Letters to the Editor

by the Readers

Master of Puppets

I respect Toby Zinman's right to state her views in her review of Mum Puppettheatre's production of The Puppetmaster of Lodz [Arts, "Strings Detached," Nov. 11, 2004]. However, she owes it to her readers and to history to get facts straight and separate from her opinion before her critique becomes part of the public record.

1. Zinman asserts that we have "mistranslated" the three words that stood over the entrance gates of the Nazi's death camps: ARBEIT MACHT FREI. These three words are never punctuated and always capitalized. Capitalization in German is important, turning the verb "macht" into the noun meaning "strength" or "might." In no case does it mean "brings" as stated by Zinman. Perhaps Zinman, like many people, is only acquainted with the standard (and rough) translation of these words into "work makes freedom." However, the German word for "freedom" is "Freiheit;" FREI means "free," which contains many more layers and shadings of meaning, some of which Zinman might have been open to, had she left her preconceptions at the door.

2. Zinman questions that it was young men who were selected to serve in the death camps as the Sonderkommando, the prisoners who had to sort through the bodies of the gassed, drag them to the crematoria and clean out the ovens afterwards. These men lasted only a few months before willingly walking into the gas chambers themselves, so Samuel Finkelbaum could have only spent some weeks at Birkenau before the camp was liberated. Married at 18 before being sent to Birkenau and spending five years in hiding, Finkelbaum would be in his early 20s, exactly like the actor playing him.

3. Finally, Zinman expresses disbelief that Finkelbaum was interned at Birkenau: "oddly, not Auschwitz," she writes. Birkenau was part of Auschwitz. Known as "Auschwitz II," it was the largest part of the Auschwitz complex. The Nazis began building it in 1941 on the site of the village of Brzezinka, three kilometers from Oswiecim, or Auschwitz, as it became known. The Polish civilian population was evicted and their houses confiscated and demolished. The greater part of the apparatus of mass extermination was built in Birkenau and the majority of the victims were murdered there.

It is precisely because people are making mistakes like this about the Holocaust, nearly 60 years after the end of World War II, that Mum decided to produce this play. Whatever one's opinion, the facts are the facts. You can look them up. We did.

Robert Smythe, Artistic Director
Mum Puppettheatre

Editor's note: Toby Zinman acknowledges that she misheard "Buchenwald" for "Birkenau" and regrets the error.

Goose Canon

A.D. Amorosi's comments regarding those who find foie gras objectionable and inhumane were way out of line [Naked City, "Icepack," Nov. 11, 2004]. People who are concerned about animal rights are not "moral jerk-offs." Maybe if Amorosi spent less time obsessing about which B-lister's been spotted at Tragos, he would be a little more knowledgeable. Or relevant.

Gabriel A. Morales

Center City

Correction

[Naked City, "Feeling Dirty Tonight," Brian Howard, Nov. 11, 2004] reported that Hahnemann Hospital's new decontamination unit is the only freestanding unit in the city. Women's Medical Hospital in East Falls, formerly Medical College of Pennsylvania, also has a freestanding decontamination unit.