I saw this play last night, and was so moved, I decided to buy the book. I would like to quote it. The following is my translation of a french translation, so please allow for slight imperfections. It is also jsut an extract. I may post other extract as I read the text. I hope readers of this blog will comment.
"Auschwitz is inexplicable" is false first of all, structurally, since what is can by definition be explained, even if this explanation, is by it's nature, purely arbitrary, erroneous, nondescript, but it is a fact, that a fact has at least two existences, one factual, the other spiritual, a spiritual existential mode which is nothing but an explanation, a cluster of explanations, and what's more an over-explanation of the facts, which in the end means annihilation of these facts, or at the very least their blurrring; this unfortunate statement- "Auschwitz is inexplicable" -is itself an explanation, it allows the unfortunate author to explain that we should not utter a word about Auschwitz, that Auschwitz does not, or rather did not exist, since, is it not so, that only things which do not or did not exist are inexplicable? However, I probably said, that Aushcwitz did, and therefore does exist, and that there is therefore an explanation, and there is indeed no explanation to the idea that Auschwitz did not exist, that is, that one couldn't explain, that Auschwitz did not exist, didn't take place, that a state of the world did not take place in the fact named "Auschwitz"(I say this to pay hommage to Mr Oblath), there could indeed be no explanation to the absence of Auschwitz, and consequently, there has been something of Auschwitz floating around for a long time, maybe even centuries, like the sombre fruit which ripens in the sparkling rays of countless humiliations, waiting for the right moment to fall on people's heads, since finally what is, and so it must be, since it is: the history of the world is the image and the accomplisment of the spirit (quoting H.), since to consider the world as a sequence of arbitrary coincidences would be to have a rather unworthy view of the world (quoting myself), therefore, let us not forget, that: He who views the world rationally, is viewed by the world rationally: both are mutually defined-as said H. not H. the dictator and chancellor, but H. the grandiose visionary, the mad philosopher, who serves refined dishes to all the dictators, to all the chancellors and other such official userpers...
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