EXCERPT: Horst: (Between puffs.) Used to be a schoolteacher. Nice little country school, nice little teacherage, nice little country kids. Too old and soft for real soldiering, so they called me up for this. Itzak: Any Jewish pupils? Horst: Couple. Children of village shopkeeper. Quiet kids, good learners, no trouble. Itzak: Well? Horst: That’s before the Party told us what you Yids are doing to the country. Itzak: What? Horst: Money-grubbing, dirty-trading, lousy-bearded creeps. Oh, they told us all about you. Big noses, thick lips, foul-smelling, degenerate. Oh yes, they told us all about you Jewboys. Itzak: And then you decided to eliminate—to exterminate us. Horst: Exterminate? Eliminate? What difference does that make? We are all going to be eliminated. We are all for the big drop. When things get tough the Big Boys will call me up, forty-two years old or not. They’ll send me off to the front and I’ll end up as dead as any Jew. A bullet in the belly—blown to bits in a minefield, dead is dead. What’s the difference, a sniff of gas, a piece of shrapnel in the chest. We will have suffered, you and I, with the rest. We will have died and been forgotten. Neither of us is going to survive. Whatever that means—survival. They go on smoking. Train is getting louder as it approaches. Itzak: And here they come, the poor victims. Last stop before eternity. Horst: And for those who must be selected. Have you prayed for them too? Itzak: We have. We know the rules. Most of us have been here for months. Some of us for years. Horst: Like yourself. The lucky ones. Itzak: The unlucky ones some would say. Thousands are at peace already. It’s not difficult to envy them. When they are dead they receive their names back. When we pray we repeat their names. (He begins to softly do so.) Jankel, Shmuel, Dvorah, Chanaa, Mordecai, Yussel, Moishe, Dovid, Judel. Horst: That’s forbidden, forbidden, forbidden. Names are forbidden to Jews. Itzak: Nevertheless. Horst: Forbidden. Itzak: You cannot forbid the mind of a Jew, the prayers of his heart… Chaim, Ruchel, Mayer, Reuben, Jakov, Reva, Zara, Zachai, Bethuel, Shimon, Isodore, Ezrah, Esther, Moishe, Yzroel, Leah, Rivke, Ruth, Michal, Zolmen, Zal, Juditt, Eva, Juna, Max, Osgar, Bela, Aryeh, Zwi, Yehiel, Leizer, Zofia, Hillel, Nathan, Haviva, Aaron, (Here the train chorus suddenly stops.) Zloma, Zeev… Itzak had begun this litany of names softly enough, but the train is coming in and towards the end he is yelling out the names against the sound of the train. Horst is angry with Itzak. He knows how to get his own back. Horst: And then there is that other matter, that other little matter… Itzak: What do you mean? Horst: The little matter of the selection. One out of every hundred to make room for the new boys, eh? Itzak: It’s not something I’m likely to forget. But that’s your business. Horst: Not necessarily. Itzak: That’s the rule. I have never… Horst: So far. Itzak: So far? What do you mean? I… Horst: What would you say, Kapo, if I were to change that rule? As of today. What would you say to that?