War Primer. Bertolt Brecht
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Название: War Primer
Автор: Bertolt Brecht
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Историческая литература
isbn: 9781784782092
isbn:
So you may have what you’ve been pining for
This sexy carrot might bring satisfaction.
A pinup for your tent on distant shores!
They say such pictures rouse the dead to action!
Woman of Thailand (Siam) peers out of a crude bomb shelter in Sichiengmai at American bomber from French Indo-China come to bomb border hovels.
Hoping to keep concealed throughout the fighting
While would-be rulers wrestled in the air
The frightened people looked for holes to hide in
And watched their masters battling from down there.
Back from the battlefront near Buna in New Guinea comes a blinded Australian infantryman helped by a kindly Papuan native. Both men are barefoot.
And when the bitter fight grew less intense
The man who helped me back was kind to me
And in his silence I began to sense
No understanding, but some sympathy.
Alas, poor Yorick of the burnt-out tank!
Upon an axle-shaft your head is set.
Your death by fire was for the Domei Bank
To whom your parents still remain in debt.
In school we learned of an Avenger who
Would punish all injustice here on earth.
We went to kill, and met with Death. Now you
Must punish those whose orders sent us forth.
Best take your enemy’s little lost brother
Out of the battle line that you’ve defended.
That he and your son live to tell each other
Just how it was that wars like this were ended.
German bombs await use under olive trees.
Workers polishing torpedo cylinders.
O olive tree, spreading your kindly leaves
To screen my brother’s killers from the sun
You’re like those women stooping, heads in scarves
To shape torpedoes for the common man.
An American soldier stands over a dying Jap who he has just been forced to shoot. The Jap had been hiding in the landing barge, shooting at US troops.
And with their blood they were to colour red
A shore that neither owned. I hear it said
That they were forced to kill each other. True.
My only question is: who forced them to?
REFUGEES WITHOUT REFUGE: This Jewish mother and child were picked out of the sea, along with 180 others who sought refuge in Palestine. But 200 were drowned when the Salvator smashed on the rocky coast of Turkey. And the Salvator wasn’t the first. The Patria exploded with 1771 aboard. The Penttcho foundered on an isle off Italy with 500. The Pacific was forced to sail from Palestine with 1062 and the Milos with 710. Then there is the Odyssey of the 500 Jews on a ship for four months, shunted from port to port. They come from all over Europe, packed like cattle in unseaworthy vessels. Where can they go, these 7,000,000 European Jews? Palestine’s quota is 12,000 a year. The freighters and cattleboats carry a new kind of cargo—a new kind of human bootleg. Last year 26,000 were smuggled into Palestine. But what of the 7,000,000? The baby can play with his foot—for he’s home in his mother’s arms. He doesn’t know his father was drowned in the Sea of Marmora. Only his mother knows the double-death of drowning in sight of shore.
And many of us drowned just off the beaches.
The long night passed, the sky began to clear.
If they but knew, we said, they’d come and seek us.
That they did know, we still were unaware.
Alas, our overlords have fallen out.
Over our country, waterless and blighted
Three foreign armies now are in dispute.
Only against us are all three united.
“Restoring the normal flow of life”—AMG officers sell American flour to Italian civilians.
We bring you flour, and a refurbished king!
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