Issue of Statistics

From the Nuremberg testimony of Dr. Wilhelm Höettl, SS-Sturmbannführer, Directorate VI of the RSHA (Reich Main Security Office) regarding a September 1944 conversation with Eichmann about a report that Eichmann had prepared at Himmler’s request setting out how many Jews had, by then, been exterminated.


[…] Er sei auf Grund seiner Informationen dabei zu folgendem Ergebnis gekommen:
In den verschiedenen Vernichtungslagern seien etwa vier Millionen Juden getötet worden, während weitere zwei Millionen auf andere Weise den Tod fanden, wobei der Großteil davon durch die Einsatzkommandos der Sicherheitspolizei während des Feldzuges gegen Rußland durch Erschißen getötet wurde.
Himmler sei mit dem Bericht nicht zufrieden gewesen, da nach seiner Meinung die Zahl der getöteten Juden größer als 6 Millionen sein müsse. Himmler hat erklärt, dass er einen Mann von seinem statistischen Amt zu Eichmann schicken werde, damit dieser auf Grund des Materials von Eichmann einen neuen Bericht verfasse, wo die genaue Zahl ausgearbeitet werden sollte.
[…]




([..] On the basis of his data, he (Eichmann) came to the following conclusions:

About 4 million Jews had been killed in various death camps and a further 2 million had been killed by other means, mostly through shooting by the Einsatzkommandos of the Security Police during the campaign against Russia.

Himmler was not pleased with the report because, in his view, the number of killed Jews should have been higher than 6 million. Himmler declared that he would send to Eichmann someone from his own statistical office who would, using Eichmann’s data, prepare a new report, in which a precise number could be determined.”[…])

Instructions for Disposal of Property

(from Deputy Director of the Main Economic-Administrative Department of the SS to the commanding officers of the Lublin and Auschwitz concentration camps concerning the disposal of property of the exterminated Jewish population. The property was to be referred to as belonging to “thieves, fencers, and speculators” (“Diebes-, Hehler- und Hamstergut” ))



“1.

….
…
2. Alle Preise setzt das SS-W.-V.-Hauptamt fest, unter Beachtung gesetzlicher Richtpreise. Diese Festsetzung kann auch nachträglich stattfinden. -Zeit- und personalraubende-kleinliche-Wertfeststellungen können hierbei unterbleiben.

Im Allgemeinen sind Durchschnittsstückpreise festzusetzen, z. B. für eine gebrauchte Männerhose 3. – Mark, für eine Wolldecke 6. – Mark usw.

Für die Ablieferung der unbrauchbaren Gegenstände an das Reichwirtschaftsministerium sind im Allgemeinen Kilopreise zugrundezulegen.

Es ist streng darauf zu achten, daß bei allen zur Abgabe kommenden Kleidern und Überkleidern der Judenstern entfernt wird.

Es sind ferner mit größtmöglicher Sorgfalt alle zur Abgabe kommenden Gegenstände auf versteckte und eingenähte Werte zu untersuchen.


I.V.
F r a n k
SS-Brigadeführer
und Generalmajor der Waffen-SS”






2. All prices shall be set by the Main Economic-Administrative Department of the SS taking into consideration the official indicative prices. The valuation could take place at a later date as well. Detailed item-by-item valuation involving the time- and personnel-consuming procedures will not be necessary.

In general, it is desirable to set average prices per item, for instance, used man pants—M 3, a woolen blanket—M 6. For items considered useless that are delivered to the Reich Ministry of the Economy, the price should be set per kilogram of weight.

Close attention should be paid to the removal of the Star of David from the transferred under- and over-garments.

It is imperative to search with the greatest care the items to be transferred as they might contain hidden or sawn-in items of value.


Signed
F r a n k
SS Brigadeführer
and Generalmajor of Waffen-SS

Die Jüdin Ita Bryt

“Im Namen des Deutschen Volkes!
Strafsache gegen
die Jüdin Ita Bryt aus Wachock, Kolejowastraße 20, geb. am
15.11.1910 in Wachock, ledig, Tochter des Moszek u.d. Laja, geb.
Wierzbicka,
wegen unbefugten Verlassens des Wohnbezirks
Das Sondergericht Radom im Generalgouvernement hat in der Sitzung
vom -7. Mai 1942, -an welcher teilgenommen haben:
beauftr. Richter Langenmayr
als Vorsitzender,
beauftr. Richter von der Warth
beauftr. Richter Heyne
als beisitzender Richter
beauftr. Staatsanwalt Ballat
als Beamter der Staatsanwaltschaft,
Justizangesteller Cilwik
als Urkundsbeamter der Geschäftsstelle,
für Recht erkannt:
Die Angeklagte wird wegen unbefugten Verlassens des jüdischen
Wohnbezirks zum Tode verurteilt.
Die Angeklagte hat die Kosten des Verfahrens zu tragen.”




