Discovering Ernst Toller

I started reading Ernst Toller's play "Man and the Masses" yesterday. I found it at the college library a few days ago and I like what I have read so far. Toller wrote it while he was in the Niederschönenfeld prison in Germany for four years beginning in 1919. Toller was a socialist and fierce anti-war critic.

I found myself often thinking of the present horrific situation in Gaza as I read this text. For example, in his introduction, Toller writes, "These corpses, in a ghastly embrace, seem to lift their stark fists in protest against a humanity which despoils itself, against a fate which gloats in the danse macabre of blinded nations."

Here is another part of a memorable scene:

The Man 

I must make it clear,

I did not come to help you

The Woman 

Forgive the dream that blossomed for a moment. 

And later, a passionate soliloquy that echoes throughout Gaza today.....

The Woman 

You speak of desires?

I know---a chasm yawns between us...

But it was not a whim that made me turn,

No wish to change my way of living.

It was a need...Need of my very self,

Need of the darkest depths of my existence.

Need alters us, I tell you, need changes us.

Not moods or spells or fits of boredom,

But need--the need to be a human being. 

Toller might be forgotten these days, but I will read more of his work. His message, however, still rings loudly.