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Under the Skin (מתחת לעור - Mitakhat La'Or) is a 2013 play by Israeli playwright Yonatan Calderon. The play tells the historical story of the love affair between the lesbian Nazi officer Anneliese Kohlmann and one of her female Jewish prisoners in Neuengamme concentration camp.
The play is based on Kohlmann's Belsen trial protocol, and also on Holocaust survivors' testimonies, including the testimony of Ruth Bondy, a well-known Israeli writer, translator and journalist.
Plot
The play takes place both in Tel Aviv during the 1991's Gulf War and in 1944 Nazi Germany. Charlotte Brod is an elderly Holocaust survivor who lives in her Tel Aviv apartement. One evening during the Gulf War, Kirsten Eberhardt, a young German journalist, knocks on her door and questions her about a secret love affair that took place in Neuengamme concentration camp between the Jewish prisoner and her Nazi commander, Ilse Kohlmann (Based on Anneliese Kohlmann).
The play consists of flashbacks to the concentration camp in which the actress who plays the Holocaust survivor plays the Nazi commander woman, and the actress who plays the young German journalist plays Charlotte, now a young Jewish prisoner.