.
.
The accused was Ita Bryt, age 32.
The case was decided by Judges Langenmayr, von der Warth, and Heyne.
The crime was leaving the ghetto without permission.
The punishment was death.
The costs of the proceedings were assessed against the accused.

Science, Love And Poetry

At the very end
of "The Psychology of Love"--
A long scholarly book
with footnotes and end notes
and abundant citations,--
After the literature review
And plenty of original research,
The author, a well known professor
From a renown university,
Got down to providing
The answer to the question
Of what romantic love is:

""Ninety percent, sexual desire not yet sated."

If her academic career stalls,
She might do well writing poetry.

Reading Comprehension

In middle school,
I read "War and Peace"
And skipped all the boring parts
About peace and sad parts
About war as well.

In high school,
I read "Anna Karenina"
And skipped all about her
And Vronsky too
Because I liked
Kitty and Levin more.

I college I read
"The Magic Mountain"
And skipped the big fight
Between Naphta and Settembrini
Because the very same fight
Ripped my family apart.

Now I don't skip;
Books like "Metamorphosis",
"Heart of Darkness", "1984"
need to be read
like airline safety cards.

Fortuitous Poem from the Talmud

A man had two wives,
One young, one old.
The young one pulled out his gray hair,
The old one, his black.
Thanks to both wives,
He became bold.

(Bava Kamma 60)

Fortuitous Poem from NYT Magazine Interview about Divorce, II

It’s funny, my ex and I had a lot of the same habits—we loved the same TV and the same junk food. But in general we were complete opposites. I was the spoiled, better-educated, well-traveled wild girl, and he was a meat-and-potatoes Long Island boy. In retrospect, we were not compatible at all. I mean, who doesn’t like TV and junk food?

Fortuitous Poem from NYT Magazine Interview About Divorce, I

I thought he was hot—I liked his Robert Smith Hair and hipster clothes. He was intelligent, clever and deeply kind. He had all those creative pursuits that he was really engages in and pretty good at, but didn’t seem to have any illusions about being able to make a living doing them. He also has this absolutely infectious enthusiasm that can make the world seem like an almost magical place, and when we started dating, he got really enthusiastic about me. I felt calmed, like he smoothed out my rough edges, in a good way.

But some of those things begun to change even before we got married. He gained some weight and stopped paying as much attention to how he looked, and his creative output slowed dramatically. Instead, he begun spending most of his time playing video games and watching television.

Fortuitous Poem by Patti Smith

“One Indian summer day we dressed in our favorite things,
Me in my beatnik sandals and ragged scarves,
And Robert with his love beads and sheepskin vest.
We took the subway to West Fourth Street and spent the afternoon in Washington Square.
We shared coffee from a thermos, watching the stream of tourists, stoners and folksingers.
Agitated revolutionaries distributed antiwar leaflets.
Chess players drew a crowd of their own.
Everyone coexisted within the continuous drone of verbal diatribes, bongos, and barking dogs.

We were walking toward the fountain, the epicenter of activity, when an older couple stopped and openly observed us.
Robert enjoyed being noticed and he affectionately squeezed my hand.

“Oh, take their picture,” said the woman to her bemused husband, “I think they’re artists.”

“Oh, go on,” he shrugged. “They are just kids.”

Fortuitous Poem by Walmart, Inc.

Regal Wide Body,
White Heaven,
Mom Remembered,
Pieta and Last Summer,
Lady de Guadalupe,
Lovely in All Ways,
Sienna,
Sterling De Luxe,
Executive Privilege,
American Rose,
American Patrio,
Supreme Distinction,
Supreme Distinction Cameo Rose,
Dad Remembered.

Fortuitous Poem by Roberto Bolano

“This is a big city, a real city,”
Said Chucho Flores.
“We have everything.
Factories, maquiladoras,
One of the lowest unemployment rates in Mexico,
A cocaine cartel,
A constant flow of workers from other cities,
Central American immigrants,
An urban infrastructure that can’t support the level of demographic growth.
We have plenty of money and poverty,
We have imagination and bureaucracy,
We have violance and the desire to work in peace.
There is just one thing we haven’t got,”
Said Chucho Flores.
Oil, thought Fate, but he didn’t say it.
“What don’t you have?” he asked.
“Time,” said Chucho Flores. “We haven’t got any fucking time.”

