(SCENE:\u00a0 A lecture room at an esteemed university.\u00a0 As 30-odd students take their seats and set up their laptops, Professor Evelyn MUNCHENBERG-SCROGGINS welcomes\u00a0an older man, Avram COHEYN – a frail 80-something man with thin white hair covered by a Yarmulke.\u00a0 COHEYN sits on a chair next to the professor’s podium.<\/p>\n
MUNCHENBERG-SCROGGINS:\u00a0 Class?\u00a0 (Din gradually subsides).\u00a0 I’d like to welcome Mr. Avram Coheyn to the class.\u00a0 He’s a native of Poznan – do I have that right? (COHEYN smiles and nods), and he’ll be talking with us about his experiences in the Holocaust.\u00a0 I’d like\u00a0 you to give him your undivided attention, and come up with some good questions for him at the end of his talk.\u00a0 Mr. Coheyn?\u00a0<\/p>\n
(Class applauds politely as COHEYN rises)<\/p>\n
COHEYN (speaks with faint Polish-Yiddish accent):\u00a0 Thank you, Professor Munchenberg-Scroggins.\u00a0 And to all of you, also, my thanks.\u00a0 I am Avram Coheyn.\u00a0 In Sosnowiec, Poland I was born,\u00a0in 1929.\u00a0 And from 1941 through 1945, in a variety of concentration camps I was kept.\u00a0 By the Nazis…<\/p>\n
(Corey KRETINOWSKI, a 21-year-old political science major,\u00a0leaps to his feet).<\/p>\n
KRETINOWSKI:\u00a0 Godwin’s Law!\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
COHEYN: (Stops, puzzled).<\/p>\n
KRETINOWSKI:\u00a0 Godwin’s Law!\u00a0 He mentioned Nazis!\u00a0 (MUNCHENBERG-SCROGGINS shifts uncomfortably in her seat)<\/p>\n
COHEYN:\u00a0 Er – what is this “Godwin’s Law” of which you speak?\u00a0 Of this I have not heard…<\/p>\n
(Jane PLATT-WANCKER, a severe-looking 22 year old anthropology major, rises): “It’s a law on the internet or something.\u00a0 When you mention the Nazis\u00a0 you get banned”<\/p>\n
(Ian BIMMLER, a 21 year old Victimology Studies major in a “Che” T-Shirt):\u00a0 It’s the law that says when an argument goes along, there’s going to be someone who wrecks it with a Nazi reference”<\/p>\n
KRETINOWSKI:\u00a0 So, dude, your argument is shut down because you mentioned the Nazis.<\/p>\n
COHEYN:\u00a0 Er…what?<\/p>\n
(Stacy KREEFELD, a 21 year old Womyn’s Studies major with a “Question Authority” button on her Mao cap):\u00a0 I think it means that your argument is done.<\/p>\n
KRETINOWSKI:\u00a0 Whenever you mention Nazis, everyone gets to tune you out because mentioning Nazis means you don’t have an argument!<\/p>\n
(A few students clap, while a few others look on, confused, and others stare blankly at their desktops)<\/p>\n
(Bree EPSTEIN, a 20 year old Sociology major, speaks up):\u00a0 Mr. Coheyn, I don’t mean to lecture, but perhaps you should try to tell your story without any references to Nazis.\u00a0 It might make your argument better.<\/p>\n
COHEYN:\u00a0 An argument?\u00a0 What is this, argument?\u00a0 I’m telling my story!\u00a0 When I was 13 year old, my family and I were rousted from our home in Poznan, and force-marched through the cold to the railyard, and packed onto trains by the Nazis…<\/p>\n
(KRETINOWSKI, KREEFELD and BIMMLER simultaneously yell): Godwin’s Law!\u00a0 Godwin’s Law!<\/p>\n
COHEYN: What?<\/p>\n
KREEFELD:\u00a0 You keep mentioning Nazis!\u00a0 Godwins Law says that means whatever you’re saying is invalid!<\/p>\n
COHEYN:\u00a0 What?\u00a0 What is this madness?\u00a0 Do you mean that saying the name of the…(catches himself)…National Socialist German Workers’ Party (a few students trade puzzled looks) means I get you crazy kids yelling “Godwin whatsis” at me?\u00a0 This do I have right?<\/p>\n
(A few students nod).\u00a0<\/p>\n
COHEYN:\u00a0 When I was 15, I escaped from a concentration camp.\u00a0 A year in the woods I spent, fighting with the Partisans, fighting so that what we went through, my children and their children and my childrens children freynde<\/em> would never forget – and now, to me you say I can’t say “Nazi”…<\/p>\n (Several students): “Godwin’s Law!”\u00a0 (A few titters of juvenile mirth follow)<\/p>\n COHEYN: …without your verkachte <\/em>yapping?\u00a0 Distinguished professor Munchenberg-Scroggins, for this you have to say what?<\/p>\n MUNCHENBERG-SCROGGINS (Looks up from iPhone):\u00a0 I can see both sides, here.\u00a0<\/p>\n BIMMLER (Shouts):\u00a0 This is what democracy <\/em>looks like!<\/p>\n (A few students clap and cheer).\u00a0<\/p>\n COHEYN:\u00a0 What?\u00a0 Millions died, my family along with – and because of some stupid internet rule, their names I can not mention?\u00a0<\/p>\n (Students fidget, looking amongst themselves)<\/p>\n COHEYN:\u00a0 Because from what happened there are probably some things we can learn!\u00a0 That there are things we, today, can learn about that ordeal, do you not see?\u00a0 Huh?<\/p>\n (More fidgeting)<\/p>\n COHEYN:\u00a0 With this I am finished!\u00a0<\/p>\n (COHEYN stomps from the room, as the shadows and sun form, completely at random, a series of shapes on the window that read “While invoking Nazis can be lazy rhetoric, lazy invocations of “Godwin’s Law” are, if anything, a bigger hurdle to effective communication, in that they give the invoker an unearned sense of intellectual accomplishment” before disappearing.\u00a0)<\/p>\n (And SCENE)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" (SCENE:\u00a0 A lecture room at an esteemed university.\u00a0 As 30-odd students take their seats and set up their laptops, Professor Evelyn MUNCHENBERG-SCROGGINS welcomes\u00a0an older man, Avram COHEYN – a frail 80-something man with thin white hair covered by a Yarmulke.\u00a0 COHEYN sits on a chair next to the professor’s podium. MUNCHENBERG-SCROGGINS:\u00a0 Class?\u00a0 (Din gradually subsides).\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,37],"tags":[236],"class_list":["post-37787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history-and-its-making","category-language","tag-dramatization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37787"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37790,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37787\/revisions\/37790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}