Yossl Rakover si rivolge a Dio - Text fragments

(tuning of instruments... narrator)

In the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, among piles of rubble and charred human bones, the following testimoy was found hidden in a small bottle. It was written by a Jew whose name was Yosl Rakover during the last hours of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Warsaw, 28 April, 1943

(The music begins: first, solo trumpet, then the whole ensemble. During the second repetition, the music fades and the spoken voice begins. Music continues in background..)

I, Yosl, son of David Rakover from Tarnopol, a follower of the Ger rabbi, a descendent of the righteous, wise and sainted of the Rakover and Meissl families, write these lines as the houses of the Warsaw Ghetto burn and the one I'm in is one of the last not yet burning. For some hours now, we have been under ferocious bombing and the concentric fire destroys the walls around me, making them crumble.

It won't last long. This house, as all the other Ghetto houses, will also change into a tomb for its defenders and its inhabitants. From the sun's rays, red and sharp as spears, which penetrate the half walled window of the room I'm in and through which we have fired on the enemy day and night, I can tell that it will soon be evening, just before sundown. Of course, the sun is unaware of how little it pains me never to see it again. Something strange has happened to us: all our concepts and feelings have changed. Immediate death – swift and timely – appears to us as a liberation, a deliverance which will break our chains. The wild beasts of the forest seem to me so gentle and kind that my soul aches to hear them being compared to the criminals which today dominate Europe. It is not true that Hitler has something beastly about him. He is – of this I'm profoundly convinced – a typical child of modern humanity. He was generated and brought up by the whole of humanity and is a sincere interpreter of its most intimate secrets. (...)