I. The Stage
Some revisionary playwright set our stage–a once-quaint Polish village with a German namethat’s now a name for Hell in every language–where hocus-pocus, consecrating venom,has, widdershins, turned sacred breath to slag,smeared ashes in the night like sooty starsto rain upon our silent heads and leachinto our brains for next year’s dreams of warwhile history’s a Rumor.
("But then," the playwright pouts, "why should one mournfor Ratten, Ungeziefern, Dreck or Schlamm")
For this, perhaps, we must invent new words,for even Nürnberg has failed to purgethe Babel-speech which poets have surrenderedto hacks who know the power of words to scourge,yet not let on that anyone’s being murdered.
("If it ain’t on the page, it ain’t on the stage"–an old Hollywood adage)
Who wrote this script?
II. The Villain
Dramatically, we have no show without him,and on the page this role’s a Machiavel;a Nietzschean god transcending Good and Evil,who–costumed GQ-glamorous, SS-style,on an Olympian stage, filmed by Riefenstahl–declaims his Luciferian Gewaltin sonorous tones and rich iambic verse.(Even Shakespeare gave his best lines to Iago.)
But, alas, the role falls short of Goebbels’ press-release,for see, stage right, the fumbling actor enter:the dregs of ailing German culture,a wizard of no more than booze and whores,who–dressed to kill by the fawning Kostümzeichnerwith lightning on his collar like some wannabe Dr. Lecter–barks banalities in wretched Mamet-prose.
Like a shotgun-toting redneck in a farce, he’staken aim on Jewish history for catharsis,declaring he will raze it into Rumor.
But even if the fellow is no Wotan,he’s bad enough, he levies souls for money,and fulfills his gold-to-ash production quota,not because he’s great, but because he’s many.
(Beyond the lights, the villain hears the groundlings murmur,"How awful, but I’m sure it can’t be true!"And he asides, "So what you speak in English, not in German? If history’s a Rumor, the future actorin this role may well be you."
III. The Victim
Now the victim of our play presents a challengerequiring industrial-strength imagination;for the Shoah is a numbers game, a nightmare of statistics(an endless chain of zeros trailing six)in which the names to be listed on the creditsmust be transcribed in disappearing ink.
Our Schauspielführer faces grim logisticsif he’s to mount the scene as called for on the page,and he’d better stash an arsenal in his bag of tricks,for how to get six million quietly off the stage?
His Endlösung proves a most ingenious set-piece:Wel see a naked extra, mit tatoo,descending through a smoky stage trap door,dragging behind a large, but empty, suitcase,with a name on it ("Hirsch" or "Dresner," doesn’t matter)to stand in for those ancient names of Krakow,which, ciphers on the Zyklon-B Verzeichnis,havel vanished into Rumor at Birkenau.
There, by amnesial fire transcending Nero’s,that list of names will be somehow…misplaced, because in fascist math totals always sum to Zero,and Zeros are so easy to erase.(Thank God computers weren’t invented yet.)
(Beyond the lights, the victim hears the groundlings argue,"How awful, but I’m sure it can’t be true!"and he asides, "So what you pray in Latin, not in Hebrew?If history’s a Rumor, the future actorin this role may well be you.")
Now see, stage left, the unlikely hero enter,a ladies’ man become a Thaumaturge,who, defying script, trades charm (and other peoples’ money)into gratitude, more money and gold-greased palms,then in perhaps the strangest volte-face in all history,trades them back again for eleven-hundred names.
Watch his magic in a dim-lit Leichenkellerwith the Skull-and-Crossbones Einsatzgrüppenführer,where this alchemist turns diamonds into paper,then paper into a host of avenging golem.
Who is this man, a Magus or a gambler?A rakehell, or angelic avatar?A profiteer, or saint, or mellifluous swindler?(No, God’s actor–Mensch–and unwitting student of the Cabala.)
But by what perverse alchemy of fatewas the budding of this most strange righteousnesscontingent on the flowering of hate?(God knows how roses bloom in soil made black with ashes.)
And still the night is gilt with sooty stars–unlucky names on no one’s special roster–because there are never enough unlikely saviorsto harrow hell, and rescue little girls in redfrom engines that turn gold to lead, then ash, then, fedinto the soil, yield yet another year’s crop of hatewhile history’s a Rumor.
Who wrote this bloody script?
V. The Playwright
The house lights glare, the restless audience clamors,summoning our unknown playwright to the stage;the Sage appears, backlit in chiaroscuro,a wizened clown in robes of Archimage.
He says, "For recognition, I’ve waited untold ages,though to you my motives are elusive, like my fame;and even longer have I yearned for my redemption,which Kronos cannot give, unless you guess my name.
"’Who am I?’ Like any mystery, I’ll provide few answers;but I’m a muse of manifold gifts and artistry,a whiz at rise and fall in sidereal gyre,a conjurer of farce or epic–any genre;but as with Hamlet, where Act V resolves in carnage,I excel in tragedy and revenge-play.
"Don’t blame me, I merely write what I’m commissioned.I’m a box-office hack, a servile pen-for-hire,and it seems these tales provide familiar formulae,of which the groundlings, despite demurrals, never tire.(When polled, the audience claims to go for comedy,or morality plays, with hero routing evildoer;but when produced, the house remains half-empty…and the revisionists dare call me a liar!)
"Aesthetically, the Shoah is my magnum opus,the play wherein all my most popular themes converge:menageries of misfits, thieves and ersatz Aryansrunning rackets in hell-holes like Auschwitz,who get their kicks by pillaging culture, and burning books by Leibnitz.
"It’s a bestiary of unequaled shark-like savagery,of debauchery and death and demagoguery,the apogee of bigotry, and a Calvary for doomed chivalry; but for comic relief, I’ll script in some bootless bravery,to allay the atavistic film noire butcheryof centuries of European Jewry…if it weren’t true…it would be a masterpiece of amphigory!
"’Who wrote this script…?’ I still hear the groundlings murmur!Oh, but you’re wrong, I’m not the one you think I am! It wasn’t I who inspired poor Cain to the first murder, it was that costumed goat, that infernal Peter Pan! As for me, I’m merely a note-taker;the aboriginal amanuensis, tabula rasa, and impressionable voyeur,and I resent the implication that I’m a monster,because, fact is, I’m all too human, and I’m yours.
"’Who wrote this script?’ Here’s the clue that proves the key:I’m black and white and red, and I’ll have the last word, when all is done and said,because it is I who write the characters who write me!
("On second thought, I think I’d prefer to remain a Rumor.")
VI. The Fool
Lest we forget, one player more for our dramatis personae,who enters dressed as Showman, Jester, Wizard of the Matinee,but exits Sorcerer to snake-charm historyinto black and white and red alchemical pictographyand, necromancer-like, give dead men breathto ask us, "How much is one person worth?"(In Shakespeare, it’s the Fool who speaks the truth.)
Behind the scenes, this Fool’s become a Prophet,a Master of Revels transformed to Dramaturge,a minister of horror who avengesthe blood-greased, ash-strewn engines being fedwith lying words, and little girls in red,while the righteous man looks on…and changes.
(God’s Director proves a Master of the Cabala!)
Herr Direktor, you’ve wrought grim beauty out of horror,and cultivated roses from the ash of war;now summoned by your art we groundlings gatheraround your stage in dim-lit Schauspielkellerto judge the case if history’s a Rumor.
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