If there is such a thing as fulfillment in theater, it is probably this play – an event that one encounters very rarely. Nikolaus Habjan calls “F. Zawrel – hereditary and socially inferior” as his “centerpiece” and wants to play it all his life – to keep the memory of Friedrich Zawrel alive and as a reminder for future generations.

Friedrich Zawrel grew up in Vienna in the 1930s. During the German occupation of Austria in World War II, he was locked up as a child in the “Spiegelgrund”, the second largest “youth welfare institution” of the German Reich, where hundreds of sick, handicapped and supposedly hereditary children and adolescents were “treated” and murdered. The institution’s physician, Dr. Gross, classified Zawrel in a report as “hereditary-biologically and socially inferior” … but Zawrel survived and managed to escape. After the war, he was one of the most important contemporary witnesses in the reappraisal of the euthanasia crimes in Vienna. Friedrich Zawrel died at the age of 85 in February 2015.

Nikolaus Habjan and Simon Meusburger created an immensely gripping, touching and harrowing piece after numerous, very personal conversations with Friedrich Zawrel. The haunting play of Nikolaus Habjan and his folding-mouth puppets creates alienation and identification at the same time. In 2012, the production received the Nestroy Prize in the category “Best Off-Production”, Austria’s most important theater prize.In 2012, the production received the Nestroy Prize in the category “Best Off-Production”, Austria’s most important theater prize. The euro-scene Leipzig has already shown the piece once in 2016 and would like to give the audience this encounter again now.