From one who knew.
‘The Trial’ by Ernst Toller from International Review. Vol. 1 No. 7. September-October, 1936.
“DO YOU WANT anything else?” asked the Gestapo official.
The youth’s empty eyes turned to the grated window which cut the sky into blue squares. In the yard rose a chestnut tree heavy with brown fruit. “Chestnuts,” he thought, “sweet chestnuts, good to eat. When ripe, they fall into your mouth. “I could eat myself full of chestnuts. If I could get away from here!”
“Did you understand what I said?” asked the official. “Do you have another wish?”
Did he have another wish? He had only wanted to get away from them. He only wanted to save himself from being beaten, kicked, spat on. Would he have jumped out of the window in fun?
“Perhaps you would like to see your mother—before you die?”
That was the word. Die. “Why must he say it? I know. I must die. Not so nice to say it to my face. He—the man with the job—will not die. He will soon leave for his home. Yes, I should very much like to see my mother once again.”—The boy regarded the official without seeing and nodded.
“I have already sent for your mother. She will soon be here. But I must first ask you to answer one question. Who gave you the handbills?” The official waited.
“So that is it, that’s it,” thought the youth. Nausea filled his throat. They had put a gag in his mouth to keep him from shrieking. And now he was expected to shout to betray his comrades.
“I will not betray.”
“Think of your mother.”
The youth looked at the ceiling.
He lived four more hours. Many questions can be asked in four hours. One every three minutes, makes eighty. This was an efficient official. He understood his job. He had liquidated many cases; quite a number were those of men at the point of death. There are tricks to the game. At some you shout; to others you coo. This one yields to threats, the other to patting and kind talk.
“You know I want to help you,” said the official. But the young man no longer heard shouted or whispered questions. He died without talking.
The next day the newspapers printed the following brief notice:
“As an official of the Gestapo was about to arrest the young worker T. in Stuttgart for distributing seditious handbills, the latter threw himself out of the third story window of his home. His backbone broken, he remained lying in the courtyard of the house. After several days, he died in the police cell of the hospital.”
Translated by H.J. From “Neue Weltbuhne,” Praha, Czechoslovakia.
International Review was a short-lived, independent Marxist journal edited by Herman Gerson, pen name Integer, which hosted writers of the anti-Stalinist left, best known for its translation and publication of Rosa Luxemburg’s ‘Reform or Revolution’.
PDF of full issue: https://archive.org/download/international-review-1936_september-october-1936_1_7/international-review-1936_september-october-1936_1_7.pdf
