Abstract
Ernst Toller's Pastor Hall, one of the first plays to depict life in a concentration camp, counts among the few anti-Nazi dramas translated into English before World War Two. The process by which it came to the British stage reveals the impact of censorship on authors and translators of anti-Fascist plays. It also reveals conflicting aesthetic strategies to tackle fascism. While Toller relied on straightforward documentary realism, one of his translators, W. H. Auden, championed anti-illusionism and distrusted propaganda art. In the cultural fight to reclaim Germany's heritage from the Nazis, German writers in exile viewed translations as urgent messages demanding prompt action, whereas British writers tended to see them as an archive for future generations.
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