Inspired by childhood memoirs, during WWII a family struggles when Nazi Germany occupies the Netherlands.
STORY COMMENTS ON FIRST 30 PAGES
UNCLE FRITS is inspired by childhood memoirs about the occupation of the Netherlands by Nazi Germany. The time period and culture feel authentic.
It’s a character driven story of survival. These stories are not new to the industry, but they are potentially inspiring and should be told. However, it can be challenging to create a story based on truth events.
One gets the sense from the first 30 pages that the story is supposed to be told through the eyes of a young Edmond about his Uncle Frits. This certainly has merit.
Based on the current first 30 pages, there’s room for more development. Right now
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The voiceover could convey the theme or how as a young boy he came to admire the courage of his uncle.
The current opening, as structured, feels too mild. Try to avoid a first paragraph that simply introduces the characters. Remember the viewing audience can only see what’s on the screen or hear what’s in dialogue. They have no way to know that Maurits owns a cotton-waste factory unless this is verbally stated.
The first act sets up the ordinary world of Edmond and Uncle Frits. It’s clear that Nazi Germany has an agenda involving the Jews. The introduction of Frits trying to help some Jewish strangers from being beaten nicely helps to establish his personality, foreshadowing his goal or drive to help his family and perhaps others escape the Nazi occupation.
However, it might be more effective if he first sees something that bothers him, but while conflicted, does nothing. This will give the character more inner struggle and conflict. Show him resistant to helping and then slowly show how he
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Right now there’s an awkward or rough transition from him being on the train and then suddenly he’s at his family’s home. The idea of young Edmond pulling a toy gun on Frits is smart, but first introduce them and perhaps Edmond is a bit shy about his uncle and/or Frits is awkward around kids. This will help build their personalities and their eventual bond that will form.
The current structure in the first act includes two dreams and a flashback. These, unfortunately, are disruptive to the main storyline and they hinder the pace. Consider eliminating them. Quick memory flashes can work. Young Edmond can talk about his dream of “Black Pete” or this can be included depending on how the rest of the story unfolds about the concept and symbolism of “Black Pete.” However, in general these types of scenes slow the pace. It’s pivotal for the first act to set up the story, the goal, and the tension.
By the end of the current first 30 pages, it’s not entirely clear what this story is about, other than about surviving German occupation, but the story needs to find a unique hook to be
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The Hiding Place is about a girl named Corrie goes through an experience at the time of world war two, when the Nazis were capturing the Jews, and sending them to concentration camps. The father, Casper, showed that no matter what is happening, that you can still show kindness. Cornelia, the mother, was always trying to make people happy, she also would get to know everyone. It should always be a your mind to help, serve, and to be a kind person.
Who was Elie Wiesel? Elie Wiesel is a famous Holocaust survivor, a political activist, professor, and a novelist. He is the recipient of many different accomplishments and achievements throughout his life. He is most known for his novel Night, which is about his survival during the Holocaust.
Opening the performance is the chorus who, uncommonly, explains the whole plot in just 14 lines before the play has even properly started. This is not commonplace in a play as it leaves no suspence. However, it would intrigue the audience who will want to stay and find out how and why the events told in the prologue happen.
Synopsis – Hitler’s Willing Executioners is a work that may change our understanding of the Holocaust and of Germany during the Nazi period. Daniel Goldhagen has revisited a question that history has come to treat as settled, and his researches have led him to the inescapable conclusion that none of the established answers holds true. Drawing on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen presents new evidence to show that many beliefs about the killers are fallacies. They were not primarily SS men or Nazi Party members, but perfectly ordinary Germans from all walks of life, men who brutalized and murdered Jews both willingly and zealously. “They acted as they did because of a widespread, profound, unquestioned, and virulent anti-Semitism that led them to regard the Jews as a demonic enemy whose extermination was not only necessary but also just.”1 The author proposes to show that the phenomenon of German anti-Semitism was already deep-rooted and pervasive in German society before Hitler came to power, and that there was a widely shared view that the Jews ought to be eliminated in some way from German society. When Hitler chose mass extermination as the only final solution, he was easily able to enlist vast numbers of Germans to carry it out.
In The First Day, exposition has been applied in various sections. For instance, the story explains that the little girl is taken to the first school preferred by her mother where they are rejected, forcing them to look for another school. This device is used to give a deeper explanation about how determined the mother is taking her daughter to school and how much she wants her daughter to have a better life. This provides the audience with the reasons as to why the mother had to look for another school (Edward, 1950). Exposition is also expressed where the mother collects all documents that she thinks were required even though she could not read. This also indicates that the mother wants to ensure that nothing will prevent her daughter’s
The first scene is very prompt in the way that it is put across to the
Germany along with spirit and a quest to find their position in life. Hitler recognized these
Nazism and Fascism are prominent in daily life as shown in both movies Swing Kids and Berlin 36 by the uses of distinct characteristics such as the use of force, propaganda and sabotage. Fascism is defined as having a governmental system led by a dictator with complete power. Nazism on the other hand is defined as an ideology featuring racism and expansionism and obedience to a strong leader. These two ideologies are alike with Nazism falling under a sub-category of Fascism. However, it is prominent that Swing Kids was showing the effects of Nazism in daily life with scenes showing excessive use of force and propaganda.
The Silber Medal winning biography, “Surviving Hitler," written by Andrea Warren paints picture of life for teenagers during the Holocaust, mainly by telling the story of Jack Mandelbaum. Avoiding the use of historical analysis, Warren, along with Mandelbaum’s experiences, explains how Jack, along with a few other Jewish and non-Jewish people survived.
The Success of Nazi Policies Toward Education and Youth Hitler and the Nazi party had a range of policies to control education and the German youth. This was mainly to ensure loyalty to Hitler and the Nazi party. Some believed in these policies and other did not but it was fear and glory and the fear of social inadequacy that made most comply. Hitler and the Nazis wanted to control the education system and youth by controlling the teachers, pupils and the curriculum.
Also the play would not get anywhere else. No one would watch it. The use of the prologue in giving an introduction and background to the conflict is a wise one. As it was certain phrases and words, to show how. the families are in anguish and don’t like each other.
Netherlands: Contact Amsterdam, 1947. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Hidden Children: Hardships.” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013.
Hitler Youth was an organization that Hitler created for young children and teenagers of Germany to join to help him create solutions to Germany’s problems. In order to become a part of the Hitler Youth, one had to provide the proof that they were not in any way, shape, or form have a Jewish ancestry. This organization also gave some children an opportunity to rebel against their parents views of how the Hitler Youth organization was too militaristic for them. The main character in this book is named Sophie Scholl. Sophie was a German girl who had joined the Hitler Youth organization at a young age and was excited to meet new friends and learn new tactics on how to fight in the
During the Holocaust, around six million Jews were murdered due to Hitler’s plan to rid Germany of “heterogeneous people” in Germany, as stated in the novel, Life and Death in the Third Reich by Peter Fritzsche. Shortly following a period of suffering, Hitler began leading Germany in 1930 to start the period of his rule, the Third Reich. Over time, his power and support from the country increased until he had full control over his people. Starting from saying “Heil Hitler!” the people of the German empire were cleverly forced into following Hitler through terror and threat. He had a group of leaders, the SS, who were Nazis that willingly took any task given, including the mass murder of millions of Jews due to his belief that they were enemies to Germany. German citizens were talked into participating or believing in the most extreme of things, like violent pogroms, deportations, attacks, and executions. Through the novel’s perspicacity of the Third Reich, readers can see how Hitler’s reign was a controversial time period summed up by courage, extremity, and most important of all, loyalty.