It was first published in the magazine Sur in February 1943. The main character of the story is a playwright named Jaromir Hladík, who is living in Prague when it is occupied by the Nazis during World War II. Hladík is arrested and charged with being Jewish as well as opposing the Anschluss, and sentenced to die by firing squad.

    or animalsThey lived in family groups, as men do. Yet the female was always taken by force, as animals do.They walked upright as men do. Yet they fought with their teeth and nails, ripping at each other's flesh, as animals do.These strange and violent people belong to the bloodstained and bestial past of every one of us. These are the first men and women - more of a jungle animal than a human being...and ancestor to all of us.