#'what is this--the gestapo?'

[fictionadventurer]

August: Day 26

Adventures and Accomplishments

Nothing to report.

[theabstruseone]

With the announcement of the new movie starring Michelle Yeoh, it seems I have to go on my Section 31 rant again.

Section 31 was only done well in Deep Space Nine because the writers of Deep Space Nine understood that SECTION 31 ARE THE BAD GUYS.

They were used as a foil for the grey morality of the show as a warning of "This is where you will go if you continue on this path". Section 31 was the logical endpoint of the show's themes of sacrificing your ethics, morality, and principles in a pragmatic "the ends justify the means" mentality in order to defend those ethics, morals, and principles.

Because you CAN'T.

If you compromise your ethics, morals, and principles in an attempt to defend those very same things, what exactly are you defending? Things you yourself tossed aside when they became inconvenient.

All three (yes, there were only three) episodes of DS9 centering on Section 31 featured Bashir resolving the conflict of that episode WITHOUT compromising his integrity as a citizen of the Federation and a Starfleet officer.

Up to and including preventing Section 31 from committing genocide. Yeah, remember that? When Section 31 infected Odo with a degenerative virus so that he would spread it to the Great Link and kill all of the Changelings? Then specifically stonewalled Bashir when he attempted to find a cure?

Section 31 is not just a tool for telling happy funtime spy stories in Star Trek. That organization is called Starfleet Intelligence and was already around long before DS9. Section 31 is an unauthorized unelected black ops group that functions outside any chain of command or authority that can place any checks on their use and abuse of power. You know, just like EVERY OTHER evil Starfleet officer in every other episode where some Admiral goes off the deep end and starts doing shady shit the Enterprise then has to stop.

Section 31 are the bad guys. They are not antiheroes. They are not just the darker side of Starfleet. They are not the people who must do the evil things that have to be done. They are just evil. Period.

[usauthoritarianism]

This is a Chicago Jump Out Squad

In DC this sort of thing is normal too.

People need to understand. I have spent my adult life in driving distance between the urban centers where this slave catcher ass policing style is the reality, and the prison(s) where massive prisoner populations are rented out to governments and corporations for literal pennies to the inmates.

-and this article is from 2014

[radarsteddybear]

I wish more fandom wikis cited their sources better :/

[madlori]

I see posts going "Okay, I'll vote for Kamala, I GUESS IF I HAVE TO" and "omg if that's the best we can do I suppose I'll support it" and I'm like...

What do you people fucking WANT?

Let's run down how she's rated politically by some organizations that we vibe with, kay?

ACLU = 93% on civil liberties

AFL-CIO = 100% on trade unions

Human Rights Campaign = 100% on queer rights

League of Conservation Voters = 91% on environmentalism

NARAL = 100% on reproductive rights

NRA Fund = 7% on gun rights (we LIKE a low score on this one)

NEA = 100% on education

Planned Parenthoos = 100% on reproductive rights

In addition, GovTrack (which is a nonpartisan tracker) places her in the MOST politically left-leaning categories of Senators. So we've got a very liberal, woman of color who's spent her career trying to mitigate draconian tough-on-crime laws to benefit the accused and keep black people out of prison and decrease recidivism and that's somehow...just barely tolerable.

So I ask again...what is that you're dissatisfied with? Is it Palestine? as recently as March she was calling for a ceasefire and demanding aid to Gaza. Keep in mind she's pretty constrained as to what's possible to do in this situation.

Is it just that she was a prosecutor? That is an important job that needs to be done and we WANT people doing it who aren't rah-rah tough-on-crime Gestapo types, which she is not. We need prosecutors who are addressing the root causes of crime and looking for ways to help people escape the cycle, which she has done to the point that she was often called SOFT on crime.

So what is your objection here? Is it that her politics aren't 100% aligned with a bunch of Tumblr socialists? I got news for you...we Tumblr socialists DO NOT REPRESENT THE ELECTORATE. If such a candidate existed, they would not win.

Democrats struggle sometimes because our tent is large. Republicans just want you if you're a straight white man and preferably rich. There's room for a lot more types in the lefty side, but sadly that means a lot of room also for dissention among the ranks. This is how they get us. Let's not let them, huh? Just a suggestion.

[socialistexan]

It's about damn time these fuckers learned that they don't get just parade around in their faux gestapo getups without someone showing them what's what.

It's amazing how quickly these wannabe tough guy fascists turn into sniveling snowflakes as soon as they are met with even a little resistance.

