2014
Hylas

This song talks about Johann “Rukeli” Trollmann, a German Sinto boxer who became famous in the late 1920s. He was discriminated, marginalized, sterilized, and finally deported to a concentration camp where he was later murdered. He was recognized as the former boxer, and was made to fight fellow prisoners for ‘entertainment’.

The last dance part in the title refers to his very last boxing fight, scheduled for 21 July, with Gustav Eder as Trollmann’s opponent, where he lost on purpose by merely standing still and taking the blows of his opponent as he was asked, until he was knocked out in the fifth round. Indeed Rukeli had been ordered to fight in the ‘German style’ and ‘not to dance like a Gypsy’. He knew he was meant to lose this fight because he was a Sinto. This marked the end of his boxing career.