L A U G H W I T H U S
T h e S e c o n d C z e c h C a b a r e t
F E L I X P R O K E Š ,
V Í T Ě Z S L AV “ P I D L A” H O R PAT Z K Y,
PAV E L W E I S S K O P F,
a n d PAV E L S T R Á N S K Ý
INTRODUCTION
In the summer of 2005 a text came to light which had long been considered
lost: The Second Czech Cabaret, also titled Laugh with Us.1
Several sources confirmed that the work had been performed in
Terezín/Theresienstadt: prisoner Josef Taussig’s notes for an essay he
planned to write on cabaret in the ghetto, and a poster, song lyrics, and
related documents preserved in the Terezín Memorial in the Czech
Republic.2 Survivors and their heirs have provided me with two separate
versions of the cabaret.
1 The title on the script is The Second Czech Cabaret. The title on the archival
documents described below is Laugh with Us, which is one of the first lines of the
cabaret’s opening song.
2 Josef Taussig, “O terezínských kabaretech,” in Miroslav Kárný, Jaroslova
Milotová, and Eva Lorencová (eds.), Terezínské studie a dokumenty 2001
(Prague: Academia, 2001), pp. 310–46; and the Terezín Memorial, inv. nos. PT
3826–31. Specific verses quoted by Taussig and the close correspondence of the
names on the poster with the names of the participants listed in the text confirm
that the two titles refer to the same cabaret.
IMAGE 7.1 (facing page) A souvenir poster for Laugh with Us.
Courtesy of the Terezín Memorial.
One of the versions was preserved by the family of co-author Felix
Prokeš (né Porges).3 The text is typewritten and extensive notes are
written onto the manuscript; the handwriting, according to his sons, is
Prokeš’s own. The notes include corrections and additions to the dialogue
as well as notes on entrances, exits and other stage directions.
The handwritten sheet music for the songs Prokeš composed for the
cabaret was also preserved in the collection.
The version of the text published here was provided by Hana
Lojínová (neé Ledererová) who received it from Prokeš in the ghetto for
her role as a dancer. Only a few notes in pencil were written on the
manuscript, also apparently in Prokeš’s handwriting. This manuscript
appears to be the later version; corrections that had been written by
hand in the Prokeš manuscript were incorporated into the typewritten
Lojínová manuscript, and in it the authors joke about events that took
place later in the spring and summer of 1944.4
Three of the authors of the cabaret—Prokeš, Horpatzky, and Stránský—
had worked together previously on another performance, Radio Show,
also published in this volume.5 About the fourth author, Pavel
Weisskopf, very little is known: he arrived in the ghetto in December
1942, on the same transport as Porges and Horpatzky, and was
deported to Auschwitz with the mass transports in the fall of 1944.
Much more is known about a figure who played an important role
in the cabaret and in Prokeš’s life: Elly Prokešová (neé Bernsteinová).
In her hometown of Jihlava/Iglau she acted in numerous Czech- and
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
168
THE AUTHORS
3 For more information on the collection, see the introduction to Radio Show in this
volume.
4 For example, the first scene in the Prokeš manuscript includes an April Fools’
Day joke. In the Lojínová manuscript that joke has been removed and in a new
sketch the performers refer to Announcements (Mitteilungen), the new name
given to the Daily Orders (Tagesbefehl) on April 15, 1944.
5 For more information on these authors, see the introduction to Radio Show in
this volume.
German-language performances.6 After her deportation to Terezín/
Theresienstadt in May 1942 she participated in the theatrical life of the
ghetto, performing, for example, the title role in the original operetta
Girl of the Ghetto.7 She and Prokeš became acquainted in the ghetto
and were married there on December 26, 1943.8 They performed
together in their own Czech-language cabaret and also appeared in
the German-language cabarets of Leo Strauss and Myra Strauss-
Gruhenberg.
Felix and Elly Prokeš were not deported further; they were liberated
in Terezín/Theresienstadt and returned to Prague. Since weddings in
the ghetto were not legally recognized, they married again in 1945.
Prokeš’s experience in the central provisions office of the ghetto
enabled him to assume a position at the Ministry of Agriculture. Elly
employed her talent for languages as a tour guide and a simultaneous
interpreter for films. After the war, neither of them was active in theater.
Their sons Miroslav, Jan, and Zdeněk were born in 1946, 1947, and
1950 respectively.
As Taussig wrote, Porges and Horpatzky’s cabaret was one of three
Czech cabarets in Terezín/Theresienstadt that “knew and admired the
Liberated Theater.”9 Their dialogues are clearly modeled on those of
that theater’s beloved comedy team, Jiří Voskovec and Jan Werich. In
Prokeš and Horpatzky’s first script, Radio Show, they and their fellow
performers took their audiences back to their pre-war lives. In Laugh
169
LAUGHWITHUS
THE SCRIPT
6 The Prokeš family preserved several clippings from her pre-war performances.
7 A poster for the operetta (in the original German, Ghettomädel) and several
songs have been preserved. See the Terezín Memorial, inv. nos. PT 3853 and PT
3899–3902. For an account of the performance see Philipp Manes, Als ob’s ein
Leben wär: Tatsachenbericht Theresienstadt 1942–1944 (Ben Barkow and
Klaus Leist eds.) (Berlin: Ullstein, 2005), p. 178.
8 The Prokeš family has also preserved wedding cards given to them by their
friends in the ghetto.
9 Taussig, “O terezínských kabaretech,” p. 313.
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
170
IMAGE 7.2 (above) Felix Prokeš and Elly Bernsteinová’s wedding, 1945.
Courtesy of Jan, Miroslav, and Zdeněk Prokeš.
IMAGE 7.3 (facing page, top) Vítězslav Horpatzky with his wife Anna, 1930s.
Courtesy of Eva Hirschová.
IMAGE 7.4 (facing page, bottom) Vítězslav Horpatzky’s transport card, showing the
second transport to Osvětím (Auschwitz).
Courtesy of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
171
LAUGHWITHUS
with Us: The Second Czech Cabaret they employ the opposite strategy:
they take them into the post-war future. In the script, they and their
friends from Terezín/Theresienstadt have returned to Prague and can
look back on their experiences from a safe distance. Using particularly
aggressive satire they trivialize even the most dangerous aspects of the
ghetto, making them appear—at least for a short time—less terrifying.
By selecting other experiences from the ghetto as ones they might
indeed remember fondly, they weave even Terezín/Theresienstadt
itself into a narrative that projects their own survival.
The names of the participants were listed on the script and on a poster
for the performance preserved in the Terezín Memorial.
THE AUTHORS
For biographical information on HORPATZKY, PROKEŠ, and STRÁNSKÝ, see
pp. 51–2 of this volume.
PAVEL WEISSKOPF was born on June 7, 1906. He was deported from
Prague to Terezín/Theresienstadt on December 4, 1941, and from
there to Auschwitz on September 28, 1944. He perished.
THE ACTORS AND OTHER PARTICIPANTS
ING. FRANT. (FRANTIŠEK) BERAN appears on the poster but not in the script.
He was born on March 21, 1901, deported to Terezín/Theresienstadt
from Prague on April 9, 1943, and to Auschwitz on September 28,
1944. He perished.
KAREL BERMAN (sometimes written Bermann; on the poster his name is
spelled BEERMANN), was born on April 14, 1919. He was deported from
Prague to Terezín/Theresienstadt on March 6, 1941, and on September
28, 1944, to Auschwitz. He was liberated in Allach.
ELLY PROKEŠOVÁ (née BERNSTEINOVÁ-PORGESOVÁ) was born on September
7, 1917. She was deported from Třebíč to Terezín/Theresienstadt on
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
172
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
May 18, 1942, and remained there until the liberation. She died on
January 29, 1975.
HANA KRAUSKOPFOVÁ, born on April 17, 1925, was deported from Prague
to Terezín/Theresienstadt on March 9, 1943, and on October 1, 1944,
to Auschwitz. She was liberated in Mauthausen.
HANA (HANKA) LOJÍNOVÁ (NÉE LEDEREROVÁ), born on October 3, 1923, was
deported from Prague to Terezín/Theresienstadt on September 12,
1942, and remained there until the liberation.
KURT MAIER (sometimes written Meyer; on the poster his name is
spelled MEIER), born on February 17, 1911, was deported from Prague
to Terezín/Theresienstadt on December 4, 1941, and on October 1,
1944, to Auschwitz. He survived.
PAVEL MAIER (sometimes written PAUL MAYER), born on August 17, 1919,
was deported from Brno/Brünn to Terezín/Theresienstadt on January
28, 1942, and on September 28, 1944, to Auschwitz. He perished in
Dachau on January 24, 1945.
FRANTIŠEK WEISSENSTEIN, born on February 15, 1899, was deported from
Prague to Terezín/Theresienstadt on November 30, 1941, and on
September 28, 1944, to Auschwitz. He perished.
THE SURVIVORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE INTRODUCTION
AND ANNOTATION
LUDĚK ELIÁŠ (né ECKSTEIN) was born on July 29, 1923. He was deported
from Kladno to Terezín/Theresienstadt on February 26, 1942, and to
Auschwitz on May 18, 1944. He was selected for labor and sent
to Schwarzheide, a satellite camp of Sachsenhausen. He survived
a death march from Schwarzheide and was liberated in Terezín/
Theresienstadt. He currently resides in Ostrava/Mährisch Ostrau.
JAN FISCHER was born on July 19, 1921. He was deported from Prague
to Terezín/Theresienstadt on December 4, 1941, and to AuschwitzBirkenau
on September 28, 1944. He was selected for labor and was
liberated at Blechhammer. He currently resides in Prague.