"I thought I could come in and harass queers and threaten to kill them in peace!"

You really thought people were going to just let you come in and spout your hateful nonsense without any backlash? The audacity! That's a lifetime of unchecked privilege at play. I'm sometimes afraid to even leave my house while existing as a trans woman, and you thought you could just gamet away with this?

Talk shit, get hit.

[hedgehog-moss]

Last time I went to the village to buy bread I saw a woman in the street who was dressed like a 19th-century peasant, complete with a thick old-timey accent with dialect words no one uses anymore��she was telling a little group of people to follow her so of course I had to drop everything and follow her too.

And it turned out she was a theatre actress who has read a lot of local archives in libraries and town halls, and offered her services to organise guided tours of various villages to tell people about local history in a fun way, by playing characters who lived here in the Middle Ages, the 19th century, or WWII. It's such a cool idea! I talked to her for a bit after the visit and she said she wasn't sure it'd work / attract enough people, but she had groups of tourists + local families show up for the visit every week, in every village where she did this, so she think she'll be hired again next summer.

When I joined their group she was talking about WWII, and how my & other nearby villages were known by the Nazis and Vichy as a hotbed of terrorists, with some Gestapo officers killed in bomb attacks. (In retaliation the Nazis eventually rounded up 100+ locals and deported them to camps, as well as shooting a few.) I was mostly familiar with WWII anecdotes from the North-East, where my grandparents lived during the war, and I found it funny how different they sounded—my grandfather made Resistance activities sound well-planned and careful (espionage, sabotage, underground presses, infiltrating railway services etc) while oral histories around here make them sound a lot more spontaneous and—handcrafted? like "Emile brought what we needed for the bomb in his wheelbarrow hidden under a layer of straw and we exploded 2 Nazis."

We then went to visit the former girls' school, and I learnt a lot about my country's history of education for girls! Also it was really sweet because there was an old lady in our group who had attended this school as a child and had lots of school memories to share. Most of them were very wholesome, until eventually our tour guide went "Surely you also have some School Mischief to tell us about" and the old woman at first was like no no no no, I was a good girl. And then she conceded that when she had to sort lentils for the nuns' dinner and she resented one of them for berating her in class, she'd do a shit job on purpose and leave some little stones in the lentils.

Then our last step was the fairground where the town fair was (and is still) held, and our tour guide told us little 19th-century anecdotes (in-character, more like acting them out) that she'd found in old postcards and letters in the archives—how the town fair was where you'd go for your dentist appointment (i.e. to have your bad teeth pulled with pliers with no pain medicine) and to get any object repaired, like damaged pans or clogs; how there were dancing bears and performing monkeys; how one year the merchant who sold linen for women's trousseaus had her linen display trampled "by 300 cows" (might have been an exaggeration) and she hit the cow herder and it started a massive brawl.

My favourite anecdote was how back in the 1800s the local innkeeper was frustrated by the fact that the nearest village is just 10km away, and people who came to the fair often decided to go spend the night there so their journey back the next day would be less long, and so he started to tell them about the beast that lives under the bridge between the two villages. Travellers say horses go mad when they see it and just jump into the water. Some say the beast has dug up corpses from the cemetery because it likes human flesh, though of course it prefers it fresh. I'm now convinced half of local legends were single-handedly created by business savvy innkeepers determined to get more customers than the rival inn 10km away.

I'm sad I only learnt about these visits at the end of summer when they're coming to an end, but I'll definitely follow this woman around again if she returns with more stories next year!

[stelashe]

If you ask me to be normal I'd be the freakiest version of me in front of the children on purpose

[museologistanarchist]

a few of my favorite zines from Sprout. Highly recommend giving them a read

Tips on staying sane & calm while being arrested & sitting in a jail cell alone

Anarchist Survival Guide for Understanding Gestapo Swine Interrogation Mind Games

Counter-Info: A "How-To" Guide

Critical Thinking as Anarchist Weapon

Reading for Revolution

The Illegitimacy of Violence, the Violence of Legitimacy

Talking to the Media: A Guide for Anarchists

Consensus: A Brief Introductory Guide

Collectives: Anarchy Against The Mass

Class Struggle & Mental Health

Building: A DIY Guide to Creating Spaces, Hosting Events and Fostering Radical Communities

