【英语语言学习】奥斯维辛的幸存者

KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:

Clothes can make you feel confident, even powerful. But can a piece of clothing save your life? We are about to meet a man who dresses other people for a living. And then we'll hear NPR's Hanna Rosin turn the mirror on him and a specific shirt. This is from the latest episode of NPR's Invisibilia.

HANNA ROSIN, BYLINE¹: For 60 years, Martin Greenfield has been helping² men look their best.

MARTIN GREENFIELD: The biggest smile you see - they never saw themselves look like this.

ROSIN: Not just any men - Martin has been tailor to the last three presidents.

GREENFIELD: Obama...

ROSIN: A bit of a bore.

ROSIN: ...He had two suits - a navy and a charcoal³, navy and a charcoal, navy and a charcoal. That's all. I said, well, why don't you get a pinstripe or something else?

ROSIN: He really liked Bill Clinton but not so much a style.

GREENFIELD: It wasn't presidential.

ROSIN: The guy wore a leather jacket. The first time he met Clinton, he told the president...

GREENFIELD: You, Mr. President, look heavy person. You not heavy, but because of your skin - you're very light color. Everything has to be made the right way to you.

ROSIN: Martin has custom fit a lot of famous people.

GREENFIELD: Thousands and thousands of people...

ROSIN: ...Shaquille O'Neal...

GREENFIELD: He's such a big guy.

ROSIN: ...Patrick Ewing...

GREENFIELD: He buys like 12 suits at a time.

ROSIN: ...Michael Bloomberg...

GREENFIELD: He loves me.

ROSIN: ...Donald Trump⁴...

GREENFIELD: He wears all my overcoats.

ROSIN: ...Steve Buscemi, Al Pacino, Ben Affleck, Michael Jackson...

GREENFIELD: I met his whole family.

ROSIN: Martin's association of powerful men and fine clothing - it began in a dark place.

GREENFIELD: He looked at me, and I looked at him because I looked in his boots. I could see my picture there. It was so shiny.

ROSIN: Those shiny boots belong to Josef Mengele, the sadistic⁵ Nazi⁶ physician known as the Angel of Death. Martin was 15, and he had just stepped off the train at Auschwitz, the concentration camp.

GREENFIELD: I saw prisoners all in stripes.

ROSIN: The new arrivals were ordered to line up. At the front, Mengele separated them.

GREENFIELD: To the left, to the right, to the left, the right.

ROSIN: Martin got sent to the right to the tailor shop where Jewish prisoners washed and mended Nazi uniforms. The head tailor gave him a job.

GREENFIELD: Gave me a dirty shirt, and he showed me how to take a brush and try and clean it and clean it.

GREENFIELD: It was a Nazi uniform shirt, solid white with a big, stiff collar and buttons.

GREENFIELD: I clean it. I clean it, but the damn thing ripped.

ROSIN: It ripped. He just ruined a Nazi's shirt. Jews in the camp were shot for the smallest offenses⁷, for taking extra food, for falling out of line...

GREENFIELD: For nothing.

ROSIN: But Martin didn't know that yet. He was young, and he was new to the camps and all the brutality⁸. So the next morning when the Nazis⁹ showed up, he was just honest.

GREENFIELD: I said it's - the collar is ripped.

ROSIN: The soldier lifted his baton¹⁰ and smashed it on Martin's back over and over.

GREENFIELD: I didn't cry or anything.

ROSIN: Instead, once the Nazi had left, Martin picked the shirt up off the floor and asked the tailor to fix it so that Martin could wear it.

GREENFIELD: And he said, nobody's going to let you wear a shirt. I says, but I always had a shirt.

ROSIN: The head tailor fixed¹¹ the collar. Martin put it on under his uniform. He buttoned it all the way up and popped the collar out for everyone to see. That night when all the other Jews in the tailor shop walked out the back door, Martin went out the front where the guard was.

GREENFIELD: I said to myself, let me see if he let me get away with it. He just looked at me, and he let me walk. And that proved to me that he thought I was somebody special, and that was very important to me.

ROSIN: Why was that important to you?

GREENFIELD: It was important to me because I wanted to be somebody, you understand?

ROSIN: Martin wore the shirt day and night.

GREENFIELD: Sometimes I opened the collar.

ROSIN: He slept in it. He showered in it.

GREENFIELD: Sometimes I closed the collar.

ROSIN: He kept it on when he was transferred to another concentration camp.

GREENFIELD: I was different. I was different all the way through.

ROSIN: A Jewish prisoner wearing a Nazi shirt. Nobody said anything to you.

GREENFIELD: No.

ROSIN: Not even in the shower.

GREENFIELD: Never.

ROSIN: Martin has a theory about why he was allowed to keep wearing the shirt. He thinks maybe it made him look like one of the Jewish boys in the camp who were used for sex.

GREENFIELD: They had sex with men. It never happened to me. But I'll tell you the truth. They thought that somebody is behind all this dressing¹² up with me.

ROSIN: He kept it on until April 11, 1945, the day Eisenhower liberated¹³ the camps.

GREENFIELD: I am going to live now. I survive.

ROSIN: Would you say that the shirt saved your life?