173
LAUGHWITHUS
DORIS GROZDANOVIČOVÁ (née SCHIMMERLINGOVÁ) was born on April 7,
1926. She was deported to the ghetto from Brno/Brünn on January 28,
1942. She was liberated in the ghetto. She resides in Prague.
MARIANNE FOLTÝNOVÁ (née MÜLLEROVÁ) was born on October 19, 1922.
She was deported from Prague to Terezín/Theresienstadt on February
8, 1942, and was liberated there. She currently resides in Prague.
HANA REINEROVÁ was born on April 19, 1921. She was deported to
Terezín/Theresienstadt on July 5, 1943, and to Auschwitz on October
1, 1944. She was liberated in Mauthausen. She died on June 1, 2007.
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
174
LAUGH WITH US
The Second Czech Cabaret
CAST
Franta Weissenstein
Karel Bermann
Kurt Meier
Elly Bernsteinová
Felix Porges
Pidla Horpatzky
Hanka Ledererová
Pavel Meier
Hanka Krauskopfová
Pavel Weisskopf
PROGRAM
1. OPENING: F. Porges
2. “LONG LIVE CABARET” (Song): E. Bernsteinová
3. FIRST DIALOGUE: F. Porges, P. Horpatzky
4. THREE FOLK SONGS: P. Meier
a. “I Had a Dream, My Lass”
b. “Tovačov”
c. “On the Lord’s Meadows”
5. SECOND DIALOGUE: F. Porges, P. Horpatzky
6. BAR SCENE
a. ECCENTRIC DANCE (“Pink Crinoline”): H. Ledererová
b. TWO SONGS: E. Bernsteinová
I. “Andalusian Nights” (Tango)
II. “Abandoned” (Slow foxtrot)
c. DUO: E. Bernsteinová, H. Krauskopfová
175
LAUGHWITHUS
I. Express foxtrot
II. “Tavern in Odessa” (Tango)
III. “Merry Multiplication” (Foxtrot)
d. ACCORDION SOLO: K. Meier
I. Second Hungarian Rhapsody by Lizst
in a jazz arrangement
II. Variations on the song
7. THIRD DIALOGUE: F. Porges, P. Horpatzky
8. TWO OPERA ARIAS: F. Weissenstein
a. Jeník’s aria from The Bartered Bride
b. Aria from Dalibor
9. FOURTH DIALOGUE: F. Porges, P. Horpatzky
10. CZECH AND SLOVAK DANCES: E. Bernsteinová, H. Ledererová
11. FIFTH DIALOGUE: F. Porges, P. Horpatzky
12. TWO SONGS: K. Bermann
a. Friml: “In Quiet Nights”
b. Blodek: “Spring Song”
13. SIXTH DIALOGUE: F. Porges, P. Horpatzky
14. SEVENTH DIALOGUE AND COUPLET: F. Porges, P. Horpatzky
15. EPILOGUE: F. Porges, P. Horpatzky
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
176
1. OPENING
PORGES. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our second original
Czech cabaret. We intend to offer you a cheerful evening. We
want, we want . . . but why should I give you a long explanation;
you’ll find out what we really want from this little song
I wrote. So that it stays in the family, my wife will sing it to
you. Accompanying her, and the rest of the program, Kurt
Meier.
2. “LONG LIVE CABARET”10
Lyrics: Pavel Stránský and Felix Porges
Music: Felix Porges
E. BERNSTEINOVÁ. Ladies and gentlemen,
Come laugh with us again
We’re glad to have you at our show
We welcome all of you
You know that after
A dose of laughter
You’ll feel renewed.
Boys, girls of every age
Fans of the cabaret
All friends from far and near
We’re glad you’re here.
Young and old alike fall in love with jazz,
When they hear the music, they start to dance
Everyone who’s young at heart
Picks up the beat and wants to take part.
177
LAUGHWITHUS
10 See original music for “Long Live Cabaret” (“Ať žije kabaret”) on p. 217 of this
volume, IMAGE 7.9.
Everyone who shares our philosophy
And tries to look at life optimistically
Hurry friends come quickly
And join us under our flag.
You young folks, so full of vitality,
And all those, who love rhythm and melody
Calling everybody, whose pulse beats fast
At the thought of sharing in song and dance
Old and young, oh all hear
The call to arms.
Spectators, fans and friends
Don’t miss a single second ’cause we promise
you’ll have fun
Something for everyone
We’ll entertain you
With the refrains you
Love oh so well.
Once more before we start
We wish you from the heart:
Let a happy-end11 befall you
One and all.
3. FIRST DIALOGUE
In the rear a backdrop of City12 on Wenceslas Square.
WEISSKOPF (in the voice of a newspaper boy, backstage). Evening,
evening edition of Czech Word, tomorrow morning’s A-Z,
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
178
11 In the original Czech script the English expression “happy-end” (written with a
hyphen) is used.
12 City was the name of a clothing store on Wenceslas Square, the heart of
Prague’s business district. The wide sidewalk in front of the store was a favorite
meeting point. Jan Fischer, interview with Lisa Peschel, March 9, 2006.
special edition of the Telegraph: Murder of a police inspector
in Ostrovní street.13
Porges and Horpatzky enter with newspapers in their hands.
HORPATZKY (reading). New maximum prices: Pork—13 crowns 45
hellers; white bread—25 hellers. You know, my dear colleague,14
you never read such things in Terezín; there the most-read
section was the lost and found. Do you remember? A person
kept reading that some bridge had lost its head.
PORGES. That a bridge lost its head? What kind of nonsense are you
talking about?
HORPATZKY. Well, a bridgehead15 got lost, sometimes initiative got
lost, even airplanes got lost, every day.16
WEISSKOPF (in the newspaper-boy voice). Special edition: Murder of a
police inspector.
HORPATZKY. Or you know, a nice pork chop there cost a thousand
crowns, but on the other hand, no one murdered any police
inspector.17
PORGES. Surprising, isn’t it. You know, though, things were altogether
different there than they are anywhere else.18 I’m qualified to
judge. I know the world well enough; I have been here, there
and everywhere.
179
LAUGHWITHUS
13 The film Murder in Ostrovní Street (Vražda v Ostrovní ulici, 1933) was based
on an actual murder case. Luděk Eliáš, interview with Lisa Peschel, May 30, 2010.
14 This address (in Czech, pane kolego) was typical of Voskovec and Werich.
15 In the Czech original the authors use the German word Brückenkopf (bridgehead).
The word has the same military meanings in German as in English: a type
of fortification allowing for control of a bridge or an advanced position seized in
hostile territory.
16 These veiled references satirize Nazi military defeats, news of which had
reached the ghetto by the summer of 1944.
17 According to all accounts there was virtually no violent crime among the prisoners.
See Adler, Theresienstadt, pp. 486–7.
18 The dialogue that follows (through Horpatzky’s line “Prague, ah”) was apparently
inspired by a dialogue between Voskovec and Werich from their revue
Golem (1931). A recording is available on the CD Osvobozené divadlo 2 (Prague:
Ultraphon 1994), track 6.
HORPATZKY. I’ve been to those places too.
PORGES. So you understand, don’t you. You know, so often there I
reminisced: Ah, Prague.
HORPATZKY. Not me; for me it was more like: Prague, ah.19
PORGES. You’re a different sort of person, there’s nothing to be done
about that. But how everything has changed since then—it’s
hard to believe, most of all the people. For example that peculiar
fellow—what was his name? yes, that Federer,20 how
he scrambled for an extra helping of food21 there, even
though there was only barley, now of course he only goes to
Šroubek’s22 and when they have only forty-eight dishes on the
menu he loses his temper because they don’t have that fortyninth
dish, just the one he has a taste for. Now his favorite is
that Czech-Jewish dish.
HORPATZKY. What is that?
PORGES. Don’t you know? It’s pork with šoulet.23 All the same he
had to wait a long time until his most fervent wish was fulfilled.
It never happened in Terezín, not until now.
HORPATZKY. What wish?
PORGES. To get to know one of the lady cooks. But they just don’t
have the same appeal now as they did before.
HORPATZKY. Or that fellow who was in charge of one of the barracks—how
he put on airs in front of those poor people.24
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
180
19 In Voskovec and Werich’s recording, although the two accentuate their differences,
“Ah, Prague” and “Prague, ah” are practically identical expressions of
nostalgia.
20 Sixteen men with the surname Federer were deported to Terezín/
Theresienstadt. It is unclear whether the authors are referring to a specific individual
or are using the name as the Czech-Jewish equivalent of “John Doe.”
21 The word used in the original Czech script, náchšup (also spelled nášup), is
derived from the German word Nachschub, “extra portion.”
22 U Šroubků was a large, elegant, and popular restaurant inside the Grand
Hotel Šroubek on Wenceslas Square. The hotel is now named Hotel Evropa.
23 Šoulet is a kosher dish. See scholet (glossary). The joke probably refers to the
level of assimilation of the pre-war Czech Jews who rarely observed traditional
dietary laws.
Now he’s back in Brno25 and travels selling underwear for the
firm Murmel and Stein.26 But some of them still can’t get
used to the new conditions. You know what kind of unpleasantness
I have with my wife. When a new maid moves in with
us—we have a maid again now, you don’t get anyone to work
for free anymore like they did back then,27 now you have to
pay health benefits and so on—my wife immediately lunges at
the poor woman’s suitcases and rifles through them.28
PORGES. Force of habit, right?
HORPATZKY. My wife was in the Ústí barracks29 for a long time. Very
unpleasant.