Anti-Mass: Methods of Organization for Collectives

Anarchism and the English Language

12 Things to do Instead of Calling the Cops

3 Positions Against Prison

Digital Security for Activists

Doxcare: Prevention and Aftercare for Those Targeted by Doxxing and Political Harassment

We Are Being Doxxed

The Invisible Ground, honoring each others security needs as an act of solidarity and liberation

An Activist's Guide to Information Security

Reclaiming Our Ancient Wisdom

Anti-Fascism Against Machismo: Gender, Politics, and the Struggle Against Fascism

Resignation is Death

Uncivilized, A Primer on Civilization, Domestication, and Anarchy 

What Anarchists Have been Saying for Years, and What Liberals Need to Start Hearing

Good Manners and Affinity Groups

Let's Talk: Feminist Communication

Hot Pantz: Do It Yourself Gynecology

[columboposting]

OK not to Foxpost on main but as much as I appreciate the trope of the coruscant guard being like woefully underfunded and undersupported by the senate because they’re “not front line troops” and therefore “don’t need things like bacta or rations etc” and like I get where you’re coming from, but like…. they may not be on the front line but they are the most significant and final line of defense for the capital of the republic and more specifically the senate, who — and I cannot stress this enough — are the people who decide whether or not the coruscant guard gets money. The corries do the work of cops AND the secret service, and maybe throw in the national guard — imagine if the united states defunded the cops (seriously, imagine…), specifically all the cops that work in DC, AND the secret service because oh they’re purely concerned with domestic affairs and the security of the most essential elements of our republic, they don’t need resources. You’re talking about fucking upside down banana world and certainly not about the political priorities of a fading republic succumbing to nationalism, militarism, and fascism.

If I were a late era galactic senator, I would have funding the coruscant guard as my top fucking priority. I’d be signing off on building fucking cop city overtop of coruscant’s last nature reserve, i’d be giving them experimental bazookas and tanks and shit up the wazoo. Twelve types of alien police dog and two models from Space Boston Dynamics. Horses. Fox keeps trying to find a weapon they won’t finance for him and it’s not working, at this point he’s considering asking for a lightsaber just to see what happens. I’m not saying the coruscant guard should live in the lap of luxury or anything but they should probably have ample if not excessive access to the military resources they need to do their jobs — medical supplies, armaments, armor, etc. Because if politicians are one thing, that thing is interested above all in their own security, and the coruscant guard is literally their personal protective army, why would they not want their personal protective army to be well funded. “I’m chancellor palpatine and I’m going to deprive my slave gestapo of medical supplies so that their limbs fall off when they try to murder my enemies” come on man be serious.

[vexingwoman]

Zina Portnova, the 15-year-old soviets youth resistance fighter who poisoned around 100 Nazis and shot two (or three?) Gestapos who were interrogating her.

This sketch is and has always been so heartbreaking and riveting, it’s hard for me to really put into words what her expression makes me feel. Every time I see it, I feel my heart twist in the cage of my chest.

[still-searching-for-something]

Today was Yom HaShoah, the day that Jews remember the Holocaust. The Holocaust was the industrialized genocide of the European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941-1945.

This is a really simple opening statement, but bear with me--I think it gets a lot more... 'yeah, buts' than most people may realize. And I think a good way of illuminating that is to break down the difference between how gentiles and Jews commemorate and remember it.

In my experience, gentiles seem to view the Holocaust as the ultimate example of mankind's barbarity to mankind. Like, the distillation of evil, the most obvious example of dehumanization and bigotry brought to its horrifying and extreme conclusion. They emphasize Nazi Germany's responsibility, elevate the instances of non-Jewish Frenchmen and Poles and Germans who made efforts to save Jewish lives, and generally view Nazi oppression as a catastrophe of whom Jews were one of many victims. And they emphasize the Allied Powers' role in ending it by liberating the camps and invading Germany. Hence why International Holocaust Remembrance Day falls on January 27th, the day Auschwitz was liberated.

But Jews have a different perspective.

We view the Holocaust as the most extreme manifestation of--but far from the conclusion to--mankind's barbarity to Jews. Not to his fellow man, per se, not to some universalized insert minority here slot, but to Jews, particularly and deliberately. The Nazis could never have accomplished their genocide were it not for the two millennia of anti-Jewish hatreds and dehumanization embedded deep in the institutions and political structures of European society. They didn't have to persuade Europe that the Jews were incurably evil, the Europeans already believed that. The Nazis had 99% of their work done before they'd even come to power, work that was done by the the Russian Empire, the Romans, Martin Luther, Christian Passion Plays, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the centuries of blood libels, the Fourth Lateran Council, the New Testament, the Spanish Empire, and on and on and on and on. It's as if some people think Hitler just woke up one day, out of the blue, with a total hatred of Jews and managed to use propaganda to convince the previously 100% tolerant Germans to hate Jews, too. Antisemitism did not begin or end with the Holocaust.

