Chap­ter 5 opens with the nar­ra­tor reflect­ing on a chill­ing encounter with Rudolf Hoess, the Com­man­dant of Auschwitz, at a New Year’s Eve par­ty in War­saw in 1944. Hoess, some­what envi­ous of the narrator’s writ­ing tal­ent, con­fess­es that he has incred­i­ble sto­ries to tell, but can only do so once the war con­cludes. He men­tions strug­gling with a cre­ative block, an eerie admis­sion giv­en the con­trast between his role as the archi­tect of Auschwitz and the moral weight of his actions dur­ing the war. This inter­ac­tion lays the ground­work for the dis­turb­ing jux­ta­po­si­tion between cre­ativ­i­ty and atroc­i­ty, high­light­ing the ten­sion between Hoess’s per­son­al ambi­tions and the hor­rif­ic nature of his posi­tion with­in the Nazi regime. The scene is a chill­ing reminder of the com­part­men­tal­ized mind­set that many per­pe­tra­tors of war crimes adopt­ed, push­ing the moral impli­ca­tions of their actions into the back­ground.

The nar­ra­tor reveals that he is in War­saw at the request of Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, the head of the Nazi pro­pa­gan­da min­istry. Goebbels envi­sions a grand pageant that will hon­or Ger­man sol­diers who died sup­press­ing the War­saw Ghet­to upris­ing, and he wants it to be staged in the war-rav­aged city. The pageant is planned as an annu­al event, with the ruins of War­saw serv­ing as a dra­mat­ic and fit­ting back­drop for the trib­ute. When the nar­ra­tor asks about the pres­ence of Jews in the pageant, Goebbels non­cha­lant­ly sug­gests they will “ask Hoess” to “save some” since he runs a health resort for Jews. This state­ment, dark­ly humor­ous and chill­ing, reflects the Nazi regime’s warped world­view, treat­ing human lives as com­modi­ties for their own grotesque pur­pos­es. The casu­al­ness of Goebbels’ remark about Jews high­lights the moral bank­rupt­cy of the Nazi lead­er­ship and their bru­tal exploita­tion of suf­fer­ing.

As the nar­ra­tor reflects on the dis­turb­ing nature of the pro­posed pageant, ten­ta­tive­ly titled “Last Full Mea­sure,” he finds him­self con­fronting the deep­er moral impli­ca­tions of the task. He admits that he might have writ­ten it under pres­sure, acknowl­edg­ing that the project draws unex­pect­ed atten­tion to the Get­tys­burg Address by Abra­ham Lin­coln. In trans­lat­ing Lincoln’s speech for Goebbels, the nar­ra­tor finds the sen­ti­ments res­onate deeply with the Nazi ide­ol­o­gy, par­tic­u­lar­ly Goebbels’ view that Lincoln’s words could be adapt­ed for Nazi funer­al ora­to­ry. This con­ver­sa­tion high­lights the absur­di­ty of Nazi lead­ers attempt­ing to appro­pri­ate uni­ver­sal themes of sac­ri­fice and uni­ty, twist­ing them to serve their pro­pa­gan­da needs. The dis­so­nance between the noble ideals of Lincoln’s address and their use in this con­text under­scores the dis­tor­tion of mean­ing that per­vades the Nazi regime’s actions, as they sought to co-opt his­to­ry and cul­ture for their own pur­pos­es.

The con­ver­sa­tion shifts to Lincoln’s back­ground, where Goebbels express­es con­cern over the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Lin­coln may have been Jew­ish, a reflec­tion of the deep anti-Semi­tism that defined the regime’s ide­ol­o­gy. This moment reveals the extent of the regime’s irra­tional hatred and obses­sion with race, pro­ject­ing their anti-Semit­ic views even onto his­tor­i­cal fig­ures, no mat­ter how dis­con­nect­ed those views were from real­i­ty. Just two weeks lat­er, the nar­ra­tor receives word that the Get­tys­burg Address has been sent back from Hitler, with praise for its emo­tion­al impact. The speech is now seen as a sym­bol of uni­ty among north­ern peo­ples, a stark con­trast to the dis­tort­ed, vio­lent nation­al­ism espoused by the Nazis. This response from Hitler reflects the regime’s attempt to appro­pri­ate any­thing that could be twist­ed to sup­port their cause, even revered sym­bols of uni­ty and sac­ri­fice.

The chap­ter con­cludes with a deep­er insight into the narrator’s psy­che. Despite the polit­i­cal intrigue and moral con­flicts sur­round­ing him, his dreams are filled with mem­o­ries of women—his wife, Hel­ga, and her sis­ter, Resi—rather than the tyrants and war crim­i­nals of his past. These reflec­tions offer a poignant con­trast to the dark world the nar­ra­tor finds him­self in, both phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly. His cur­rent life in Israel is described as a form of pur­ga­to­ry, a lim­bo where he is haunt­ed by the mem­o­ries of his for­mer life in New York, which he describes as even worse than Hell. This jux­ta­po­si­tion between his present real­i­ty and the ghosts of his past under­scores the com­plex­i­ty of the narrator’s emo­tion­al state, as he grap­ples with guilt, long­ing, and the weight of his past actions. The haunt­ing mem­o­ries of women who are now absent from his life serve as a stark reminder of what he has lost, adding emo­tion­al depth to his reflec­tion on the con­se­quences of his choic­es.