PORGES. Do you remember, by any chance, a young man from
Terezín? He sang folk songs in the courtyards there.30 What
was his name again? He was kind of smallish big.
HORPATZKY. Well, which was he? Smaller, big, bigger, small?
PORGES. Well, middle-sized, I’m not going to argue with you.
HORPATZKY. Aha, you probably mean Pavel Meier. He used to be a
court singer; now he’s become a chamber singer.
PORGES. And in which chamber does he actually sing?
181
LAUGHWITHUS
24 In the Czech original, the spelling of certain words in this paragraph indicates
that Horpatzky is satirizing the pronunciation and grammatical mistakes of a
German speaker trying to speak Czech.
25 In the original script the authors used “in Prin,” a Czech phonetic spelling of
“in Brünn,” the German name for the Moravian city of Brno. Many of the members
of the Jewish community in Brno/Brünn were German speakers.
26 A joke based on the name of Rabbi Dr. Benjamin Murmelstein, a leader of the
Jewish community of Vienna and the third Judenältester of the ghetto.
27 Possibly a reference to the Putzkolonne (cleaning crew), a group of female
prisoners assigned to cleaning work in the ghetto.
28 In the original script the word used for “search” is prošlojsovat. See Schleuse
(glossary).
29 During this period, the Ústí barracks were used as a central storehouse for
suitcases and clothing confiscated from the arriving prisoners.
30 The barracks where most prisoners were housed were built around large open
courtyards where performances, soccer games, etc., sometimes took place.
HORPATZKY. In none, he’s a Kammersänger.31 But you know, he still
sings those folk songs.
PORGES. I’m surprised he isn’t fed up with them by now.
4. THREE FOLK SONGS32
Singer: P. Meier
A. “I Had a Dream, my Lass”
B. “Tovačov”
C. “On the Lord’s Meadows”
5. SECOND DIALOGUE
Porges hums to himself: “On the Lord’s Meadows.”
HORPATZKY. You’re in a good mood. But did you know that we also
had a lord’s meadow in Terezín?
PORGES. I didn’t know about that.
HORPATZKY. It was called Bohušovice Hollow. There was a massive
event there, a beautiful public demonstration.33
PORGES. Aha, I know, there was that international Sokol rally.
HORPATZKY. And I remember—there was another person who, when
31 This joke depends on the double meaning of the German-language titles
Hofsänger and Kammersänger. They literally mean “court singer” and “chamber
singer,” but also indicate the level of proficiency and recognition a singer has
attained.
32 The Czech-language titles of the songs are “Zdálo se mi, má panenko,”
“Tovačov,” and “Na těch panských lukách” respectively.
33 The Bohušovice/Bauschowitz Hollow is located just outside the ramparts of
Terezín/Theresienstadt. A census of the ghetto took place there on November
11, 1943. See introduction to this volume, p. 28.
IMAGE 7.5 (Facing page) A folk dancer in the ghetto wearing the Czech national
colors. By C. Burešová.
Courtesy of Yad Vashem.
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
182
they questioned him, said that he found that ducat, and he got
two months for it.34
PORGES. That was a so-called šmé if you can still manage to recall
that expression. Those happened there all the time. Like that
huge trial with the engagement swindler. Certainly you
remember that; that was such a šmelina en gros.35
HORPATZKY. What was that? I don’t remember anymore.
PORGES. Didn’t you used to go to the courthouse all the time?36
HORPATZKY. No, I went out of my way to avoid the courts.
PORGES. But you were put on trial once, weren’t you?
HORPATZKY. Me? Oh please. That was some other short dark-haired
fellow. What was it that time, some kind of bigamy, wasn’t it?
PORGES. Bigamy, that wasn’t even worth talking about. That villain
falsely claimed to a girl that he was a cook, and he was only a
bank manager.37
HORPATZKY. That’s downright wickedness. But I’ve noticed that
Terezín always follows you. I run into reminders all the time.
There I was in Lucerna38 and who didn’t take the stage but
that star from Terezín, that Hanka Ledererová. You remember
her, right?
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
184
34 In the folk song “On the Lord’s Meadows,” the singer finds a golden ducat
and tries to decide how to spend it. In Terezín/Theresienstadt, owning such a
valuable item would have been an offense punishable by imprisonment in the
ghetto jail.
35 That is, an enormous fraud.
36 There was a civil court in Terezín/Theresienstadt under the auspices of the
Selbstverwaltung that tried minor crimes such as libel, theft, and fraud among
the prisoners. See Bondy, “Elder of the Jews,” pp. 306–9; Adler, Theresienstadt,
pp. 453–92; and the play The Insult—But Unintended in this volume, pp. 361–9.
37 The elevated status of cooks in the ghetto is a recurrent theme in the
cabaret. This particular joke is sometimes credited to Terezín/Theresienstadt
prisoner and author Karel Poláček. See Ludmila Chládková, “Karel Poláček v
Terezíně,” Terezínské Listy XXVI (1996): 55–70, see 63.
38 The Lucerna building, located just off Wenceslas Square, includes a large
hall that can seat up to 4,000 spectators, a cinema, coffeehouses, etc.
PORGES. Of course. She had it really good back then; she had that
Aryan grandmother.39 But now it causes her problems at
every turn—because of that they don’t even want to let her
into Palestine.40
HORPATZKY. Those grandmothers, they were always causing trouble.
You know, my ninety-three-year-old grandmother had to sign
a formal agreement that she did not intend to have any more
children.41 But what am I saying? Why don’t we go to
Lucerna and see Hanka Ledererová; we don’t have anything
else to do. That Elly Bernstein-Poržé42 will be performing
there too.
PORGES. I don’t know her.
HORPATZKY. Oh, come on, don’t tell me that you don’t remember her
from Terezín.
PORGES. Actually no, I knew all kinds of people there, but not her.
185
LAUGHWITHUS
39 Prisoners with non-Jewish relatives had certain advantages; for example,
they were occasionally allowed to receive packages of food and other supplies
from them. See František Beneš and Patricia Tošnerová (eds.), Pošta v ghettu
Terezín / Die Post im Ghetto Theresienstadt / Mail Service in the Ghetto Terezín
(Petr Liebl and Dagmar Lieblová trans.) (Prague: Profil, 1996).
40 I have left out of the translation the following three lines which contain a complex
German–Czech pun:
HORPATZKY. Of course they won’t let her into Palestine if she’s so zasypovaná.
[Zasypovaná is the literal translation into Czech of the
German word versippt. Jews in mixed marriages with a nonJewish
partner and their children were classified as arisch versippt,
that is, with Aryan family ties, and were protected to
some extent from transports to the ghetto and from the ghetto
to further camps.]
PORGES. Maybe you mean zasypaná. [Porges, confused, asks whether
Horpatzky means to use a phonetically similar Czech word
meaning “buried” or “overwhelmed.”]
HORPATZKY. No, I mean zasypovaná, versipovaná. [Horpatzky finally
uses the more common Czech translation of versippt.]
41 Horpatzky literally says “. . . that she did not intend to round the number of
her descendants upward,” that is, to the nearest unit of 10. As a consequence
of the Nazi plan to reduce the Jewish population, Jewish women were forced to
sign agreements that they did not intend to give birth to more children.
42 The Czech transliteration of the French pronunciation of “Porges.”
HORPATZKY. That would be a match for you.
PORGES. I’m not even curious. Come on; let’s go.
HORPATZKY. We’ll stop at the automat on the way for a chlebíček.43 So
let’s go. Wait, where are you heading? Are you trying to get
to Vodičkova street by way of Dejvice? Here, through the
Stýbl passage; watch out for the tram so you don’t get run
over.44
6. BAR SCENE
A. ECCENTRIC DANCE (“Pink Crinoline”)45
Performed by H. Ledererová
PORGES. So what should we have?
HORPATZKY. Waiter, Martel cognac, and twenty Egypt cigarettes but
mild.46
BERNSTEINOVÁ. I will now sing you two songs by Dr. Felix Porges to
lyrics by Pavel Stránský.
B. I. “ANDALUSIAN NIGHTS” (Tango)47
Nights in Andalusia,
Rich like the poetry of
Les poetes maudits,48 ringing in my ears
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
186
43 A chlebíček is a typical Czech open-faced sandwich. Horpatzky is probably
referring to a well-known establishment and great novelty in inter-war Prague: the
automated snack bar on the ground floor of the Koruna building at the base of
Wenceslas Square. On the insertion of a coin the automat dispensed a chlebíček.
44 Horpatzky tries to keep Porges from going the wrong way. One entrance to
Lucerna is located on Vodičkova street, just off Wenceslas Square. Dejvice is a
neighborhood in the western part of the city.
45 The dance was performed to the popular song “Pink Crinoline” (“Růžová krinolína”)
composed in 1942 by František Svojík.
46 Very expensive brands of cognac and cigarettes.
47 See original music for “Andalusian Nights” (“Andaluzské noci”) on pp. 218–19
of this volume, IMAGES 7.10 and 7.11.
Breezes orange scented,
Placid pools so tempting
Fate has brought me here.
(Refrain) Hypnotic rhythm of castanets and mandolins
Not for millions, no, I never would exchange them
They mean much more to me than their weight in gold
Their melodies sound so deeply in my soul.
A senorita’s arms are the softest bed you’ll ever find
A life’s dream realized, a lovely dream I had to leave behind
Now home again, when dark night overcomes me
I feel the hot sun above me
Enchanted by its power.
Nights in Andalusia,
Sweet as a melody that
Fills up my senses like a rare perfume
The lovely girl I’m missing
Her red lips were made for kissing
I long to be there too.