Fortuitous Poem by Robert Penn Warren, II

We would have no doubt have gone that night too,
If the rain had been a different kind of rain,
If it had been a light sweet rain,
Falling out of a high sky,
The kind that barely whispers
With a silky sound on the surface of the water
You are swimming in,
Or, if it had been a driven, needle pointed, cold cathartic rain
To make you want run along the beach
And yell before you took refuge in the sea,
Or even if it had been a torrent,
The kind you get on the Gulf,
That is like nothing so much as what happens
When the bottom finally bursts
Out of a big paper bag
Suspended full of water.

Fortuitous Poem by Robert Penn Warren

A month from now,
In early April,
At the time when far away,
Outside the city,
The water hyacinths would be covering every inch
Of bayou, lagoon, creek and backwater,
With a spiritual-mauve to obscene purple,
Violent, vulgar, fleshy, solid,
Throttling mass of bloom over the black water,
And the first heartbreaking, misty green,
Like girlhood dreams,
On the old cypresses would have settled down to be leaf,
And not a damn thing else,
And the arm-thick, mud-colored, slime-slick mocassins
Would heave out of the swamp
And try to cross the highway
And your front tire hitting one would give a slight bump
And make a sound like kerwhush
And a tinny thump when he slapped heavily up
Against the underside of the fender,
And the insects would come boiling out of the swamps
And day and night the whole air would vibrate with them
With a sound like an electric fan,
And, if it was night,
The owls back in the swamps would be whoo-ing and moaning
Like love and death and damnation,
Or one would sail out of pitch dark
Into the rays of your headlights
And plunge against the radiator
To explode like a ripped feather bolster,
And the fields would be deep
In that rank, hairy or slick, juicy, sticky grass
Which the cattle gorge on and never gets flesh over their ribs,
For that grass is in that soil
And no matter how far the roots could ever go,
If the roots were God knows how deep,
There would never be anything
But that black, grease-clotted soil
And no stone down there to put calcium in that grass.

Fortuitous Poem by Philip Roth

So that Mr. Scapello
Would not descend upon the boy
With his chalky fingers,
I walked up the three flights to Stack Three,
Past the receiving room
Where rheumy-eyed Jimmy Boylen,
Our fifty-one-year-old boy,
Unloaded books from the cart;
Past the reading room,
Where bums off Mulberry Street
Slept over Popular Mechanics;
Past the smoky corridor,
Where dump-browed students
From the law school relaxed,
Some smoking, some trying to rub
The colored dye from their tort texts
Off their finger tips;
And, finally, past the periodicals rooms,
Where a few ancient ladies,
Who had been motored down
From upper Montclair
Now huddled in their chairs,
Pince-nezing over yellowed, fraying society pages
In old, old copies of the Newark News.

Fortuitous Poem by Leszek Kolakowski

There came a point, however,
That philosophers had to confront
A simple painfully undeniable fact:
That of the questions that have sustained
European philosophy
For two and a half millenia,
Not a single one
Has been answered
To general satisfaction.

Fortuitous Poem by Juan Gabriel Vasquez

I have spent several years now
Teaching people to speak
And today I want to speak to you
About what is not said,
What is beyond the tale,
The account,
The reference.
…
Today I have come to keep quiet
And protect the silence
Of those who have kept it.
I shall not speak…

Fortuitous Poem by Wallace Stegner

If we could have foreseen the future during those good days in Madison where all this began, we might have had the nerve to venture into it.
I find myself wondering whatever happened to the people, friends and otherwise, with whom we started out.
Whatever happened to poor Mr. Hagler, who had only his salary? Whatever happened to Marvin and Wanda Ehrlich, and the Abbots, and the Stones.
How much would they understand, from their own experience, of what has happened to us?
I hope they have done more than survive.
I hope they have found ways to impose some sort of order of their chaos.
I hope they have found enough pleasure along the way so that they don’t want it ended, as Sid may right now be trying to persuade himself he does.
…
And now I see the figure, dusty-gold in moonlight, coming steadily up the road from the stable. It is blurred, its shadow encumbers its feet, but it comes without pause, is if timing itself to meet the family coming down from the hill.
“Sid?” I say.
“Yes,” he says.

AC Man

"So how much cooling were you getting last summer?"
The burly AC man asked.

"Not much. Thought it was my wife
Fooling with the thermostat."

"Wives. They aren't always the problem.
Your Freon was low."

Poor Folks

The poor are just like you,
Except that
On a good day,
They are poor but surviving,
Though still worrying,
More than you can imagine,
About the bad day
When they might not.

So they go out and buy
This very expensive insurance
Against that day:

Letting distant relative board in her house for free;
Slipping the teacher $20 not to report her kid helping skipping classes to deliver meals;
Working for a pimp whose father was her mother pimp;
Refusing jobs that don't come through the preacher who takes his cut but doesn't forget;

Properly examined,
Poverty is a success
In a struggle against destitution.

