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The Case of Otto Schwarzkopf by Neville Teller
from Now We Are Five
The Case of Otto Schwarzkopf
Your case Otto Schwarzkopf has reached Jerusalem.
In the leather A.L.L.1 branded black and Otto Schwarzkopf a Prague address. On the back a hotel sticker mountains of the Tyrol prayer-shawl draped with snow
pine pierced blue skies a lake you swam in?
You went up into the mountain alone or was it a family outing?
The case gapes wide a soundless cry they pause to gaze at it at you Otto.
Where now your content? Under-wear towel toothbrush shirt socks the works of Heinrich Heine. Family snaps.
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In the winter of forty-four the German order just take what you need twenty kilos apiece one suitcase each you ’re off to the east no fuss leave everything else to us.
Now it’s here on show the handle your palm warmed Otto cold
iron clasps rust covered.
Reference your trip A.L.L.1 Theresienstadt to Auschwitz transportation trucks as per specification 7 cows or 30 pigs or 120 Jews.
Your case Otto Schwarzkopf has made its way without you to Jerusalem.
Translated by Neville Teller from the Hebrew, “Otto Schwarzkopf’ s Suitcase” by Shmuel Hupper.
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