(Refrain)
B. II. “ABANDONED” (Slow foxtrot)49
Alone out here upon the wharf I moan
And tell the sea of all my woes
Moonlight reflected on the sea tonight
Oh I entrust to it my plight.
The stars, oh they glitter so far away
I sing to them of my pain.
Alone out here upon the wharf I moan
of my heartbreak and memories.
187
LAUGHWITHUS
48 Stránský uses the phrase prokletí básníci (accursed poets), the Czech translation
of the French les poetes maudits (Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Verlaine, etc.).
49 See original music for “Abandoned” (“Opuštěný”) on pp. 220–21 of this volume,
IMAGES 7.12 and 7.13.
IMAGE 7.6 One of the ghetto Verschleißstellen: the “grocery store.” The jars in the
foreground are labeled Senf (mustard). By F. Bloch.
Courtesy of Yad Vashem.
Oh Ocean, can’t you see how I suffer
Ocean, sing to me of faithless lovers.
Alone and lonely through the night I roam
And hold your image in my soul.
It seems, that all that I can do is dream,
That’s all fate has in store for me.
The breeze that fans my feverish brow
Will carry you my song somehow.
Ah, ah, ah.
PORGES. My dear colleague, here, take a look at the program—look
what’s up next.
HORPATZKY. Just a moment. Next: the duo Bernsteinová and
Krauskopfová—aha, she’s the one from that Terezín Lippert.50
PORGES. That’s right, the one with the mustard and pickles.51 What
are they going to sing?
HORPATZKY. “Express Foxtrot,” “Tavern in Nikolayev,” no, that’s
gone, “Tavern in Odessa,” well, that’ll be quite a mess,52 and
“Merry Multiplication.”
189
LAUGHWITHUS
50 Lippert was a famous Prague delicatessen. Porges and Horpatzky may be
referring to the shops that opened in the ghetto in September 1942 (see
Verschleißstellen [glossary]). One was a “grocery store” that sold an extremely
limited selection of goods. See Hyndráková et al., Acta Theresiania, p. 226.
51 Survivors recall a mustard-like spread as one of the few food items that could
be purchased in the ghetto.
52 Hopatzky is probably referring to events on the Eastern Front. The strategically
important port of Nikolayev in southern Ukraine was destroyed in battles
between the Soviet and German armies. Many parts of Odessa were damaged
during the Red Army’s siege and recapture of the city.
C. DUO53
Performed by E. Bernsteinová, H. Krauskopfová
I. “Express Foxtrot” (Malina)
II. “Tavern in Odessa” (Dobeš-Brom)
III. “Merry Multiplication” (Traxler-Rychlík)
HORPATZKY. The band wants a drink—waiter, something for the
musicians. Hey, Mr. Bandleader, play us a song.
PORGES. That’s going to cost you something.
HORPATZKY. That doesn’t matter.
D. ACCORDION SOLO
Performed by K. Meier
I. “Second Hungarian Rhapsody” by Liszt in a jazz arrangement
Horpatzky gives Meier a banknote.
II. Variations on the song
7. THIRD DIALOGUE
PORGES. I tell you, that was almost as nice as the coffeehouse in Terezín.
HORPATZKY. Only the coffee wasn’t as strong.
PORGES. Certainly you must have visited that great establishment as
well.
HORPATZKY. Of course. I was an avid visitor of all the establishments
of the free time.
PORGES. Of what?
HORPATZKY. Of the free time—the Freizeit.54
PORGES. Aha, why didn’t you say it in Czech right away?55
53 The Czech-language titles of the songs are “Expres-fox,” “Krčma v Oděse,”
and “Veselá násobilka.”
54 Horpatzky uses the Czech words meaning “free time,” the literal translation
of Freizeit, the prisoners’ nickname for the Freizeitgestaltung.
55 Porges satirizes the prisoners’ propensity to incorporate German words into
the Czech language.
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
190
191
LAUGHWITHUS
IMAGE 7.7 The coffeehouse in the ghetto. By L. Haas.
Courtesy of the Terezín Memorial.
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
192
IMAGE 7.8 A poster for the opera The Bartered Bride (Prodaná nevěsta) featuring
F. Weissenstein and K. Berman, with an image of Kecal, the marriage broker.
Courtesy of the Terezín Memorial.
HORPATZKY. Everyone there was so nice, so friendly . . . and how perfectly
everything worked out with those tickets.56
PORGES. What do you mean? Things worked out fine with the
tickets; I couldn’t complain.
HORPATZKY. You worked for the Freizeit, didn’t you?
PORGES. No, but sometimes I had a bit of bread to spare; so . . . you
know.57
HORPATZKY. Of course. Those doormen at the theater were so helpful.
PORGES. Yes, but once they threw you out, I remember that.
HORPATZKY. Do you have to talk about that here, in front of all these
people? You’re a scandalmonger. It was when they played
Smetana’s “The Moldau”—I tried to use my bath ticket to get
in.58 And now you have to go and tell everyone.59
PORGES. Well they know worse things about you than that. You
know, I just remembered another remarkable event. Once I
went to the coffeehouse and they actually performed the program
they were supposed to; strange, isn’t it?60
HORPATZKY. That really is an odd coincidence. Say, did you know
that I was supposed to join the Freizeit?
PORGES. As a ticket-taker, right?
HORPATZKY. Of course not, I beg your pardon, such an important
function.61 As a—quick, what do you call that, that thing you
use to climb up?
56 A satirical comment on favoritism in the distribution of tickets to cultural
events. See Hans Hofer’s “The Theater Ticket” in this volume.
57 That is, as a bribe to obtain a ticket.
58 Due to the shortage of water, prisoners had to bathe according to a ticket system.
Horpatzky apparently tried to use his bath ticket for admission to a performance
of composer Bedřich Smetana’s “Vltava” (“The Moldau”), a symphonic
poem about the river that runs through the center of Prague.
59 In the original script this passage ended with the line “Now all we have to do
is build you a pavlač.” A pavlač was a type of interior balcony in Central European
buildings where women met to gossip.
60 The musical program in the coffeehouse apparently rarely matched the program
that had been posted.
61 Ticket-takers’ access to the cultural activities of the ghetto meant that theirs
was a high-status position.
193
LAUGHWITHUS
PORGES. A stepstool.
HORPATZKY. Ladder, in German.
PORGES. Leiter.62
HORPATZKY. Yes, leader. There were already fifteen of them; I was
supposed to be the sixteenth. One of them noticed how well
I know how to give orders, to organize things, and he immediately
said that I should be the sixteenth leader. So I went
there, they looked at my birth certificate, na rodný list . . .
PORGES. Why did they need the Národní listy for that?63
HORPATZKY. What do you mean Národní listy? They looked at my
birth certificate, my, meine, birth, Geburts, certificate, Liste,64
and said, “Aha, nothing can come of this, you’re already over
eighteen, so you can’t be a leader.”65 But let’s leave that alone,
those were still beautiful and touching moments when, for the
first time in a long time, we heard The Bartered Bride again.66
PORGES. You’re right, that was a kind of spiritual escape attempt,67
I would call it. I can still hear Jeník’s beautiful aria. It’s one of
my favorites; do you know it?
HORPATZKY. Of course I know it; I sing it too.
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
194
62 The joke is based on the two meanings of Leiter in German: ladder and leader.
63 This pun is based on the acoustic similarity between the Czech phrase na
rodný list (at my birth certificate) and the title of a right-wing Czech newspaper,
Národní listy (National Pages), which published anti-Semitic articles.
64 Horpatzky clarifies by translating every word from Czech into German, perhaps
satirizing the fact that many of the Prague Jews spoke only German or were bilingual.
65 Some of the most important administrative positions in the ghetto were occupied
by very young men. See the example of 23-year-old Egon Redlich in Bondy,
“Elder of the Jews,” p. 255.
66 The Terezín/Theresienstadt performances of Bedřich Smetana’s opera The
Bartered Bride (Prodaná nevěsta), considered by many to be the Czech national
opera, are recalled with exceptional emotional intensity by many of the CzechJewish
survivors. Horpatzky refers to the opera by its nickname, Prodanka.
Directed by prisoner Rafael Schächter, the first performance took place at the
end of November 1942 and it was performed about 35 times. See Karas, Music
in Terezín, p. 24.
67 Porges uses the German word Fluchtversuch (escape attempt), a term well
known to the prisoners due to the Nazis’ intensive efforts to prevent such attempts.
PORGES. What?
HORPATZKY. Yes, but only at home, in the shower.
PORGES. I remember it well . . . back then it was sung by, I think,
Franta Weissenstein, right?
HORPATZKY. Of course, of course, Franta Weissenstein.
8. TWO OPERA ARIAS68
Performed by F. Weissenstein
A. Jeník’s aria from The Bartered Bride (“How Could He Believe”)
B. Aria from Dalibor (“When My Zdeněk”)
9. FOURTH DIALOGUE
PORGES. You know, everything would be great, everything would be
just fine, if only we didn’t have those thirty-two political parties
again.69 A person got so used to that consensus in Terezín, to
that unanimity. Nobody knew what favoritism was there, no one
knew what corruption was. When by chance there was a shortage
of something, then they replaced it right away with something
else, to make it up to you. They ran out of potatoes, so you
didn’t have to salute anymore.70 Something for something.71
195
LAUGHWITHUS
68 Both operas are by Bedřich Smetana. The Czech titles of the arias are “Jak
možno věřit” and “Když Zdeněk můj.”
69 A reference to the pre-war multiplicity of political parties.
70 The order that prisoners must salute all Nazi officers was abolished on March
6, 1944, as part of the Stadtverschönerung (see glossary) in preparation for the
visit of the International Red Cross Commission. See Hyndráková et al., Acta
Theresiania, p. 415.
