The text can be divided into two parts: story (narrator) from bar 12 onwards and prayer (male choir) from bar 80 on.
Some further structuring elements are:
A) the repetition of the line "I must have been unconscious" (first in bar 12, a second time in bar 54).
B) the statement of the Schma Jisrael melody in bars 18-21 at the words "the old prayer they had neglected for so many years". The whole melody recurs after bar 80.
C) the fanfare motif occurring in the following bars: 1, 25, 26, 31-34.
Another structuring element is provided by the different language levels:
a) the narrator's report in English,
b) the sergeants's orders in German,
c) the Schma Jisrael of the Jews on their way to death sung in Hebrew.
The twelve-note row
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