[lit-ideas] Teutonia

In a letter that the German nobleman writes to Sally Bowles in "Goodbye to  
Berlin" by Isherwood -- the story of a menage a trois between Sally, the German 
 nobleman and Issyvud -- the German nobleman writes (circa 1931)
 
                Dear Sally,
 
                       I'm finding our affair with Issyvud a bit on
                       the boring side. Berlin is becoming to be
                       a bit on the boring side to. So, I'm moving
                       to Argentina. My family owns land there
                      and  they say it's pretty exciting. 
                           
                                                      Love,
                                                                 Helmut
 
"Teutonia" is the name of the nautical club in San Fernando where most  
German expatriates would practice rowing and sailing -- and, some of them, bred 
 
rabbits. 
-----
 
The Rabbit Breeder of San Fernando, Buenos Aires (Was: Gen. Eichmann,  SS)
I read more about Eichmann from Wikipedia:  

Helm reports that, on the scaffold, Eichmann (who for some 30 years, had  
adopted the name of Robert Klement and bred rabbits in Buenos Aires)  said, as 
the rope tightened his neck,
 
                            "Long live Argentina.
                              I shall always remember you.!"
 
 
This Arendt interprets as a self-contradictory slogan confusing things --  
"Countries don't live, only people do. And in any case what is the meaning of  
'always' in a man who's _dying_?" (p. 456n7)
 
More from the Wikipedia
 
          "For the next 10  years after the end of the Second
          World War, Eichman  (who had assumed the innocent
          alias of Robert  Klement), worked in several 'odd jobs' in 
          the Buenos Aires  metropolitan area (from factory foreman, to 
         junior water engineer  and professional rabbit farmer)."
 
And then you'll remember Sir Laurence Olivier in his film -- I forget who  
played Eichmann -- Michael Caine?
 
          "Among [the  people interested in Eichmann's capture] was 
           Simon _Wiesenthal_ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Wiesenthal) 
. In 1954,  Wiesenthal's suspicions that 
           Eichmann was  in Buenos Aires were sparked upon receiving 
           a  postcard from an associate who had moved to Buenos Aires. 
 
                      "Ich sah jenes schmutzige Schwein Eichmann, 
 
-- translated, by J. M. Geary, "The Garibaldi Street" as, 
 
            "I saw  that dirty pig Eichmann"
 
The "Note from the Translator' touched my heart: "I chose to render  
'Schwein' by 'pig' rather than the Anglo-Saxon 'swine'. I felt it carried more  
force 
to it. Similarly, the Yddish 'schmutzig', which borders the insult in the  
vernacular, I translated as 'dirty', and I made a point of using the  
demonstrative 'jenes' translated as 'that'. Most of my German comes from Father 
 Kempis". 
 
 
Tthe letter read in part, 
 
         "Er wohnt beinahe in  Buenos Aires 
          und arbeitet für  ein Wassergeschäft. 
 
(Geary continues: "He lives near Buenos Aires and works for a water  
company". I first thought of translating 'wassergeschaft' as 'water society',  
but I 
thought this would give the readers the impression that Eichmann was the  
leader of the Kingsley "Water Babies", so I used company instead."
 
"Another German, Ludwig Hermann had settled into life in Buenos Aires with  
his family. Now, his daughter Sylvia, became acquainted with the Eichmann's  
family and  sexually involved with Klaus, the oldest Eichmann son. Due to  
Klaus' boastful remarks about his father's life as a Nazi and direct  
responsibility for the Holocaust, Hermann knew he had struck gold in 1957 after 
 reading a 
newspaper report about German war criminals"
 
"Eichmann was  captured outside his own house, in 33 Garibaldi Street, San 
Fernando, a  riverside suburb of northern Buenos Aires on May 11 1960." "As a 
heavily-sedated  Eichmann as part of a delegation of Jewish union members, 
Eichmann was smuggled  out of Argentina on board an El Al Bristol Britannia  
commercial air  flight from Argentina to Israel on May 21."
 
There is an online map of the San Fernando area at 
 
_http://nona.net/features/map/placedetail.1549557/San%20Fernando/_ 
(http://nona.net/features/map/placedetail.1549557/San%20Fernando/) 
 
Oddly this site is called 'nona', which is Spanish for 'nonnie'. 
 
Cheers,
 
JL




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