Destroying their house numbers was, for the powerless, akin to taking back their humanity. When men gouged out their teeth or cut off their thumbs to avoid military service, they were exercising the only power they had. Violence against themselves, violence against the house was, as Tantner writes, “all that was left in the face of the power of addressing wielded by the state.” If they couldn’t number you, if they couldn’t conscript you, if they couldn’t see you, they didn’t own you—you really were a free man.
