She faked her own death to become Jewish in Nazi Germany — for love? For art? For BOTH?
Season 1 • Episode 66
LatestThe film is set in the 1930s in Germany. Maria Rheine and Mark Löwenthal, two young actors working in a small theater, are in love with each other. Their love affair is interrupted by Nazi racial policies; Mark is no longer allowed to perform in German theaters because he is a Jew. In order to continue acting, he joins the newly formed Jewish Theater in Berlin. Maria, who is not Jewish, faces no restrictions on her career, and she becomes a successful actress at a big theater in Munich. But her love for Mark eventually leads her to decide to sacrifice both career and security to remain close to him. She fakes a suicide, assumes a Jewish identity and, as Manja Löwenthal, joins the Jewish Theater.
Writing
Ballsy premise: comedy about Holocaust precursors
Acting
Dual-identity performance: same actor, two names, one soul
Production
Reconstructed Jewish Theater as historical set piece
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
West German TV in 1978 was experimenting with Holocaust-adjacent narratives; this 66-episode commitment is almost unheard-of for the era.
The real Jüdischer Kulturbund was shuttered in 1941; the series imagines an alternate theatrical persistence that history denied.
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