December 2, 1944
Introduction to the content
In The True Image, Curt Bloch describes Germany’s devotion to portraits of Adolf Hitler. The Führer’s images adorned offices, living rooms, coffee cups, coins, and even pipe bowls. Germans built home altars for him. For many years, they danced the “Adolf Hitler trot.” He was the “German God.” But his promised heavenly realm did not arrive, and the true image was different: “You are starving and in rags.”
Curt Bloch cannot and does not want to celebrate his Hidden Birthday 1944. He can’t risk receiving guests who might bring him congratulations and gifts. In his hiding place, he already feels “dead and not human.” But he hopes to soon live in freedom again and plans to celebrate his “re-birthday” joyfully and ceremoniously.
Day of the Russian Revolution, 7 November 1944, reflects on a speech by Joseph Stalin. Curt Bloch thinks “with pleasure” about the 1917 revolution and sees the Soviet Union as “a refuge for the oppressed” because it upholds “human rights high and holy.” In contrast, Germany, which sought to harm Russia, is hated worldwide. Now Stalin stands with his Soviet army at the gates of the Third Reich and will plant his flag on the ruins of Berlin.
In the short poem Years (9-11-44), Curt Bloch contemplates the transience of human life. It seems that everything was better in the past. He cannot predict whether the future will bring good or bad years, but due to war and the persecution of Jews, “do we go like dried-up leaves … early on the path to eternity?” Bloch is determined to survive until liberation: “First, peace must come, and a new time for us.”
In English Hardships, Curt Bloch comments on an article from the “Illustrierter Beobachter,” which includes a British cartoon that addresses the lack of basic supplies in Britain and concludes that the Germans are faring much better. Bloch exposes this German propaganda as a clumsy diversionary maneuver and contrasts it with three German illustrations that show equally significant shortages of clothing, coal, and craftsmen in Germany.
