LUDIC LOG

Hi, folks! Good evening, and welcome to the line outside Shower Facility #22 here in beautiful, breezy Sobibor. My name is Jakob Teinowitz, the compere beyond compare, and I'll be your entertainment tonight. I hope you all are ready to laugh!

No? Okay, well, hopefully that'll change soon, because we've got a spectacular evening of comedy lined up for you tonight. After my act, we're going to hear the musical stylings of the Sobibor Light Strings Orchestra, who you may have seen playing on the rooftops of the barracks immediately following escape attempts, and after that we're going to close with the Joyless Russian Dancing Girls you've all heard so much about. But first, what's better before a nice hot, er, shower than a little comedy? Because laughter is the best medicine, ladies and gentlemen, or at least it's better medicine than you're going to get from that Dr. Mengele guy!

Look, folks, I didn't pay to see you, all right? Well, actually, you didn't pay to see me, either. I mean, normally I don't mind a captive audience, but this is ridiculous! Am I right? Huh? Am I right, folks? I know you're out there, people. I can hear you breathing. Most of you anyway. For now.

Okay! Well, what's in the news today? Says here that the Allies are starting to move across Verdun. Funny, they told me we ver-dun with that battle in the last war! And if they keep up at this rate, they'll reach Ardennes by winter. I know, I know, sounds like good news, right? But don't get your hopes up, people. Let me tell you something, folks, we had some American soldiers stay in our den once and it was no picnic! Of course, we could all go for a nice picnic right now, couldn't we? Because this place, man, the food is really something. What that something is, I couldn't tell you, but it's something, all right. The other day, I was telling the commandant "Listen, Hans" -- I call him Hans, because with him, you're in good Hans, right ladies? Am I right? -- so I say, "Listen, Hans, call the Zyklon B distributor and tell him to cancel, save yourself a little money. We get plenty of gas from the lunches you guys serve here!"

See, when I stop talking, that's a punchline. That's where you're supposed to laugh. I know, I know, we're all going to be massacred and burned to death. I got news for you, you're not special, pal. Well, maybe this guy is over here! What's with that haircut, pal? Who's your barber, von Ribbentrop? I haven't seen a buzz like that since the Stuka raid that destroyed my building and killed half my family. Hey, we've all been there, haven't we, folks? I mean, sure, it was devastating, and I ended up in a concentration camp. You all know what that's like. But on the bright side, they did get my verdammt mother-in-law! Every cloud has a silver lining, you know, unless the Nazis have gotten to it first and melted it down to make radio components. I tell you what, though, I do miss the old girl. I mean, if she was still around, she could end this war in a heartbeat -- the Germans would surrender just to get her to shut up and quit nagging! Oy!

Boy, tough crowd. The topical stuff just goes right over your heads. Don't tell me you people weren't happy to see your mother-in-laws get killed. All right, let's try a different approach here. I'm bombing harder than those allied B-17s that made us lose heat a couple of weeks back. So, listen, anyone here from the Warsaw ghetto? Yeah? Well, not anymore, you're not! No, no, I kid. I kid, folks, because I love, and also because if I stop, Corporal Linz up in the guard tower will fill me more full of holes than Oberst Kleinmundt's story about what happened to our winter coats. Ha ha! We have a good time, don't we, Linz? No, I kid, you're good people. That's what laughter sounds like, people. Memorize it. Anyway, what business were you in back in Warsaw? What's that? Could you speak up a bit, sir? I don't think the people at the bottom of the lime pits heard you. What did you do back home in Warsaw? "I hope you rot in Hell, you traitorous collaborator scum", you say? Oh! So you were a lawyer! All right. No, sir, it's a reflection on you, believe me. Okay. Well, as for myself, I was in banking. Yes, I know! It's hard to believe I wasn't always a standup comedian. You don't have to hold your applause until the end, you know, folks. Anyway, I was a banker and a financial planner back in Warsaw, and I made a pretty good living, until the Germans moved in. Right away, they took over a lot of my business -- estate planning, currency exchange, and especially the liquidation of assets. The Assets, of course, being my next-door neighbors! You know what I mean, folks? Huh?

Look, mister, I don't come down to where you work and knock the corpse out of your hands.