June 17, 1944
Introduction to the content
In NSB Religion Bloch makes the argument that the Dutch Nazi movement presents itself as an unshakeable faith. He describes the call for obedience to the will of Hermann Göring, Anton Mussert, and Arthur Seyss-Inquart, and consideration of Adolf Hitler’s orders as divine commands. The gatherings at the Kringhuis are meetings at the temple, and the weekly newspaper “Volk en Vaderland” is the Bible of the National Socialists. However, this false idolatry will eventually come to an end. When their gods fall, so too will they.
Antisemitic Semites refers to Bosnian Muslims who join the German Wehrmacht and SS volunteer units, manipulated by Hitler into a “racial delusion” of superiority to the despised Jews. To Bloch these guys look just like “Jewish boys with distinctly Jewish crooked noses” and – like Jews – are despised by the National Socialists. Especially since they belong to the Orient and are related to Jews. Addressing their outward appearance, Bloch last line asks, “Do we really need to be antisemitic even with such noses?”
During the occupation, more than 150,000 citizens of the occupied Netherlands were forced into labor service in Germany, mainly in armaments production. Being granted a vacation in their Dutch homeland depended on the determination of the authorities. In the poem Vacation Bans, Bloch describes how Dutch men look forward to returning to their wives and children but repeatedly have to postpone their trips due to travel prohibitions; and will only receive a “big leave” if the Allies succeed in their invasion.
Illustrated Magazines to the Front! echoes the call the reader finds in print from publishers to send magazines to the front lines to entertain the soldiers, who must “be bored.” Bloch pastes these call he finds in the pages between his own lines of rhyme, remarking on how – depending on who the publisher is – the language of these appeals ranges from “Viennese charm” to an order with a “Hitlerian tone.”
Commenting on an extensive Nazi analysis of when and how the upcoming allied invasion will take place, Bloch encourages his readership: “Persevere!” The predicted offensives of Germany’s wartime enemies will come, and liberation will happen. As usual, the Nazi propaganda’s prediction of what is to come is flat-out wrong.