On their wedding night

On their wedding night
He said to her:
"I suppose that
Having lived all that time
together would make it hard
to make this a big occasion",
To which she replied:
"Suppose all you want
But I have work to do."
"Work to do?"
"A speech, to be precise"
"A speech?"
"Yes. I have prepared a speech
To a certain body part of yours;
You may wish to listen as well,
Learn a few things this way."
"I am all ears." "Whatever.
I need you to move this way.
Now. Here is the deal.
You have a choice, my friend:
On the one hand,
You can have a life of comfort
Satisfaction, happiness
With all your needs taken care
By a very attentive attendant
Who will be on duty
Most nights and weekend days;
On the other hand,
You will have a life
Of eternal boredom
In a glass jar full of formaldehyde
In a forensic storage facility
Visited by people who will
Point to you and say:
Remember that case?
The jury acquitted her
After she explained to them
What a great deal it had."

Two Demons

Maxwell's Demon
Is a clever little fellow
Who looks at molecules of air
Coming towards him
And, if they are in a hurry,
He opens a tiny trap door
To a container next door
Fooling thereby
The Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Poetry's Demon
is a strange little fellow
Who looks at particles of the world
Coming towards him,
And, if they are otherworldly,
Open is tiny trap door
Tp our amygdala
Fooling thereby
The First Law of Pointlessness.

Pluralitas Non Est Ponenda Sine Necessitate

Necessary pluralities:
Samsa's lazy father,
Karenin's pointy ears,
Oniegin's amber pipes,
Dr. Bovary's clubfoot case
Achilles' shaggy breast,
Mr. Bleaney's sixty-wat bulb,
Aren't subject to Occam's razor.

Parable of Poetry Translators

One day, people who read poetry are given the gift of languages, of being able to read poetry in all the different languages. As they gorge themselves on the poetic riches they discover, the market, meager as it was, for poetry translations collapses. Translators turn to substitute teaching, babysitting, and landscaping. Soon, however, the readers' happiness vanes. With each wonderful poem they discover in other languages, they start to feel the absence of such poem in their own language. The more the find, the more they feel a sense of loss, a sense of negative poetry, a zone of emptiness that is poised to engulf them. They beg translators to go back to work and start translating again. The translators agree but drive a hard bargain: the poetry readers can keep their languages but must agree to never offer any criticism when a translator gets the meter and the rhyme of the poem but changes "ocean" to "sea".

Poetry Workshop Brought To Standstill

As the first session was about to end
The elderly gentleman in the back,
Who hadn't spoken at all,
Blurted out suddenly:

"I wonder if anyone could help me;
I love my grandchildren
But I am now the same age
My father was when Alzheimer
Took his mind away
And I remember my kids
Refused to spent any time with him.
I am afraid that what happened to him
Is happening to me too
And I thought if I memorized some things
It would slow it down.
Even a little bit.
Can anyone here
Suggest a poem I could start with?"

In the silence that followed
All of us poetry lovers
Looked down on our papers;
Our teacher went up to the man
And gently took him outside.

Micro Philosophy

"I think, therefore I am"
Is a deep truth;

"If I thought about my wife
while married as much
as I think about her
in divorce, I would still
be married."
Is an equally deep truth.

Fortuitous Poem by Neal Stephenson

Let's set the Existence-of-God issues aside,
And just stipulate that in some way
Self-replicating organisms came into existence on this planet
And immediately began trying to get rid of each other
Either by spamming their environment with rough copies of themselves,
Or by more direct means which hardly need to be belabored.

Channel 101 at 4 AM

Channel 101 at 4 am
offers for sale,
a bit too frantically
for so early in the morning
or so late at night,
two fine products, viz.
Miracle Spring Water and
The Anointed Faith Tool,
that will, according to
specific testimonials of
satisfied customers
cure cervical cancers,
erase IRS debts,
arrange for divine money transfers,
get rid of your drug addiction and
get you a new house with no down payment.


Channels 700-733 at the same time,
offer HD versions of different tales
of explosions that kill the bad guys
but good guys fly through the air
and gracefully pick themselves up;
of bullets that drill only tiny holes
with blood that, oh so tastefully shows itself on the clothes
of vicious creatures that like scary music,
of zombies, vampires, and creatures from outer space.
or the attic, the basement, or the space behind the mirror

I switch back and forth and there is no doubt
people on Channel 101 look more believable:
their hair color is garish,
their teeth are bad,
their skin is pockmarked
their waistlines don't know what a gym is.
Their stories show some promise but could be improved,
a script doctor or two could do it easily,
maybe the creature from the lagoon could deposit the money,
and the rapid sharks could eat the IRS tax collectors,
and vampires could cure cancer by biting the zombies.

Maybe even do something about insomnia.