Ferdinand Marian was a re-enactor at the Jewish tourist village of Wawolnice. Unlike the rest of the "cast", Marian had not been an actor before taking the part, but rather a German Christian minister. He was cast as Reb Eliezer, the village's rabbi.

While not an actor, Marian was no less a perfectionist than the rest of the village. He spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, and Aramaic, and studied the Torah and the Talmud. He even debated other "characters" in the village, such as "Jakub Shlayfer" about pilpul. Initially, Veit Harlan, the actor who played Shlayfer, was suspicious of Marian, as he knew Marian had not been an actor. However, with time, those views changed, as Marian, like most of the village, grew to identify with his Jewish character residing in the early 20th Century more so than with the 21st Century world ruled by the Greater German Reich.

In a private conversation during a picnic, Marian proposed to Harlan that, since the Nazis had destroyed all of their enemies, they needed to create new ones, in the form of the re-enactors. Marian was also certain that their group could continue on for some time, observing Jewish tradition and culture as much as possible, while simultaneously acting as witnesses to the Reich's atrocities.