ABSTRACT
In Jiří Pick’s The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals there is a conversation between the prisoners assigned to work in the cemetery of the Terezín camp. While his co-workers still nourish the illusion that the trains take their fellow prisoners to work, Engineer Karpfen is convinced that they are going to be killed. He is an engineer with a methodical mind and has been wondering about the technical solutions the Germans would invent to annihilate Europe’s 15 million Jews. He finally comes up with an efficient and inexpensive solution, assuming that the Nazis would not want to spend too much money on the undertaking. Jews will be drowned in the continent’s lakes. Toni, the last remaining member of the Society, intervenes anxiously: “But what about the fish? Wouldn’t it bother them?”
