Detach Yourself!

Ideologically, we see the same contradiction in the fact that the bourgeoisie endowed the individual with an unprecedented importance, but at the same time that same individuality was annihilated by the economic conditions to which it was subjected by the reification created by commodity production.

Sometimes children came by. They couldn’t find their parents, and they wanted bread. A small Polish boy brought us food as we were on guard duty. I don’t think he was prisoner, but I don’t know. I had guard duty in cellar of a textile factory. The boy didn’t know German, but we could communicate with gestures. When I had I gave him cigarettes, an SS man was walking by, he waved on boy to follow him. The boy went after him. Then I heard a gunshot. I ran, and the dead boy was lying on the stairs. The SS-man pointed gun at me. He gave me long look, but eventually left. This is how matters were in Warsaw. Our mascot was crippled boy. He was around 12 years old. He lost his leg, but he could jump very fast on the remaining one. He was very proud of that. He always jumped around soldiers, there and back. We said it was for luck. He helped a little. One day some men in the SS call him. He jumped to them willingly. They asked him to jump to trees. I saw from afar that they put 2 grenades into his bag. He didn’t notice. He was jumping and they laughed at him shouting: “Schneller, schneller!” The boy blew up.

You read something which you thought only happened to you, and you discover that it happened 100 years ago to Dostoyevsky. This is a very great liberation for the suffering, struggling person, who always thinks that he is alone. This is why art is important. Art would not be important if life were not important, and life is important.

Albarrán Cabrera, The Mouth of Krishna, #323, toned gelatin silver print 

Logic may indeed be unshakable, but it cannot withstand a man who is determined to live.