WARNING !
CHECK IF THERE IS ANY DIRT
INSIDE YOUR GLOVES

The banality of evil is reflected in the banality of the phraseology of death, as preserved in orders, statistics, timetables and in daily logs, letters, reports of compliance etc. about supposedly commonplace actions being carried out in a banally normal manner. Quotation: "I was merely in charge of the implementation of the killing". There is no need whatever to add anything to what these documents say already in order to intensify the indictment or condemnation. In all that was put on record, the events speak for themselves.


As an author, I am committed to the task of opening the lid on this material. A victim of the phraseology of the banal during my youth, I now attempt to grasp it by the "transcription" method (taking a formalistic approach so as to bring the events that took place into even sharper focus).


The alphabet of German fascism is composed of words of death. Yet these words of death speak not so much of death as of ACCUMULATED TOTALS, APPEASEMENT, BEING EMIGRATED, CHILD DEPORTATION, CLEANSING, DISINFECTION, DISINFESTATION, GV, meaning GASSING VEHICLE, J-ACTIONS, J-SHIPMENTS, JEW CLEARANCE, PACIFICATION, PROCESSING, ROUND-UPS, SPECIAL ACCOMMODATION, SPECIAL PASSENGER RAIL TRAFFIC, ST, meaning SPECIAL TREATMENT, and all involve THE CONSIGNMENT crushing against the doors of the gassing vehicle.


Heimrad Bäcker, "Widerspiegelung", p.60-61, in Die Rampe, Hefte für Literatur, Land Oberösterreich, Linz, ed.3, 1994.


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