The only reason we were using Farsi was that the story that it was based on had Farsi in it. So, it wasn’t any sort of conscious choice. It might as well have been Hindi, or Sanskrit, or Japanese. It didn’t really matter that much but what did matter was the theme of language. I think it’s very important because, for me, language means communication and identity. And the protagonist had to change his identity in order to survive. He changed himself. And it really weighed on him throughout the story. The fact he was a fraud. Even if he survived, he still felt he was a liar, like somebody who is not true to himself and, more importantly, his fellow prisoners.
But also, I think that language really helps to make Koch look more human in this case, not in a positive way, not as in “Oh he’s so nice, Nazis are just like us”. But how can we really say that they ‘could be’ just like us – they were just like us. And they committed those heinous horrible acts, and we could have as well. It makes us condemn them even more.