of Lemkin’s laws for their part in fathering the development of the Bomb.

And so, without revealing his reasons, he makes a spirited attempt to convince Einstein not to sign.

All of this is overseen by Einstein’s secretary, Helen Dukas, who has a somewhat different view of moral culpability – one whereby the way in which each of these men has used and misused their respective wives and families constitutes a far more damning crime against humanity.

Character Breakdown:

The play is a four-hander: 3 males, one female.

ALBERT EINSTEIN  63                  

ROBERT OPPENHEIMER 38

RAPHAEL LEMKIN  42

HELEN DUKAS  46 / MILEVA MARIC 67 / KITTY OPPENHEIMER 32  / BELLA LEMKIN  50s  – one actor.

Setting:

112 Mercer St, Princeton.
Sunday, November 15, 1942.

Running-time: 95 minutes.

Production History: Not yet produced.

Excerpt available for download for free.