SOS and Rilke
Terrance Flaherty
lycidas2 at earthlink.net
Thu Sep 7 13:42:27 CDT 2000
jbor wrote:
>
> They [the 175s] wouldn't have had "freedom" as such prior to their
> internment and they probably recognised that they wouldn't get "freedom" as
> such upon liberation: they no doubt recognised that the war wasn't about Gay
> Rights at all. And so, they opt for segregation: they simply adopt the
> tiered authority structure which was in place at Dora to regulate their own
> community. Probably because it functioned efficiently.
Well, the segregation or the "setting up utopias", as I
have already agreed, makes perfect sense, but I don't agree
with your
"Probably because it functioned efficiently."
>
> My argument is that his *presence* had "crossed the wall" precisely
> *because* of the fear of the SS guards. Weissmann's "presence" in Dora was
> symbolic rather than actual: it was reified in the guards' fear, their
> suppressed whisperings. What this "presence" represented for these prisoners
> was an authority beyond the SS command, beyond the oppression they
> experienced in the labour camp. Though the guards stopped talking when the
> prisoners were near, they caught the name, could still sense the fear, and
> so constructed an image of this leader: this was their "reach toward another
> shape as words trying to make their way through dreams." I submit that the
> 175s recognised his as an authority which was both "absolute" (i.e.
> god-like: one which could override or "transcend" the political authority of
> the regime, the immediate cruelty of their SS guards),
> the only logical connection I can see for that premise is that he is openly
> homosexual, and that this had been part of his "presence", or legend, which
> had seeped "through the wall" -- I read this phrase as a metaphor because
> Weissmann was *literally* a mid-ranking officer at the Mittelwerke while the
> prisoners were in Dora). This is why, imo, "the name has found its way this
> far east" to their encampment at Police, or thereabouts.
It's a good summary and the probability is not unlikely but
your summary here does not explain why the prisoners set up
a phantom SS in the first place, why they experience
liberation as banishment, why they are homesick for Dora?
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