71 I have left out of the translation the following three lines:
HORPATZKY. That was equivalent.
PORGES. Potatoes, not equivalent.
HORPATZKY. I mean equivalent; you’re weak with those foreign words.
The pun depends on Porges not knowing the word “equivalent” (in Czech, ekvivalent)
which, being a Latin-based word, is foreign to Czech speakers.
HORPATZKY. Then there were those darker rolls; for that we got a city
band with a pavilion.72 You know, there was Essensverschlechterung,
Stadtverschönerung,73 things always balanced each
other out. There were all kinds of different proposals. Do you
remember later they wanted to cut the bread ration in half
and in exchange install telephones in all the rooms? But that
didn’t work out.
PORGES. I remember; that was sometime in the winter of 1950. You
know, those are real problems; they’re not so easy to solve.
HORPATZKY. Please, don’t worry your head about that. I have enough
other worries.
PORGES. Like what?
HORPATZKY. I don’t know where to go tonight.
PORGES. You have terrible worries.
HORPATZKY. I don’t like going to Zámečník’s;74 they have bad
cognac. At the Balkan-Grill that čevapčiči75 just doesn’t taste
good to me anymore.
PORGES. Oh, you’ve just had it so much that you’re tired of it.
HORPATZKY. I would go to Juliš’s;76 there they still have the same
headwaiter as before the war.
PORGES. You still owe him money, don’t you?
HORPATZKY. To the cinema? The Great Dictator,77 I’ve already seen
that three times, they’re playing All’s Well that Ends Well for
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
196
72 The establishment of a city band to perform on the town square was another
project of the Stadtverschönerung. See Hans Hofer’s “The Main Square” in this
volume.
73 Horpatzky invents the German word Essensverschlechterung (literally, “food
worsening”) after the example of Stadtverschönerung.
74 U Zámečníka was a nightclub on Wenceslas Square.
75 A typical Balkan dish made of ground meat and vegetables.
76 U Juliše, a famous pre-war establishment. On the lower level was a Viennesestyle
pastry shop; on the upper level was a dance hall.
77 Charlie Chaplin’s film premiered in October 1940 and was banned in
Germany and all countries occupied by the Nazis.
the seventeenth week.78 At the Alhambra79 there are only brunettes.
I’m not so keen on them; I like blondes, you know?
PORGES. Yes, I remember. But you know what, if you like blondes,
I can help you. I’ll take you somewhere where there are two
very nice buxom blondes.
HORPATZKY. And what do they do?
PORGES. They dance our folk dances.
HORPATZKY. Our folk dances? You’re going to laugh, Sie werden
lachen.80
PORGES. Why, warum?
HORPATZKY. I know them from Terezín too, from the Strauss-
Ensemble.
PORGES. A person can’t surprise you with anything; it’s terrible.
10. CZECH AND SLOVAK DANCES
Performed by E. Bernsteinová, H. Ledererová
11. FIFTH DIALOGUE
PORGES. So how did you like the girls?
HORPATZKY. Very pretty, it’s true, but please, don’t drag me anywhere
else, you’re all just fun and games, ready for a good
time but no serious work.
PORGES. You really look ready for some serious work.
HORPATZKY. Well, appearances can sometimes be deceiving. A person
simply has to educate himself a little too, right?
197
LAUGHWITHUS
78 This reference to the Shakespeare play is apparently a joke based purely on
the literal meaning of the title.
79 Alhambra was a well-known night club with entertainment on Wenceslas Square.
80 Horpatzky and Porges begin to translate their lines into German, perhaps
because the Strauss-Ensemble was a German-speaking cabaret group. Some of
the cast of Laugh with Us also performed with them. See From the Strauss
Cabarets in this volume.
PORGES. Right, of course, so let’s go somewhere and inebriate ourselves.81
What do you like to drink, slivovice?82
HORPATZKY. Not inebriate, educate. You know, I’d like to go, oh, to a
museum or to the library or somewhere like that.
PORGES. What, are you feeling all right? What’s the matter with you?
Wait, I’ve just thought of something that’ll do. Wouldn’t you like
to listen to the radio for a while? I’ve got a beautiful new set, a
Telejiskra.
HORPATZKY. What?
PORGES. Well, Telefunken, I’m translating it.83
HORPATZKY. What a chauvinist.84
PORGES. A very nice television set.
HORPATZKY. Aha, the kind of set you can’t listen to and can’t watch either.85
PORGES. Well come on, I live right here around the corner . . . So we’re
already here. What should we watch?
HORPATZKY. Say, could you get Tel Aviv for me? I would run home to
get my son. You know he’s never seen so many Jews together in
one place and he can’t even imagine it.
PORGES. It’s not working; the signal’s scrambled somehow.
HORPATZKY. So try something else. That Moravian station, that Přerov
or whatever it was called, the one people used to listen to so
much . . . but maybe that’s not so interesting anymore.86
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
198
81 The original pun is on vzdělávat (to educate oneself) and zdělat (tie one on).
82 Slivovice (plum brandy) is a popular spirit in many countries of Central and
Eastern Europe.
83 Telefunken was the first company in Germany to manufacture television sets.
Porges translates the brand name literally into Czech (jiskra and Funken both mean
“spark”).
84 Horpatzky here refers to “language chauvinism,” a form of Czech nationalism so
exaggerated that even foreign brand names were translated into Czech.
85 Probably a reference to the fact that listening to the radio was severely restricted
during the war.
86 The prisoners understood Přerov as a veiled reference to the neighboring town
of Kroměříž, which is pronounced similarly to the phrase kromě říše (outside the
Reich). Thus this joke is a reference to the illegal practice of listening to radio
stations like the BBC, broadcasting from outside Nazi-occupied Europe. Hana
Reinerová, interview with Lisa Peschel, February 20, 2006.
PORGES. No, that’s not current anymore, but what if we could get
Prague?
WEISSKOPF (backstage). Hello, hello Prague, we continue our variety
show with songs performed by a member of the opera of the
National Theater, Karel Bermann.87
HORPATZKY. Well let’s watch, Karel Bermann, Kecal.88
PORGES. And how.89
WEISSKOPF (backstage). Karel Bermann with “In Quiet Nights” by
Rudolf Friml and “Spring Song” by Vilem Blodek.
PORGES. Good, and now let’s get him on camera, so we can see him
too. There, it’s working. Look, as if he were right here with us.
12. TWO SONGS90
Performed by K. Bermann
A. “In Quiet Nights” (by R. Friml)
B. “Spring Song” (by V. Blodek)
13. SIXTH DIALOGUE
Weisskopf brings a sign: “Park.” Two chairs, between them a sign: “Bench.”
Horpatzky enters, sits on one chair, behind him a sign: “Retiree.” Porges
enters, sits on the second chair, behind him a sign: “Gentleman.” They
greet each other. Horpatzky begins to play with his star; he sighs.
PORGES. Please excuse me for disturbing you, but I would really like
to know what kind of an insignia you have there or what it
might mean.
HORPATZKY. You don’t know?
199
LAUGHWITHUS
87 Karel Bermann (after the war, Berman) actually became a member of the
opera of the National Theater in Prague in 1953.
88 Berman played the role of Kecal the marriage broker in some of the
Terezín/Theresienstadt performances of The Bartered Bride.
89 Porges refers to the literal meaning of the name Kecal: “he talked nonsense.”
90 The original Czech titles are “Za tichých nocí” and “Jarní píseň.”
PORGES. I really can’t recall ever having seen it before.
HORPATZKY. Then you are a fortunate man; I envy you. This was once
a great fashion. People wore it a lot, on jackets, on overcoats,
on trousers, on underwear and I don’t know where all else.
PORGES. And what if it didn’t look good on some people? For example,
if that ugly color didn’t go with their complexion?
HORPATZKY. That didn’t matter. It was simply decreed, I think according
to some grandmothers,91 and it had to be worn. And that
brought the whole club together for you. We even left with it.
PORGES. On tour?
HORPATZKY. Of course not.
PORGES. On an excursion?
HORPATZKY. No. That was at the time of the housing and food crisis,
there wasn’t much to eat and it was expensive, so we signed
up and they transported us away for free.
PORGES. But where?
HORPATZKY. Now what was that town called, named after some
German poet, Schillero? No, something else. Who were the
other German poets?
PORGES. Heine, Heino? Uhlando?
HORPATZKY. No, it started with G.
PORGES. Grillparzero?
HORPATZKY. No, not him either. What is this called in German?
(Points to his fist.)
PORGES. Hand.
HORPATZKY. No, this part.
PORGES. Aha, the part at the top. Faust.
HORPATZKY. Yes, yes, and who wrote Faust?
PORGES. Well, Goethe.
HORPATZKY. Yes, correct, it was called ghetto.
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
200
91 An allusion to the Nuremberg laws that decreed who was classified as a Jew
by race.
PORGES. Ghetto, ghetto? Wait, I read about that once in my school
reader. But that was in the Middle Ages.
HORPATZKY. Absolutely, and I lived through them as well.
PORGES. Certainly. And now you’re going to tell me that you are
about five hundred and ninety-eight years old.
HORPATZKY. Oh, no, these were modern Middle Ages with trains,
tractors, telephones.
PORGES. Aha, that’s something else altogether. That really interests
me; you must tell me something about it. You know, I have
such strange ideas about it. The way I imagine it, there were
only laws, orders, rules, prohibitions, commands, directives,
instructions, regulations, etc.
HORPATZKY. All those things were there. We even had our own selfgovernment.
