Dread of returning to Iraq equals the direst poverty, and that's how he feels right now, poor, like a shabby homeless kid suddenly thrust into the company of millionaires. Mortal fear is the ghetto of the human soul, to be free of it something like the psychic equivalent of inheriting a hundred million dollars. This is what he truly envies of these people, the luxury of terror as a talking point, and at this moment he feels so sorry for himself that he could break right down and cry.
Ben FountainHe spent two years in the extermination camp at Auschwitz. According to his own reluctant account, he came this close to going up a smokestack of a crematorium there:
"I had just been assigned to the Sonderkommando," he said to me, "when the order came from Himmler to close the ovens down."
Sonderkommando means special detail. At Auschwitz it meant a very special detail indeed--one composed of prisoners whose duties were to shepherd condemned persons into gas chambers, and then to lug their bodies out. When the job was done, the members of the Sonderkommando were themselves killed. The first duty of their successors was to dispose of their remains. Gutman told me that many men actually volunteered for the Sonderkommando.
"Why?" I asked him.
"If you would write a book about that," he said, "and give the answer to that question, that 'Why?'--you would have a very great book."
"Do you know the answer?" I said.
"No," he said, "That is why I would pay a great deal of money for a book with the answer in it."
"Any guesses?" I said.
"No," he said, looking me straight in the eye, "even though I was one of the ones who volunteered."
He went away for a little while, after having confessed that. And he thought about Auschwitz, the thing he liked least to think about. And he came back, and he said to me:
"There were loudspeakers all over the camp," he said, "and they were never silent for long. There was much music played through them. Those who were musical told me it was often good music--sometimes the best."
"That's interesting," I said.
"There was no music by Jews," he said. "That was forbidden." "Naturally," I said. "And the music was always stopping in the middle," he said, "and then there was an announcement. All day long, music and announcements."
"Very modern," I said. He closed his eyes, remembered gropingly.
"There was one announcement that was always crooned, like a nursery rhyme. Many times a day it came. It was the call for the Sonderkommando."
"Oh?" I said.
"Leichentärger zu Wache," he crooned, his eyes still closed. Translation: "Corpse-carriers to the guardhouse."
In an institution in which the purpose was to kill human beings by the millions, it was an understandably common cry.
"After two years of hearing that call over the loudspeakers, between the music," Gutman said to me, "the position of corpse-carrier suddenly sounded like a very good job.
Mots clés war life-lessons life-changing
Commanders and historians are the people who discuss wars; I was in the infantry, and most of the time I did not know where I was or what I was doing except that I was obeying orders and trying not to be killed in any of the variety of horrible ways open to me.
Robertson DaviesMots clés war survival historians infantry orders commanders fifth-business
I love you more than life itself, Arodi, you mean everything to me. I'm lost without you. I swear by all that is holy and sacred to me that I will never leave you, and I won't die on you. I'm never going to leave you alone.
C.N. FaustMots clés love war romance fantasy gay
And so the afternoon stretched on, and Ezbon toasted their imminent defeat to the dregs.
C.N. FaustMots clés war fantasy gothic defeat
Science and industry have in less than fifty years developed man's power of destruction to an extent which makes comparison with the past futile.
Frederick MauriceMots clés war
On Being Asked to Write a Poem Against the War in Vietnam
Well I have and in fact
more than one and I'll
tell you this too
I wrote one against
Algeria that nightmare
and another against
Korea and another
against the one
I was in
and I don't remember
how many against
the three
when I was a boy
Abyssinia Spain and
Harlan county
and not one
breath was restored
to one
shattered throat
mans womans or childs
not one not
one
but death went on and on
never looking aside
except now and then like a child
with a furtive half-smile
to make sure I was noticing.
The End of World War One
Out of the scraped surface of the land
men began to emerge, like puppies
from the slit of their dam. Up from the trenches
they came out upon the pitted, raw earth
wobbling as if new-born.
They could not believe they would be allowed to live,
the orders had come down: no more killing.
They approached the enemy, holding out chocolate
and cigarettes. They shook hands, exchanged
souvenirs--mess-kits, neckerchiefs.
Some even embraced, while in London
total strangers copulated
in doorways and on the pavement, in the ecstasy
of being reprieved. Nine months later,
like men emerging from the trenches, first the head,
then the body, there were lifted, newborn, from these mothers,
the soldiers of World War Two.
When they killed him, Mother wouldn't hold her peace, so they slit her throat. I was stupid then, being only nine, and I fought to save them both. But the thorns held me tight. I've learned to appreciate thorns since. The thorns taught me the game. They let me understand what all those grim and serious men who've fought the Hundred War have yet to learn. You can only win the game when you understand that it IS a game. Let a man play chess, and tell him that every pawn is his friend. Let him think both bishops holy. Let him remember happy days in the shadows of his castles. Let him love his queen. Watch him loose them all.
Mark LawrenceMots clés murder war life-lessons game
It was a defeat, resorting to crude threats in a game of subtlety, but sometimes one must sacrifice a battle to win the war.
Mark LawrenceMots clés war victory defeat threats
« ; premier précédent
Page 184 de 213.
suivant dernier » ;
Data privacy
Imprint
Contact
Diese Website verwendet Cookies, um Ihnen die bestmögliche Funktionalität bieten zu können.