(The eminent German writer, Arthur Holitscher inspired by Swift’s immortal Gulliver’s Travels, has composed this biting satire, portraying, under the gitise of “Barbaryans”, the German Nazi Aryans.)
My dear Sir:
It is a matter of common knowledge that the study of people and conditions in the land of the Barbaryans presents all but insurmountable difficulties. The Race Determination Institute, under the pressure brought to bear upon it by the state administration and the secret service, established the fact, during the second year of the present regime, that the real name of Johann Gutenburg, of Maintz, inventor of the printing press, was Jacob Gensfleisch and that his mother was a Jewess of Prague who eked out a living by selling geese. Accordingly, immediately following this great discovery, printing was declared a piece of Jewish trickery, and outlawed. After public opinion had been duly belabored by the Department of Propaganda, all printing presses were rebuilt into machines for making fire arms, all type fonts were melted and recast into bullets, and the straight-lined runic script was made obligatory instead. As very few readers are familiar with this primitive method of recording human speech and events, one has to rely on eye-witnesses in order to learn what is actually going on in Barbarya.
Those on whose behalf I undertook the mission did their utmost to persuade the leader of the Barbaryans, the so-called Supreme Osaph, to grant me permission to enter his country. In vain did they keep assuring him that I was the foremost and oldest journalist in His Majesty’s domain, that my travelogues had gained me wide renown and that my visit would be in the best interests of Barbarya herself. At one time, during the negotiations, the following insurmountable obstacle arose to my being admitted: the Barbaryans were suspecting that my Christian name Lemuel was a composite derivative of Lehman and Samuel, this being an unmistakable indication of my non-Aryan origin. Fortunately, however, the Department in charge of Race Determination and Visas demands a few drops of blood for analysis from an applicant for admission. Without this test, no entry permits are issued. A specimen of my blood was duly submitted, but as no favorable reply was forthcoming, I informed the Department that, in addition, I was willing to submit to sterilization, as practiced in Barbarya. But I was informed that sterilization would not be applied to a man over two hundred years of age. After a long, interminable wait my documents were finally returned to me with the resolution: “To be admitted!” The seals with the Fascist insignia took up an entire page of my passport.
As is well known, the civilized countries bordering on Barbarya are separated from it by deep moats, a few miles wide and filled with water to the brink. An airplane, after carrying me over the moat dividing that country from Belgium, landed me on the Barbaryan territory.
What struck me first on arrival were the endless turnip fields stretching away to the very horizon. Turnips are the sole food of four-fifths of the population. The border patrol, as well as the regular army, wear brown uniforms with large Fascist emblems both on the breast and on the back. These emblems are visible a great distance away. The basic colors of the country are brown and military gray. Red, which was still to be found in the old flag, has disappeared completely, except on maps where red circles denote the numerous concentration camps scattered all over Barbaryan territory. Besides these red oases, one finds on the maps splotches of green which stand for turnip fields, and spots of brown for wooded areas. The cities have vanished altogether. Oaks have been planted on their sites, and thick groves of trees stretch from the woods of Teutonburg to the Black Forest and the Hartz River.
After a lengthy sojourn in Barbarya, I learned to distinguish three distinct classes of Barbaryans. The ruling class are the so-called Osaphs or Barbaryans proper. This aristocratic group dwells in forests and on tree-tops.
The less dominant class are the Heilots, a term bringing to mind both the truly German “Heil” and the ancient Greek Helot or slave. As a matter of fact, the Heilots are the negligible survivors of the lower middle classes who had been shouting “Heil!” in honor of their ruling class so long and so ardently that they finally disintegrated into these miserable Heilots.
The former proletarian class no longer exists in Barbarya. What is left of the proletariat constitutes the points marked red on the map. It is there that these “concentrational” Europeans are confined, or, rather, are doomed to slow death and total annihilation. They live under strictest surveillance. Using the alphabet is a capital offence. Runic script, the characters of which require the use of pointed knives, is not accessible to them because they are not allowed to possess weapons of any kind. Thus, writing is the exclusive privilege of the upper class, whose members carry sharp knives with them. With these knives they also skin the oxen, whose flesh they cut into chunks and devour raw.