But otherwise it was actually an ideal city. You
know, no one there had to think.
PORGES. That would be something for me.
HORPATZKY. Now that I take a closer look at you, that’s for certain.
PORGES. Don’t get personal right away.
HORPATZKY. There other gentlemen thought for you. You didn’t have
to worry about anything. Everything was prescribed: food,
housing. But otherwise, people could do whatever they wanted.
There a rabbi was a dramaturge,92 another rabbi was the minister
of health, a doctor worked as a baker, only lawyers
remained at their craft.
PORGES. At the court?
HORPATZKY. No, they had a Schleussmannschaft, as they called it.93
Some dentists also stayed in their own profession, touching a
201
LAUGHWITHUS
92 The head of the Freizeitgestaltung was Rabbi Erich Weiner. See his own
description of the ghetto’s cultural activities in Weiner, “Freizeitgestaltung in
Theresienstadt.”
93 Jokes about greedy lawyers were popular during this period. The so-called
Schleussmannschaft was the team of prisoners assigned to work in the
Schleuse where incoming and outgoing deportees and their luggage were
processed and items were often stolen.
nerve there too. Why, we even had a bandleader from the
radio94 who worked there as a cook.95
PORGES. And how did that work out? Did he conduct in the kitchen?
HORPATZKY. Well, you know. While dishing out food he conducted,
like so, and everything flew . . .
PORGES. That must have been truly beautiful.
HORPATZKY. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that when news
got out about how beautiful life was there, people started to
arrive from all over Europe, like for an international Sokol rally.
PORGES. Then what language did they speak? How did they understand
each other?
HORPATZKY. Well, it was very difficult to understand each other
there. Of course, people from Prague, they had it good, they
just kept speaking German,96 but otherwise as time went on
we cultivated a peculiar . . .
PORGES. Cultivated epiculiar? Is that some kind of grain?
HORPATZKY. No, we cultivated a peculiar . . .
PORGES. Is that like buckwheat? or millet? or . . .
HORPATZKY. No, we cultivated a peculiar, homegrown, original,
authentic language.97
PORGES. I can’t even begin to imagine that. Could you describe it
for me?98
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
202
94 In the original script, Radiojournal, the inter-war Czechoslovak radio network.
95 In the 1930s, Karel Ančerl, who worked as a cook in the ghetto, had conducted
the orchestra of Voskovec and Werich’s Liberated Theater, and later the orchestra
of the Radiojournal. He continued to conduct in the ghetto. After the war he became
head conductor of the Czech Philharmonic.
96 Many of the Prague Jews spoke only German or were bilingual.
97 In the original script the pun depends on the acoustic similarity between the
Czech word Horpatzky utters, svébytnou (peculiar), and the phrase Porges hears,
svoji bytnou (our landlady).
98 In the following paragraph the Retiree demonstrates the Czech Jews’ ghetto
argot. Some words were adopted unmodified from the German; others were
modified, sometimes in comic ways, based on the rules of Czech grammar,
spelling, and word construction. Unless otherwise indicated, definitions have
HORPATZKY. Well, for example, a friend came to me one morning and
said šahoj, man, I was left out of the Hundertschaft, I lost
my eskartu, I already polished off my dekádu and I haven’t
gotten any cubusy. I’m completely zíchouš.99 If they don’t
request100 to transfer me from Bahnbau to Ges.-Wes., Küwa, or
MTK, 101 I’ll go crazy.102 And then the Raumwirtschaft didn’t
give me an Übersiedlungsverfügung for Entwesung. Well, if I
could at least get up onto the ramparts for Körperertüchtigung,
I’d have reko and cuzac.103 I wanted them to let me out104
of the Einsatz, but the Zimmerältester said that the grupouš
would have to go to the gebojdovi, but the Blockältester said that
203
LAUGHWITHUS
been taken from the glossary in Adler, Theresienstadt, pp. XXIX–LIX, with additional
contributions by survivor Doris Grozdanovičová.
99 Šahoj (pronounced “SHAH-hoy”): a combination of “shalom” and the Czech
greeting ahoj. The expression šahojist indicated a Czech-assimilated Jew who
opportunistically pretended to be a Zionist. See Bondy, “Elder of the Jews,” p. 277.
Hundertschaft: a group of 100 workers. See Hyndráková et al., Acta Theresiania,
p. 63. Eskartu: meal ticket, from German Esskarte. Dekádu: an extra ration of food
distributed to prisoners who performed certain types of labor during a Dekade (a
10-day labor period). Cubusy: extra rations of food for workers performing heavy
labor, from German Zubuße. Zíchouš: an ailing person, from German Siecher.
100 In the original script the authors use neanfordrovat, a “Czechified” version of
the German verb anfordern (to request).
101 Ges.-Wes.: Department of Health, an abbreviation for the German
Gesundheitswesen (see Selbstverwaltung [glossary]). Küwa: the guard unit
responsible for preventing theft in the kitchens, from German Küchenwache
(kitchen guard). MTK: the meaning of this abbreviation is not clear.
102 In the original script the authors use the verb zcvokatit, derived from the
Czech word cvok, an insane person.
103 Raumwirtschaft: Department of Space Management. Übersiedlungsverfügung:
a relocation order. Entwesung: disinfestation (see glossary). Here
Horpatzky refers to the fact that prisoners were temporarily moved out of their
quarters from time to time so that buildings in the ghetto could be disinfested in
an attempt to control the spread of fleas, lice, and bedbugs. Körperertüchtigung:
physical strengthening. In the period before the visit of the commission of the
International Committee of the Red Cross, exercises were held on top of the
ramparts surrounding the ghetto to improve the prisoners’ health. Reko: extra
rations for those recovering from illness, from German Rekonvaleszentenzubuße.
Cuzac: extra rations, from German Zusatzskost.
104 In the original script the authors use the verb freištelovat, a “Czechified” version
of the German verb freistellen (to release).
without the Bezirksältester’s permission he wouldn’t do it, so it
went to the Ältestenrat, to the Leitung, and the Judenältester
turned it down. The same old dré,105 same old šmé, nothing
gained,106 no šlojs, at best I’ll get the bunker.107
PORGES. For God’s sake, what sort of incomprehensible words are
you babbling? Could you translate that for me into some kind
of standard English?
HORPATZKY. Well, it would mean something like: You know, I’d
really like to get a decent meal around here sometime.108
PORGES. That’s a complicated language, for sure.
HORPATZKY. Well, at the time, it meant something quite important to
that person; for him it meant that, that day, he would have to
cut loose.
PORGES. What did he have to cut? 109
HORPATZKY. I don’t mean he had to cut some thing, I mean he had
to cut loose his own moral scruples . . .
PORGES. Cut loose, is that like to cut bait?
HORPATZKY. No, no, he had to cut himself loose of his . . .
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
204
105 Einsatz: short for Arbeitseinsatz (labor assignment). Zimmerältester: head of
a room in the prisoners’ quarters. Grupouš: head of a section of the prisoners’
quarters (part of a barracks or several civilian houses), from German Gruppenältester.
Gebojdovi: the head of a barracks building, from German Gebäudeältester.
Blockältester: head of a group of civilian houses (see -ältester [glossary]).
Bezirksältester: head of one of the four Bezirke or administrative sectors of
Terezín/Theresienstadt. Leitung: the leadership of the Selbstverwaltung. Dré:
trick, from the German drehen, to turn or to twist.
106 In the original script the authors use the word vejvar, a Czech slang expression
for profit or proceeds.
107 In the Czech original, nejvýš z toho kouká bunkr. Bunkr (bunker) was slang
for the ghetto jail; thus the phrase approximately means “the most I can hope
for from this is a few days in jail.”
108 The original Czech is a bit more earthy: Horpatzky employs a verb used for
animals, nažrat se (to feed).
109 In the original, the first pun is based on the acoustic similarity between the
phrases mít odvaz (to cut loose, to release one’s inhibitions) and mít od Vás (to
get [something] from you).
PORGES. Aha. Well why didn’t you say that right away. Of course
those people there would have had to cut loose if they were
tied up.110
HORPATZKY. For God’s sake, who was tied up?
PORGES. Well, you just said that person had to cut himself loose, i.e.
he must have been tied up, if he had to cut himself loose.
HORPATZKY. He was neither i nor e nor tied up. The guy was hungry,
he wasn’t a manager of provisions,111 he didn’t have an uncle
on the Council of Elders, he wasn’t an elder of any kind,112
he went to one office then another, they didn’t give him anything,
so he had to cut loose his own inhibitions, his own
moral scruples, and just take something, and that was his cutting
loose. Do you understand now?
PORGES. Yes. You know, it’s so strange, a person knows the words
but everything has a different meaning.
HORPATZKY. Yes, even Czech words meant something quite different
there. For example, two important men met and the first said,
“Good day, my dear colleague, it looks to me as though it
will rain.” Immediately the second started to analyze what he
meant by that, that today it will rain, what could lie concealed
behind those words, what the hidden message might be.
He was beside himself—and he only calmed down when it
actually started to rain that day.
PORGES. Those were really very intelligent people.
HORPATZKY. Certainly. They also spoke a lot of Latin; people there
were quite extraordinary. Today, or before the war, people said,
“Our grandmother’s short of breath, she has the trots and
we’re afraid that she’s going to kick the bucket on us.” Not
205
LAUGHWITHUS
110 The second pun is based on the similarity between the phrase mít odvaz
and the verb odvázet se (to free or untie oneself).
111 Horpatzky makes a subtle dig at his fellow actor: Felix Porges was a manager
of provisions in the ghetto.
