Summary

Scene 9 takes place in 1955. It opens with Nathan (son of Sally and Zac, the baby at the center of the debate about circumcision in Scene 7, now 31) making a statement to an unseen person. He is talking about the painting of Gretl by Gustav Klimt which was stolen from the Merz apartment after Kristallnacht in November 1938. Nathan recounts the immediate aftermath of Kristallnacht and then states that himself, his mother Sally, his father Zac and his sisters Mimi and Bella were transported to Auschwitz. Sally, Mimi and Bella were gassed immediately upon arrival. Zac died on the death march that occurred in 1945 when the Nazis abandoned the camp with the prisoners in 1945. Nathan does not explain what happened to him. He returns to the topic of the painting, which he saw on display in Vienna when he returned after the war. Nathan starts to laugh...