The concentrational Europeans communicate with each other by means of a secret sign language reminiscent of that of deaf-mutes. If one of them is caught talking to a fellow prisoner he is beaten up severely and, often as not, flogged to death. These concentrational Europeans are fed on turnip offal, dung and occasional leftovers thrown to them by some of the softer-hearted Barbaryans.
The members of the Heilot class are of fair complexion. They have blue eyes, tangled beards, and are clad in brown canvas suits. Had they worn animal skius instead, they might be taken for Huns. But skins are the exclusive privilege of the upper class. The female Heilots wear their hair in long braids and coquettishly display necklaces made of enemies’ teeth. The last vestiges of civilization may be observed in these women’s long finger nails dyed red in accordance with the style at present in vogue among our own ladies in the West. The men and women of this class toil in the turnip fields, the concentrational Europeans or former working classes being deprived of all opportunity to engage in any occupation.
What seemed particularly strange to me was that I noticed among the Heilots a number of people of an absolutely non-Aryan east of countenance. My official guide, who would not let me out of sight either during waking or sleeping hours and who kept in his pocket-to be on the safe side-a test tube with a specimen of my blood, explained to me that not all Heilots were full-blooded Aryans but that many of them had assimilated themselves to such a degree that their actions and manners became no less Aryan than those of their masters.
After a long and fatiguing journey we succeeded at last in reaching the residence of the chiefs of Barbarya’s ruling caste. I had been accustomed, during my former travels, to meeting all kinds and manner of people. Particularly replete with surprises was the land of the Houyhnhms. And yet, when I beheld for the first time the rulers of Barbarya, those most exclusive inhabitants of our globe, I was dumbfounded.
Indeed, as my readers shall see, there was ample reason for astonishment. As soon as I caught sight of this all-highest aristocracy of Barbarya, I could hardly resist exclaiming out loud, at the top of my voice:
“Good Lord, but they are Jews!”
When I communicated, after some hesitation, this thought to my companion, he burst out laughing. The Osaphs of Barbarya, he expatiated, had fed, so fanatically and so persistently, and for so many years, on Jews that they ended up by acquiring a full external resemblance to the enemies whom they had destroyed. This recalled to my mind that Sigmund Freud tells of savages who eat up their progenitors and, as a result, become like them in every respect. But let me point out right here that the Osaphs resemble the Jews in physical appearance only. As for spiritual traits and mental attributes-why, that is an altogether different matter. Be it as it may, however, the Barbaryans of today, like the immortal founders of their state, Dr. Goebbels, Dr. Ley, and others, look like typical Jews. The hirsute adornment of their physiognomies is jet black in color, and they are distinguished for a tempestuous temperament peculiar to the tribes of ancient Israel.
After they had eaten up all the edible Jews of the Empire, they had to resort to animal husbandry. Their clothes consist of animal skins, and it was a truly amusing sight to watch these fur-clad Jews climb from limb to limb in the trees.
In conclusion, I shall indulge in a few passing observations of a purely scientinature. As a former ship’s surgeon took particular interest in the anatomi structure of the Barbaryans. Their be developed organs are those indivtive the warlike spirit of the race. There to beebserved in all one-hundred-perce Barbaryans a hyper-trophy or super-elartgent of the thyroid or shieldli gland and of the sword-shaped append The Supreme Osaph once made an attem to bring the origin of Berthold Schwar inventor of gunpowder, under suspicion, a issued a decree directing that war be wag by means of bows and arrows, catapu and burning pitch only. After protract debates and arguments, however, it w decided to employ the most modern weapons, and converted printing presses a now turning out guns and munitions record speed.
So much for my brief survey of thin and conditions in Barbarya. For more detais, inquire over the radio. Keep in mir though, that I am a two-hundred-year-old man on whom his last trip made a terrest impression, somthing he had not perienced while traveling in Liliput, B dingaug, Laputa and other wonderla And still another consideration-from other voyages one might reasonably the conclusion that Mankind was programing. No such inference is possible sequent to my sojourn in Barbarya
Please believe me to be, with since affection,
Your obedient servant,
LEMUEL GULLIVE
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