112 The title “elder” was given to prisoners in leadership positions in the
ghetto. See -ältester (glossary).
there. There they said, “Grandma has pneumonia, it is feared
that she will contract enteritis, we hope it will not be complicated
by icterus, for she has latent encephalitis, we must give
her an intravenous injection, so that she does not expire.”
PORGES. Excuse me, something else just occurred to me. Could you
tell me how people lived, when there were so many people
there together?
HORPATZKY. For that we had our own ministry of space management
that tried to arrange the space in the most economical way—
mainly others’ space, less so with their own. That ministry
was very flexible. In one day they fixed a three-family home to
hold sixty-eight families, and they didn’t even move them into
the gutters and chimneys. Anyway, some of them lived on Q,
the others lived on L.113
PORGES. And no one lived on the beds?
HORPATZKY. I’m telling you, some lived on Q, the others lived on L,
L went to visit Q, Q went to visit L.
PORGES. Aha, those were like two addresses, Q and L. The mailman
had it easy if there were only two addresses.
HORPATZKY. There everything was numbered. So, for example, the
mailman got a letter with the address: Mr. Josef Novák—there
were a lot of them there—AAAQ . . .114
PORGES. You stutter. I didn’t notice that before.
HORPATZKY. That’s an address.
PORGES. That’s stuttering.
HORPATZKY. Mr. Josef Novák, AAAQ, slash 985, Block E IIIa,
Q407, F II 325, slash 013, and immediately he knew that it’s
the second building around the corner.
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
206
113 See L, Q (glossary).
114 Novák is a very common name among Czechs but not among Czech Jews.
There were only four prisoners named Novák in the ghetto during its entire
history.
PORGES. Well, but what if that equation and that slash and q to the
second power or whatever you said didn’t work out and he
didn’t find that person?
HORPATZKY. What equation? But even in that case there was another
possibility. We had an unusually large building, the ministry;
we called it the castle. It was full of offices and in each of those
offices there were several card files, of course there had to be
a central card file for those several card files, so as to know
where each card file was.115 So when you were looking for
someone, you went to that central card file, there they told
you in which card file you would possibly find the card, you
went to the first office, to the second, to the third, to the
fourth, until you found that card file, you looked and . . . no
card. So you went down and called O.D.116
PORGES. OD? Who OD’d? The postman?
HORPATZKY. What are you talking about?
PORGES. You said OD; who overdosed?
HORPATZKY. Not that kind of O.D. For us, O.D., that was kind of an
all-purpose go-to, it was our security service. When a slap was
heard somewhere, the O.D. was called, when people had to
stand in line, the O.D. was called, when there was a fight
somewhere, O.D.
PORGES. Aha, that was some kind of Salvation Army.117
HORPATZKY. The O.D. said, “I don’t know,” and sent you to the
Orientierungsdienst118 and there they told you, that Josef
Novák, that name you must certainly still remember, left by
transport.
PORGES. You mean maybe by train or by car.
HORPATZKY. No, transport.
207
LAUGHWITHUS
115 See Zentralevidenz (glossary).
116 See O.D. (glossary). In the original script, the pun is based on the similar
pronunciation of the initials O.D. and the Czech preposition od (from).
117 The Salvation Army expanded its activities to Czechoslovakia in 1919.
118 See Hilfsdienst (glossary).
PORGES. What is that for a means of transportation?
HORPATZKY. Transport, that was a magic word. Children there
weren’t afraid of the bogey-man or witches,119 there they simply
said, “a transport is going,” and you should have seen it,
how that shook each of them, how all were immediately wellbehaved
and obedient; it’s not surprising, since only selected
people were allowed to leave on such a transport.
PORGES. And how were they selected? There must certainly have
been great interest.
HORPATZKY. For that there were special commissions that, including
relatives, probably had about 1,500 members.120 They selected
certain groups, while other groups were protected. It was
simple enough. For example, first the AK and the G.W. were
protected, then the rules changed to the complete opposite.
For example my brother stayed there because he was AK,
while my cousin had to go because he was AK. My stepbrother
didn’t go because he was G.W., while my brother-inlaw,
who joined the G.W. so he wouldn’t have to go, had to
go. It was different though, when AK went to K.121 They did
that to get S-bread.122
PORGES. S-bread. Is that what you baked with that buckwheat, or
millet, or whatever you were cultivating?
HORPATZKY. No, there there was S-bread, also L-bread, N-bread,
K-bread.123
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
208
119 In the original, Horpatzky names traditional Czech fairy-tale characters:
bubáky, polednice, and klekánice.
120 Workers in the transport division (Transportabteilung) and certain groups of
prisoners in the ghetto were protected from outgoing transports until the fall of
1944 and could extend that protection to family members.
121 K, for German Kistenbau, the building of crates, was considered heavy manual
labor and earned increased rations. See Bondy, “Elder of the Jews,” p. 385.
122 In the original, Horpatzky means the initial S, but Porges understands the
Czech preposition s (with).
123 These letters indicate different categories of bread rations: S for
“Schwerarbeiter,” those workers performing manual labor, N for “normal,” L for
“leicht” (light), and K for “krank” (ill). See Brotkategorie (bread categories) in
Adler, Theresienstadt, p. XXXV.
PORGES. I’ve never eaten such bread before.
HORPATZKY. So an AK, in order to get S, went to K. Is that clear?
PORGES. Well, not very. I am completely flabbergasted. But how was
it for you?
HORPATZKY. I had it good.
PORGES. Were you that K or whatever it was called?
HORPATZKY. No, but sometimes one of the higher-ups came to our
place for dinner.
PORGES. Aha, so, a little corruption here and there.
HORPATZKY. Please. Corruption? There wasn’t any money there, so
you couldn’t bribe anyone, even if you wanted to.124
PORGES. Without money that wouldn’t work, I understand.
HORPATZKY. You know, all kinds of things didn’t exist there. There
were no tobacco shops but people still smoked; there were no
directors but theater played on and on.
PORGES. And what about actors; were there any there?
HORPATZKY. Well, there were plenty of them. There everyone knew
how to play comedy.
PORGES. Say, I’ve noticed that you’re quite willing to talk about this.
Could you also tell me if there were any schools there?125
HORPATZKY. Schools there developed very slowly. Jules Verne would
have loved it; there his two years’ holiday finally became a
reality.126 But the pupils there were very gifted. I knew the son
of one head cook who finished the entire elementary school in
209
LAUGHWITHUS
124 As Porges, Horpatzky and their audiences in the ghetto knew, an economy
based on Terezín/Theresienstadt’s own currency, Ghettokronen, had been introduced
in May 1943. See Adler, Theresienstadt, pp. 124–5.
125 Structured education for the children of the ghetto was forbidden, but the
caretakers in the children’s and youth homes assembled programs of songs,
games, lectures and cultural activities that to a certain extent made up for the
lack of formal schooling.
126 A reference to a popular adventure novel by Jules Verne that has been published
in English under various titles, including A Long Vacation, Adrift in the
Pacific, etc.
fourteen days and with honors. Those children of the cooks
were all very gifted. On the other hand children had it rough.
You know, before the war or today, when a child brings home
an F in math he can say “This grade is not fair; the teacher
picks on me because he’s an anti-Semite.” There that didn’t
work. There the only thing to do was to come home and say
“Dad, what a mess, an F, do we have some bread? Please,
smooth things over; go iron it out.”127
PORGES. And was education organized somehow? Was there some
kind of Central School Foundation?128
HORPATZKY. Of course. Everything was done there according to the
slogan “youth for worry.”129
PORGES. There must be some mistake. You probably mean “youth
for joy.”
HORPATZKY. No, no. Youth for worry. Jugend für Sorge.
PORGES. You’re a funny guy. But listen, I remember those were such
unsettled times; did you get any news there about events?
HORPATZKY. Well, of course. On one hand we had our own illustrated
news agency, Announcements,130 but mainly we made
up the news ourselves. The most popular news at that time
was about Turkey; it entered the war every week. Until the
Turks found out and said to themselves, “What? You’re not
going to tell us what to do,” and they didn’t enter the war at
all. Invasions, we had those five times a week, like dumplings.
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
210
127 That is, to bribe the teacher with bread.
128 The Central School Foundation (Ústřední matice školská) played an important
role in the development of Czech national identity. It was established
in Prague in 1880 as the Czech counterpoint of the German School Association
(Deutscher Schulverein) which supported German-language schools in Bohemia
and Moravia.
129 A mistranslation of Jugendfürsorge (see glossary).
130 On April 15, 1944, in anticipation of the visit from the International Red
Cross Commission, the title of the bulletin used to communicate with the prisoners
was changed from Daily Orders (Tagesbefehl) to Announcements from the
Jewish Self-Government (Mitteilungen der Jüdischen Selbstverwaltung). See
Hyndráková et al., Acta Theresiania, pp. 40–2.
And the speed with which the news spread. Early in the
morning someone in the Sudeten131 mentioned something,
and at 10 a.m. when I got to Dresden, they already knew
about it.
PORGES. Wait, you didn’t tell me—that town was in the
Sudetenland?
HORPATZKY. Why would it be in the Sudetenland?
PORGES. Well, you just said that you went from Sudeten to Dresden,
so it would have had to be in the Sudetenland.
HORPATZKY. But you don’t understand me, Sudeten, those were the
Sudeten barracks. So when I went from Sudeten to Dresden
to check out the girls . . .
PORGES. But weren’t there any girls there, that you had to walk all
the way to Dresden?
HORPATZKY. Sometimes I even walked to Hamburg to check out the
girls.
PORGES. Hmm, aren’t you exaggerating just a bit? You walked that
far?