The sole responsibility of Nazi Germany in the Holocaust is also just... not true. Vichy France rounded up 13,152 Jews in the Vel' d'Hiv roundup, with not a single German participant, and sent them off to be murdered in Auschwitz. Vichy passed antisemitic legislation without any outside coercion--French Jews were hiding as much from the French police as they were from the Gestapo. France, of course, was the home of the Dreyfus Affair--antisemitism was and is a deep part of French society. And it isn't just France. Ukrainian nationalists participated in the Lviv pogroms, killing maybe around 8,000 Jews, Poles perpetrated the Jedwabne pogrom, and that doesn't even bring in that countries like the US, Switzerland and Ireland and Britain blocked Jewish emigrants, and I could just keep going on, but I think you get the point. Quite simply, six million Jews interspersed throughout Europe don't get murdered if it isn't without the collaboration of--or at minimum, silent assent and indifference--of all of their neighbors. The Nazis were the primary perpetrators of the Holocaust, of course, but almost all of Europe collaborated on some level, too. And this is a history that gets wiped away in favor of the comforting narrative of the Allied Powers bursting into Auschwitz, killing Nazis, and being horrified by what they've found, and then the poor people in the surrounding towns having NO IDEA about what had been going on. I think this narrative is why gentiles have International Holocaust Remembrance Day when Auschwitz was liberated--when they 'came to the rescue'--and why we have Yom HaShoah on the day in the Jewish calendar that the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began--when we died on our own terms in spite of our murderers.

Think of the tiny, unwritten, centuries old minhagim of small Jewish shetls and towns like Trochenbrod, which were entirely annihilated. The end of the burgeoning Yiddish cinema. Yiddish going from 13 million speakers to 600,000 today. See how many entries in this list of shetls end with "town/city survived, but all/most Jews exterminated." Imagine for a moment, the potential rabbis and scholars and actors and scientists and artists who could have lived, had they survived or been born of Jews did. Three and a half million Polish Jews, to around 15,000 to 20,000 Polish Jews today. Imagine if Thessaloniki were still a majority Jewish city. How many Jews worldwide would be alive today had the Holocaust never happened? I've heard estimations of 32 million, compared to the real life 16 million. To kill such a massive number of people from an already tiny minority group--that has real consequences. The cultural loss for the Jewish people is staggering and beyond human comprehension.

And yet, the Nazis deliberate targeting of us is, in many ways, being pushed aside. Magnus Hirschfeld was gay, yes, and advanced the Institute of Sexology way ahead of its time and yeah, the Nazis were homophobic. But they were homophobic for antisemitic reasons. They viewed his work as Jewish perversions BECAUSE Dr. Hirschfeld was Jewish. In fact, they viewed homosexuality as a creation of the Jews. But so many progressive queer people, especially those who run in antizionist circles, seem to be trying to co-opt the Holocaust as being their trauma, downplaying Hirschfeld's Jewishness and holding the Institute up as proof that queer people were the 'real' victims of the Holocaust, entirely shutting out the millions of Jews, Sinti, Roma, and Slavs who were murdered. You can also see this in anti-mask conservatives comparing masking mandates during the pandemic to anti-Jewish legislation in the Holocaust, or the comparisons of the ongoing war against Hamas as being a 'modern day Holocaust.'

This phenomenon, Holocaust universalization, gets so much pushback from Jews for a reason--it downplays the anti-Jewish character of the Holocaust. It's softcore Holocaust denial. And it's so ridiculous we even have to say that, as the whole point of the Holocaust was to be anti-Jewish, to be the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question." It's 'All Lives Mattering' the Holocaust. Holocaust universalization, and Holocaust inversion--the phenomenon of talking about Jews, Zionists, or Israelis as perpetrating a 'new Holocaust'--minimizes and trivializes the astounding damage and traumas and death and destruction wrought by the Holocaust. It's a polemical lie, so incendiary and so insulting--imagine telling a sexual assault survivor that they're morally no better than their rapist--that the only thing it can be is antisemitic. It is beyond reprehensible to talk like that, but it's so mainstream and acceptable to do it. Activists who say these things need to examine their own rhetoric, because it's dangerous, antisemitic, and adjacent to Holocaust denial. Not a place I think anyone should want to be.

