In 1944, an anonymous boy detailed the last days of the Lodz Ghetto, writing in Polish ... for stuff that the Japanese do,” he wrote in his diary. “Darn it anyhow us loyal Jap.

To Ball, it fit. “Dada is ‘yes, yes’ in Rumanian, ‘rocking horse’ and ‘hobby horse’ in French,” he noted in his diary. “For Germans it is a sign of foolish naiveté, joy in ...