HORPATZKY. That’s nothing. I knew one person, he walked from
Hannover to Magdeburg every day to iron things out.132
PORGES. Well, certainly, someone would walk 500 km to do his
ironing.133 Who are you going to tell that one to?
HORPATZKY. What do you mean, 500 km?
PORGES. Well, from Hannover to Magdeburg. It sounds suspicious
to me.
HORPATZKY. But you don’t understand me, Hannover is the
Hannover barracks, Magdeburg is the Magdeburg barracks.
You know, I got so used to those names. Until this day when
211
LAUGHWITHUS
131 The Sudeten regions were the border areas of Czechoslovakia, mostly populated
by ethnic Germans.
132 The most important administrative offices in the ghetto were located in the
Magdeburg barracks.
133 Horpatzky means “iron out” in the figurative sense of trying to solve a problem
or disagreement; Porges takes the expression literally.
I travel by train and the conductor shouts “Podmokly,” I stick
my head out the window and look for the armory.134 I’m back
at my old office job now and when my boss says, “in the afternoon
we’re going to register,” I’m completely thrown off
track and in the afternoon I certainly won’t be back in the
office.135 But you wouldn’t understand that.
PORGES. Say, since it’s just between us, I would like to ask one discreet
question, in confidence, of course: were the people there
honest?
HORPATZKY. You wouldn’t have had to lead up to the question like
that. Things were very honest there. There were so many institutions
that ensured honesty. Each person was supervised by
twenty-six to thirty-one administrative departments which saw
to it that each received his own. And they also received their
own. Immediately upon arrival, they took care of your luggage.
PORGES. Some kind of travel agency?
HORPATZKY. No, the Transportleitung.136 It was responsible for luggage
and even actually got the luggage.137 There they made
sure that people did not fall into temptation. That’s why they
came up with the idea of coloring the food so that it would
be unappealing. But they didn’t color boiled barley; that was
already repulsive enough all by itself.
PORGES. Well that’s a great idea; some clever fox must have thought
that up.
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
212
134 Podmokly/Bodenbach is now part of the Bohemian city of Děčín. The
Podomkly barracks in Terezín/Theresienstadt were located across from the
armory.
135 Registration of the Jewish population, carried out on Nazi orders by the
Jewish congregations, took place in the Protectorate in the fall of 1941. The lists
were subsequently used to assemble transports. Registration also took place in
the ghetto itself before some outgoing transports. See Bondy, “Elder of the
Jews,” pp. 225, 318.
136 The Transportleitung was responsible for the administrative work associated
with incoming and outgoing transports (registering newly arrived prisoners,
searching luggage, etc.).
137 This joke may mean that members of the Transportleitung kept prisoners’
suitcases instead of returning them to their owners.
HORPATZKY. No, cc-fox.138 Forgive me, I sputtered a bit. But then
they realized that it was deadly poisonous, so they gave it up.
PORGES. And how did they figure that out?
HORPATZKY. Well, about six hundred cooks were seriously poisoned
by it. Then ladies started using it like lipstick; it was called
Fuchsrot.139
PORGES. You don’t say. And what about family life, was that maintained
as well?
HORPATZKY. Family life there was on a point system.
PORGES. On a point system? You’re joking, right?
HORPATZKY. Those were the so-called Zulassungsmarke. At first those
were for packages.140 By the way, with those packages it was
so interesting; each person there had some unknown sponsor
in the Sudetenland. Most packages were sent by a Portuguese
firm; the firm must have had relatives there.141 After that,
when there weren’t any more packages, those Zulassungsmarke
were for family life. Otherwise family life was maintained well
enough—the father of one family with the mother of a second
family, but it was family life.142 All the same, after the war,
everything went back to normal.
213
LAUGHWITHUS
138 According to a survivor who worked in one of the ghetto kitchens, “fox” (in
Czech, liška) is a veiled reference to jíška, a roux made of butter and flour that
was frequently stolen from the ghetto kitchens. As an attempt at preventing theft
red food color was added to the jíška; it was intended to stain the mouth and
thus reveal the identity of the thieves. Marianna Foltynová, interview with Lisa
Peschel, November 25, 2006.
139 Fuchsrot: German for “fox red.”
140 Starting in July 1943, prisoners were allowed to send Zulassungsmarke
(admission stamps) to friends and relatives in the Protectorate, which gave the
recipient the right to send a package to the ghetto. See Beneš and Tošnerová,
Mail Service in the Ghetto Terezín.
141 In the spring of 1943 the International Red Cross began sending packages
of food to Terezín/Theresienstadt. Since parcels could not be sent from
Switzerland to countries under German rule, the packages were sent from
Portugal. See Bondy, “Elder of the Jews,” p. 341.
142 The forced separation of families (men, women, and children lived in separate
housing) led to the collapse of some marriages and the emergence of new
relationships.
WEISSKOPF. We’re closing, gentlemen.
PORGES. Well, there’s some kind of draft here, they should close this
place. Listen, the way I hear you talk about it, it must have
been a total madhouse there. I’m surprised you didn’t try to
escape.
HORPATZKY. That wasn’t necessary; it was dissolved. So let’s get
going. Please, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Wiley.143
PORGES. Pleased to meet you. I’m Hungry.144
HORPATZKY. Me too, let’s go somewhere for dinner.
PORGES. I already ate, but I’m Hungry.
HORPATZKY. Well, if I haven’t eaten either, let’s go.
PORGES. But you don’t understand me, I’m full.
HORPATZKY. So are you Full or Hungry?
PORGES. I’m full, and I am Hungry.
HORPATZKY. Listen, it seems to me you would have fit right in in that
madhouse.
14. SEVENTH DIALOGUE AND CLOSING COUPLET
PORGES. Well I’ll tell you, Pidla, today’s cabaret went really well. You
know, I already heard a rumor145 next door. They said that we
said that we’re all about to go home already.
HORPATZKY. Of course not—in six weeks at the earliest.
PORGES. Well, for what it’s worth, it would be nice if we could talk
about it at home already:
(They sing “Couplet.”)146
There was once a group for artists
The Freizeit was its name
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
214
143 The name in the original script, Vykutálenej, means “sly.”
144 The name in the original script, Nevečeřel, means “he who has not dined.”
145 The word Porges uses here is bonke (see glossary).
146 See original music for “Couplet” (“Kuplet”) on p. 222 of this volume, IMAGE 7.14.
HORPATZKY. There every budding talent had its fair shot at fame
PORGES. Intrigues amongst the members, such things were unknown
there
HORPATZKY. And each one gladly helped the other, everything was
fair.
PORGES. In spite of this and more
HORPATZKY and PORGES. We wish for no encore.
(Refrain) Those old days in Terezín
Now we see them differently
Just a memory
Though we feared catastrophe
It passed without calamity
Now it’s history.
They won’t believe you when you try to describe
Just what an absurd thing was Terezín life.
In a hundred years we’ll bet
When the whole world reads of it
All they’ll do is laugh.
PORGES. The artists were all humble, each knew his proper place
HORPATZKY. They solved their disagreements with patience and grace
PORGES. They never ever argued, they never put on airs
HORPATZKY. They never fought amongst themselves, the ideal
atmosphere.
PORGES. And now we must admit
HORPATZKY and PORGES. That this description doesn’t fit.
(Refrain)
215
LAUGHWITHUS
15. EPILOGUE
The “Castaldo March” plays. After several bars—147
PORGES. Ladies and gentlemen,
HORPATZKY. We wish you goodnight again
PORGES. We hope you enjoyed our show
HORPATZKY. We’re sorry you have to go
PORGES. We thank you for your indulgence
PORGES. And together we wish you
HORPATZKY and PORGES. Good night.
The End
PROKEŠ,HORPATZKY,WEISSKOPF,STRÁNSKÝ
216
147 The “Castaldo March” was composed by Rudolf Nováček in 1890.
217
IMAGE 7.9 Original sheet music for “Long Live Cabaret” (“Ať žije kabaret”). Music
by Felix Prokeš, lyrics by Pavel Stránský and Felix Prokeš.
Courtesy of Pavel Stránský and Jan, Miroslav, and Zdeněk Prokeš.
IMAGE 7.10 Original sheet music for “Andalusian Nights” (“Andaluzské noci”).
Music by Felix Prokeš, lyrics by Pavel Stránský (version 1).
Courtesy of Pavel Stránský and Jan, Miroslav, and Zdeněk Prokeš.
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IMAGE 7.11 Original sheet music for “Andalusian Nights” (“Andaluzské noci”).
Music by Felix Prokeš, lyrics by Pavel Stránský (version 2, using their pen names
Jaroslav Felix and Pavel Jeník).
Courtesy of Pavel Stránský and Jan, Miroslav, and Zdeněk Prokeš.
IMAGE 7.12 Original sheet music for “Abandoned” (“Opuštěný”). Music by Felix
Prokeš, lyrics by Felix Prokeš and Pavel Stránský (version 1).
Courtesy of Pavel Stránský and Jan, Miroslav, and Zdeněk Prokeš.
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IMAGE 7.13 Original sheet music for “Abandoned” (“Opuštěný”). Music by Felix
Prokeš, lyrics by Felix Prokeš and Pavel Stránský (version 2, using their pen
names Jaroslav Felix and Pavel Jeník).
Courtesy of Pavel Stránský and Jan, Miroslav, and Zdeněk Prokeš.
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IMAGE 7.14 Original sheet music for “Couplet” (“Kuplet”). Music and lyrics by Felix
Prokeš.
Courtesy of Jan, Miroslav, and Zdeněk Prokeš.