The Holocaust is not a lesson Jews should have learned, an educational seminar, a 'card' Jews play, a choose your own adventure novel, a philosophical meditation on the nature of mankind's evils, or an empty slate upon which to project modern politics, warfare, or your ideology onto.

The Holocaust is, quite simply, the industrialized genocide of the European Jewry by Nazi Germany and its collaborators from 1941-1945. And today was Yom HaShoah, the day we remember that.

[nostalgia-tblr]

See, I always thought those trials with the judges aren't actually real trials in that basically nobody would ever be able to defend themselves from accusations of a crime they didn't even know existed before they were dragged out of their lives by the TVA and asked to explain themselves. I feel like they only go through that process so they can pretend there's any actual 'justice' involved here, and so that the TVA's employees can tell themselves what's happening here is fair.

Every time we see them bring someone in the TVA have already 'reset' (ie destroyed) their branching home timeline, so where exactly would any successful defendants be returned to? Didn't they just kill anyone else in that branch when they erased it? (Oh, but that's fine, those deaths are really the fault of the person we're putting on trial, who is pretty much guaranteed to be found guilty and pruned themselves at the end of it!)

I think Loki's defence of "but the Avengers did it first" is probably very unusual for them in that he can actually think of a defence for what he's being charged with - most people they bring in haven't been involved in a weird time-travel incident, they've just done something they weren't "supposed" to do that nobody ever told them not to do. They have no context for any of this, if there is a way for someone to convince the judge they did nothing wrong or that there were extenuating circumstances, what chance do they even have of working out what that could possibly be?

What I mean is, Loki's defence is indeed a reasonable one, but this is not a trial where a reasonable defence is either expected to be offered or likely to be accepted, so it was never going to work no matter how well he made the point. You'll notice that there's no advocate for the defence, or any real explanation of what's going on here for the defendants. Nobody is ever expected to actually defend themselves successfully here, it's all (probably) just for show, and being arrested by the TVA is itself the proof that you broke the rules, so any logical flaws or potential misapplications of their remit are just going to be ignored anyway.

Loki argues before the T.V.A. that he is innocent of wrongdoing. He has committed no crime against the Sacred Timeline, and the people who actually created this branch are the Avengers. They're the ones that should be standing here in shackles, not him.

Ravonna retorts that the Time Heist was sanctioned as an event that was meant to occur, but Loki's escape was not. And that. Is a huge can of worms that just gets uglier the deeper you look into it.

The problem is that Loki's right. Like. 100% right. There is no possible way to spin this time variance as being his fault. The Avengers were the ones who screwed up and delivered the Tesseract to his foot. Ravonna says they were supposed to do that, but what possible version of events could result in the Tesseract being given to Loki and then not result in Loki escaping?

You could take it to mean they weren't supposed to screw up there. They were meant to take the Tesseract and go, without that extra journey to 1970. But then that puts this variance back to being their fault, doesn't it?

You could also bring up that the Avengers' Time Heist is "sanctioned" in the sense that they pruned the branches as soon as they were done. It was established in Endgame that by returning the Infinity Gems to the exact moment in time that they were removed, no variant timelines were ever created.

But Loki's from one of those pruned timelines. So once you go down that rabbit hole, you realize that this show can't actually exist because 2012 Loki escaping with the Tesseract was unwritten at the end of Endgame. Loki literally cannot be here.

Ultimately, the reason Loki's here is because He Who Remains is playing a long con without regard for whether or not he's committed any wrong. But that still doesn't really explain why he's here, because Ravonna and the officers who carried out his arrest are completely ignorant to HWR's true intentions and goals. His arrest still had to make sense according to their logic for apprehending time criminals.

And it just. It doesn't, and it calls into serious question their entire methodology for identifying time criminals. Which might be deliberate, given their nefarious nature? I honestly don't know. This is the kind of nagging contradiction that you can never be too sure if it's an incredibly subtle writing choice or a plot hole.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

I have gotten so many messages from folks who see what's happening to Jews right now, how literally any statement from us that isn't straight up "death to Israel!" "tear it down!" "river to the sea!" etc. - no matter how tempered in other ways or critical of the Israeli government it is - anything even mildly supportive of the terrorism victims/their families in their grief and/or Israelis deserving to live is getting dog piled to an absurd degree. And yes, that primarily targets Jews (because we're the ones primarily speaking on it) but it definitely is also hitting anyone not Jewish who says this as well. Immediately, overnight, the left has made any position that respects everyone's human rights and allows Jews room to grieve our murdered and missing family and friends without telling us they deserved to die in terrible ways completely radioactive. Like literally even the most milquetoaste statement attracts numerous hysterical commentators. And because it's so toxic, people are afraid to speak up.

