‘All Our Children’ Theater Review: A Moving Play On The Nazi Genocide Of The Disabled

Among the countless atrocities of the Nazis, their efforts to kill off the disabled gets less attention than it should. The play All Our Children at New York City’s Sheen Center for Thought & Culture movingly shows one doctor, Victor Franz (Karl Kenzler), caught up in the Nazi program of genocide. The Nazis use him to sign off on the killings, legitimizing them with the veneer of science. Over one night (The Epiphany), Franz is confronted by the mother of one of the victims (Tasha Lawrence) while Eric (Sam Lilja), an SS guard posing as a hospital administrator, tries to goad him into sending more helpless children to their deaths. But when Bishop von Galen (John Glover), who was a real-life figure, confronts Dr. Franz, he starts to question his obedience to the Nazis. At 90 minutes, All Our Children is a brisk but rousing moral tale that begs to heard.

All Our Children is now playing at the Sheen Center For Thought & Culture (18 Bleecker Street, New York, N.Y.).