“Every day another death,” Gustav wrote. “One cannot believe what a man can endure.” He could find no ordinary words to describe the living hell of the quarry. Turning to the back pages of his notebook, he began composing a poem—titled “Quarry Kaleidoscope”—translating the chaotic nightmare into precise, measured, orderly stanzas. Click-clack, hammer blow, Click-clack, day of woe. Slave souls, wretched bones, At the double, break the stones.15 In these lines he managed to find a midpoint between the experiences he lived each day and how it was perceived through
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