-the global strongman, and how to survive him
"Our leader is a good man,
he knows what is right."
He needs no wicked science,
all he needs is strong believers.
They don't like competence, they hate discretion.
Cast down your glance for their eager eyes.
"Ang aming mga lider ay isang mabuting tao,
alam niya kung ano ang tama."
He is an ardent lover of justice,
killing criminal vermin at all cost.
They want to bring you down, my friend,
they like us unlike them.
"Wǒmen de lǐngdǎo shì yīgè hǎorén,
tā zhīdào shénme shì duì de."
He needs no shrewd lawyers,
he senses who is guilty.
By hunger and chaos they make you foul your mouth,
our hate and cursing will set us all apart.
"Nash lider - khoroshiy chelovek,
on znayet, chto pravil'no."
Now don't get naughty,
you know, just behave.
Raise your head, man, raise your feeble voice:
let's sing our songs, let's come together.
"Liderimiz iyi bir insandır,
doğru olanı biliyor."
He's towering above all of us,
he'll crush the faintest uprising upfront.
Heureux qui comme Ulysse a fait un beau voyage
- et puis est retourne plein d'usage et raison.
Fortunate the guy who fared well on his travels
- and returned, a man of the world, full of wisdom.
"Our leader is a good man,
he knows what is right."
On April 29th 1945, the gate of camp Dachau was finally unlocked by US Colonel Felix Sparks and his men. Inside they found, among other near-dead survivors, French author Robert Antelme who after the war wrote himself back into life (cf Alex Kershaw's The Liberator).
Indented lines are paraphrased quotes from Anthelme's novel The human species. The poem of Du Bellay (Heureux qui comme Ulysse) was said during a rare self-entertainment session, organized by the exhausted prisoners in order to hang on and survive the devastating final months of the war.
For describing the force behind the camps, we don't need history; just newsfeeds and Google Translate to help its all time credo come alive (in Filipino/Tagalog, simple Chinese, Russian and Turkish. The US version may also need translation, at least for some in the US).
