the women who were musicans at auschwitz

she said they had been playing an evening program of classical music for the sick and dying who had been made to sit in chairs. the one admitted she knew this was just another form of torture. that when she had been sitting in those chairs (before being selected to play) she hated it. it wasn't an anodyne at all. although conceivably it might have momentarily transported some. she allowed. and that evening a woman got up and ran and threw herself against the electric fence. and she said of course that troubled her but that she couldn't dwell too deeply on the causal link between the music she was playing and the actions of that woman. this was not said without empathy but with a sense of the grammatical requirements of sanity.