Danial's

A Question of Style

Adolf Eichmann speaking the words below while testifying in his own trial, must have sounded just like any other individual devoid of imagination who's driven by his passion for truth. When one is rightly or wrongly - doesn't really matter which - accused of or known for committing some act, it becomes imperative that one develop the right style in which to speak about it. This is then what forms the essence of what one becomes in their own mind. It's a way of becoming one with the surface of things. " .... They were building little wooden shacks, two, maybe three of them; they looked like two- or three-room cottages. Höfle told the police captain to explain the installation to me. And then he started in. He had a, well, let's say, a vulgar, uncultivated voice. Maybe he drank. He spoke some dialect from the southwestern corner of Germany, and he told me how he had made everything airtight. It seems they were going to hook up a Russian submarine engine and pipe the exhaust into the houses and the Jews inside would be poisoned. I was horrified. My nerves aren't strong enough ... I can't listen to such things... such things, without their affecting me. Even today, if I see someone with a deep cut, I have to look away. I could never have been a doctor. I still remember how I visualized the scene and began to tremble, as if I'd been through something, some terrible experience. The kind of thing that happens sometimes and afterwards you start to shake. Then I went to Berlin and reported to the head of the Security Police."

posted by Danial @ 03:57