An open letter to Rolf Ho

In early 1963, the famous progressive German director Erwin Piscator staged a one-act play in West Berlin: "The Vicar" ("The Deputy") by the young German playwright Rolf Hochhut. Since then, Hochhut's play has been performed in many European cities, in London and Basel, Stockholm and Paris. Everywhere it provokes violent reactions, disputes and discussions, which testify to its relevance and acute civic issues. The play is built entirely on historically verified facts. The reason for its writing is the behavior of Pope Pius XII, who did not utter a word to the Nazi authorities in order to protect the millions of innocent victims of Hitler's concentration camps, including Catholic Jews. The play sharply raises the question of the moral character and pseudo-humanity of the vicar (the vicegerent of God on earth), i.e. the pope. This character of hers awakens many passions. Ultra-clerical and neo-fascist circles in the West express their dissatisfaction with the play in various ways and try to disrupt the performances of the theaters where it is played. However, the author Hochut did not have revolutionary and even less anti-Catholic intentions in writing the play. Influenced by the anti-communist psychosis of Western propaganda, he refused to let Czechoslovak theaters stage his play. On this occasion, the famous Slovak writer Ladislav Mniačko, author of the recently acclaimed book "Blated Reports" in Slovak literature, published in issue 30 of the current year of the Slovak weekly "Kultural Life" an open letter to the German playwright Hochut, which touches on a number of more general issues and arouses general interest. Below we publish the text of the letter.