GREENFIELD: I don't know if the shirt saved my life, but I know that I felt better because I was cleaned. I was dressed like I used to be dressed.

ROSIN: When I was talking to Martin, I suddenly had this terrible thought.

Do you think you learned anything from the Nazis?

GREENFIELD: I learned nothing from the Nazis because I hated them.

ROSIN: So I still - I kept pressing him. Maybe it was somehow the Nazi power that had trickled¹⁴ into him through that shirt. Maybe that's what had made him invincible¹⁵.

Given how much you said you - I hate the Nazis, you were wearing a Nazi shirt every day.

GREENFIELD: That's not a Nazi. I washed the Naziness (ph) out. It was done in the water, in the soap - finished. It was my shirt.

ROSIN: And you don't think it saved you?

GREENFIELD: The shirt (laughter) - it's too many questions about the shirt. The shirt was just a shirt to me. That's it.

ROSIN: Martin was adamant¹⁶. The shirt held no secret power. It wasn't the shirt that got him through any of this. It was something else, something the writer Primo Levi has written about. Levi believed that the Nazis maintained their power by reducing unique individuals to anonymous¹⁷ things - one in a generic¹⁸ series, numbers, Jews. This is what allowed them to kill so easily. And yet there was Martin, collar flipped¹⁹, defiantly²⁰ asserting every single day. I am not a number.

GREENFIELD: I was somebody special in my heart.

ROSIN: Hanna Rosin, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MCEVERS: Invisibilia has many more stories about the secret emotional life of clothing. The newest episode is out this weekend.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

3 charcoal   

n.炭，木炭，生物炭

参考例句：

• We need to get some more charcoal for the barbecue.我们烧烤需要更多的碳。
• Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。

4 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

5 sadistic   

adj.虐待狂的

参考例句：

• There was a sadistic streak in him.他有虐待狂的倾向。
• The prisoners rioted against mistreatment by sadistic guards.囚犯因不堪忍受狱警施虐而发动了暴乱。

6 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。

7 offenses   

n.进攻( offense的名词复数 )；（球队的）前锋；进攻方法；攻势

参考例句：

• It's wrong of you to take the child to task for such trifling offenses. 因这类小毛病责备那孩子是你的不对。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Thus, Congress cannot remove an executive official except for impeachable offenses. 因此，除非有可弹劾的行为，否则国会不能罢免行政官员。 来自英汉非文学 - 行政法

8 brutality   

n.野蛮的行为，残忍，野蛮

参考例句：

• The brutality of the crime has appalled the public. 罪行之残暴使公众大为震惊。
• a general who was infamous for his brutality 因残忍而恶名昭彰的将军

9 Nazis   

n.（德国的）纳粹党员( Nazi的名词复数 )；纳粹主义

参考例句：

• The Nazis worked them over with gun butts. 纳粹分子用枪托毒打他们。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The Nazis were responsible for the mass murder of Jews during World War Ⅱ. 纳粹必须为第二次世界大战中对犹太人的大屠杀负责。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 baton   

n.乐队用指挥杖

参考例句：

• With the baton the conductor was beating time.乐队指挥用指挥棒打拍子。
• The conductor waved his baton,and the band started up.指挥挥动指挥棒，乐队开始演奏起来。

11 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

12 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

13 liberated   

a.无拘束的，放纵的

参考例句：

• The city was liberated by the advancing army. 军队向前挺进，解放了那座城市。
• The heat brings about a chemical reaction, and oxygen is liberated. 热量引起化学反应，释放出氧气。

14 trickled   

v.滴( trickle的过去式和过去分词 )；淌；使)慢慢走；缓慢移动

参考例句：

• Blood trickled down his face. 血从他脸上一滴滴流下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The tears trickled down her cheeks. 热泪一滴滴从她脸颊上滚下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 invincible   

adj.不可征服的，难以制服的

参考例句：

• This football team was once reputed to be invincible.这支足球队曾被誉为无敌的劲旅。
• The workers are invincible as long as they hold together.只要工人团结一致，他们就是不可战胜的。

16 adamant   

adj.坚硬的，固执的

参考例句：

• We are adamant on the building of a well-off society.在建设小康社会这一点上，我们是坚定不移的。
• Veronica was quite adamant that they should stay on.维罗妮卡坚信他们必须继续留下去。

17 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

18 generic   

adj.一般的，普通的，共有的

参考例句：

• I usually buy generic clothes instead of name brands.我通常买普通的衣服，不买名牌。
• The generic woman appears to have an extraordinary faculty for swallowing the individual.一般妇女在婚后似乎有特别突出的抑制个性的能力。

19 flipped   

轻弹( flip的过去式和过去分词 )； 按（开关）； 快速翻转； 急挥

参考例句：

• The plane flipped and crashed. 飞机猛地翻转，撞毁了。
• The carter flipped at the horse with his whip. 赶大车的人扬鞭朝着马轻轻地抽打。

20 defiantly   

adv.挑战地，大胆对抗地

参考例句：

• Braving snow and frost, the plum trees blossomed defiantly. 红梅傲雪凌霜开。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She tilted her chin at him defiantly. 她向他翘起下巴表示挑衅。 来自《简明英汉词典》