Naming the Dead - from a reading/discussion at the West Cork literary festival
The Art of Amnesia Project
(100 poems - here are Nos 1 & 100)
1
Prague 1990
The woman at Tourist Information laughed, remember?
No-one had enquired after Lenin’s Museum, not
in such a long time; she thought it probably closed.
A fervent north-American wanted to know
if the tiny house in Golden Lane was Kafka’s
place of birth or death. Her repertoire failed again.
She apologised for being born into a utopia
that was Kafkaesque, that assassinated
such knowledge until six months ago.
We watched an old green pick-up tow him
through the old city, along the way excited locals
were laughing, kicking him carefully in the head.
Despite the shadow on his chin from
the swollen moustache, the modelling was
so wooden I had to ask to be sure.
Someone squeezed off precious bursts of Super 8
catching Stalin bouncing in the back, dangerously,
comically, like a puppet out of control.
Hunger strikers sleep in Wenceslas Square,
a young couple shout at passers-by
‘If you don't vote, you vote for communism’.
We visited a jazz club and the Jewish graveyard,
stones gnawed the noise of every angle
from horizontal death to everlasting life.
Have you heard of Gottwald and Clementis?
These two Communist leaders, sounding like characters
from Grimms’ ‘Old German Forests’, addressed a crowd
from a palace balcony in the Old Town Square;
marked the start of Stalinist rule. It was winter. 1948
Snow was falling, Clementis took off his hat and put it
on Gottwald's head. The gesture became iconic,
reproduced in all the papers, on posters, in schoolbooks.
Gottwald hung him a few years later.
The propaganda section immediately made him
vanish from history. . . Nothing remains of Clementis
but the fur hat on Gottwald's head.
Milan Kundera
100
An Australian memory Nov 1934
Egon Kisch, Czech communist, Jew , writer, journalist, and activist,
arrived by ship in Fremantle. His cabin was searched and he was refused
permission to land, so he entered Australia by jumping off the ship in Melbourne
breaking his leg in several places. The police carried him back on board,
in Sydney lawyers ensured medical attention at the Sydney City Hospital.
After that Kisch became the focus of an important civil liberties campaign.
Robert Menzies the Attorney-General turned to the Immigration Act
to bar Kisch, officials could enforce a dictation test in a European language.
He spoke seven European languages but they choose Scottish Gaelic
He refused to co-operate. His lawyer Piddington KC asked
the administrating officer to translate part of the text:
As well as we could benefit, and if we let her scatter free to the bad . . .
Piddington gave the correct translation,
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
The High Court found for Kosch, to the annoyance of Scottish nationalists
Speaking to 20,000 people in Sydney Domain, he announced:
My English is broken, my leg is broken but my heart is not broken
when I speak to you, the anti-fascist people of Australia. . . .
I have been sent from Europe by the anti-Fascists . .
to make my way 15,000 miles to see Australian workers.
I can’t speak much. I am sick.
But I must tell you Fascism is a terrible form of capitalism.
Keep your eyes open and fight against war preparations,
against Capitalism and against Fascism. The Rev Arthur Rivett spoke:
If Jesus Christ were to come here, to preach peace on earth and goodwill to all men,
our police and politicians would try to stop Him, because he was an alien . . .
He then collapsed and died on stage.
Kisch was identified in the Australian press as ‘the jumper’ and often
signed autographs with 'jumper' as his profession.’ He met many people
visited mines and prisons, a photograph shows him lunching with Slessor and Norman Lindsay.
His tour concluded with a candle-lit procession through Melbourne
led by an Aboriginal band playing 'The Red Flag' on gum leaves.
He worked with Willi Mazenberg in Paris then escaped to America
with Otto Katz (Munzenberg’s assistant). They were deported to Mexico, after the war
they anticipated returning to Germany to help build a new communist society,
Stalin sent his own men, they were not allowed, settled in Prague
Many of his friends and family were dead. He found Prague anti-Semitic,
in 48 died of a heart attack, got a state funeral just in time, his friend Katz
was arrested and tortured then hung with Clementis.