Doing some Cornering yesterday, I had occasion to mention the infamous slogan at the Auschwitz gates: “Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “Work Makes Free.” I have received a letter from an expert on things Spanish and Latin American — who reminds us of the slogan at the camps set up by Che Guevara in Cuba: “El Trabajo Os Hará Hombres,” or “Work Will Make Men of You.” Che knew his Nazism, believe me. (Maybe the loving movies on him leave this out?) Into his camps, he and his fellow revolutionaries tossed gays, artists, “loiterers,” and other “misfits.” Hence, “Work Will Make Men of You.” He was awfully macho, that heartthrob of a billion T-shirts — and, of course, one of the most savage men of his time.

Let me segue into this: I have a piece in the current NR on a new opera by Jorge Martín, a Cuban-American composer. It’s Before Night Falls, based on the well-known autobiography by Reinaldo Arenas. Arenas was a writer and one of those people whom the Castroites wanted to make men of. He suffered terrible things in the Cuban gulag, until they finally broke him: He renounced both his dissidence and his homosexuality. In 1980, he managed to escape in the chaos of the Mariel boatlift. He came to America, and committed suicide ten years later, while dying of AIDS.

I’m all lightness and cheer today, huh? Wait’ll you see the next Corner items I have in mind. (They concern the Middle East, another garden of joy.)