Peter Weiss’ monumental 1965 stage play Die Ermittlung arranges and condenses the testimonies of witnesses, and the responses of the accused, during the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials of 1963–1965. Among the greatest artworks on to the Holocaust, it is structured like the play in eleven cantos, that build in their intensity and graphically described detail across four hours. Weiss deliberately abstracted the real proceedings: the words ‘German’ and ‘Jew’ are never spoken, and while the accused are identified, the witnesses are not. Similarly, the final court sentences are elided – it is the enormous moral, ethical issues of guilt and responsibility that take precedence.