The commandant's birthday was 25 February, and to curry a shameless favor with him the guards were wont to assemble and organize minstrel troupes from the capos and prisoners to put on annual vaudeville revues, comic operas, and tragedies. Naturally, we were whipped generously so as to furnish us with sense memories and motivations as thespians in our various roles. That year [1944] we, that is Schlomo, Irving, Oskar, Jan, Ennio, Karlheinz, and I, staged Andrew Lloyd Webber's Cats and though few have believed me whenever I tell this story and come to this next frightening portion, I would eat my own mother's hair if I lie! When we came to my signature number of "Memory", which I, in the part of Grizabella, crept to the edge of the stage and poured out with a sensitive, piercing gusto especially for that monster the Ghost, who sat by himself in the empty theater, I declare that a solitary tear wet the back of his clicking electric monocle.
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