Theatre Play 25.5.2026 – Hitler’s President

We will attend the new theatre play, Hitler’s President at DPOH Theatre with our High Schoolers to learn about Slovakia’s history.

Should we talk about it? Is it inevitable? And necessary? Isn’t it tiring and eternally repetitive? Reminding us of our guilt and weakness? Tiso, for eternal folk and guards martyr, for truth lovers a shameful part of the fascist machine. Pride or shame? Dilemmas of the past soaked into the present. Can authentic independence be built on authentic vassalage? Build the future on an inauthentic past? This play is not a critical biography of the butcher’s son. It is a search, a merciless interrogation and search for the reasons that turned a priest into a murderer. Into a man standing at the head of a small country, leading “his nation” through fascist infatuation to their own bright tomorrows of a war state. Enemies and parasites must get out of the way at all costs. Fly out the chimney. The obedient will be rewarded. The aristocracy satisfied. The feeling of one’s own smallness avenged. The voice of reason falls silent, the voice of the heart is not heard. But there are those who, fortunately, resisted this madness. Their humanity did not drown in the Váh, Hron, or Danube. The president and his opponent. A refugee from Auschwitz who testified about Nazi atrocities. A play as a testimony to the absurdity of history from the far side of conscience. Jewish applicants for exceptions, grotesque aristocracies, a brave priest and a boa. This play is not about convincing the convinced, it is a dreamy grotesque about saving freedom and democratic values. And about the belief that hope and determination can be born from the horrors of the past.

Based on the book by Madeline Vadkerty, The Proverb Mr. President.