And I've now heard from a lot of gentiles that they had no idea how deep the rot of leftist antisemitism went, how they've been seeing this unfold with horror, and are afraid to speak up.

Here's what I'll say: those messages give me a lot of strength, because they help me remember that I'm not insane, that this is horrendous, and we are seeing in real time exactly who would have helped the Gestapo find us if they were sufficiently convinced that this is "decolonization." That yes, the backlash really *is* that bad. I hear that affirmation and I appreciate it, and I understand your fear, because it was mine too. I myself strongly considered at the beginning not saying anything about this until I could do so without being harassed. (I decided against that because I am physically incapable of shutting up when it pertains to my people, but I understand the sentiment.)

Here's the thing: this is never going to end - those people who take seriously the question "are Jews people?" are going to be the vocal minority unless and until we all speak out. Jews are 2% of the US population and 0.2% of the world's population - there are literally more self-identified Nazis in America than there are Jews. I would honestly be surprised if there weren't more horseshoe theory leftists in the world than Jews also.

That being the case, we really do need our allies to speak up with us. I think if we all spoke up at once, it might be enough to break the silence-taken-as-agreement and shame everyone but the avowed antisemites (rather than the thoughtless and opportunistic ones) back into keeping their antisemitism under wraps. Which does have the effect of bringing the mob under control. Jews have faced a ton of mob violence in the form of pogroms throughout our history and backlash to Jewish victimhood. (Tl;dr - "How dare you make me consider how I might have benefited from or been complicit in hurting Jews? This is actually the fault of the Jews." is a disturbingly common thought process.) (You may also be wondering what I mean by "opportunistic;" I can explain in another post if people are interested.)

I know it's scary. I am well aware that you might lose friends from this. I personally decided that if those "friends" valued Jewish lives so little, they were never my friends to begin with, but it's different for non-Jews. They may genuinely be your friends. I'm not demanding you do this for me or my community, but I am asking you to consider what your line is for your friends. And if you are able to talk to them, to ask them what makes this group different from all other groups in terms of deserving compassion and human rights, it may just help us to quiet the mob.

And, if nothing else, just privately reminding those of us who are speaking about it that we are grounded in reality and compassion helps combat the mass gaslighting going on.

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Niuta Teitelbaum

Niuta Teitelbaum was a Jewish resistance fighter in Poland who despite her innocent, youthful appearance was a deadly assassin who shot dead four Nazi officers.

Born in Warsaw in 1917, Niuta was raised in a religious Jewish family. When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Niuta was one of the first volunteers to join the underground resistance movement. She said, “I am a Jew. My place is in the struggle against the Nazis for the honor of my people and for a free Poland!” Niuta was 22 but petite and baby-faced, she looked much younger. Wearing her blonde hair in two long braids, she resembled a Polish farm girl, which enabled her to move around Warsaw without arousing suspicion among the Nazi guards stationed around the city. Niuta transported weapons and helped Jews find safe havens even as she put herself in danger repeatedly.

With audacious bravery, sometime around 1942 Niuta approached the Nazi headquarters in Warsaw. Questioned by the officer guarding the front door, Niuta, acting shy and embarrassed, said she needed to see a certain high-ranking German officer. She said it was a “personal matter” implying that she was pregnant out of wedlock. The guard at the door snickered as he told her the officer’s room number and gave her a special pass to enter her supposed paramour’s private office. She thanked him shyly, and walked through the building to her “lover’s” office. Niuta entered the room to find the officer sitting at his desk. Before he could say a word she pulled out a pistol with a silencer and shot him in the head. He died instantly. Calm and collected, Niuta made her way back through the building to the front door and thanked the guard sweetly.

Because her resistance activities were so secretive, information is incomplete. What is known is that in another startlingly courageous episode, Niuta shot three Gestapo agents, killing two of them and wounding a third. Then she obtained a white lab coat and pretended to be a doctor to gain entry into the agent’s hospital room, and shot him again, killing him this time. Niuta landed a spot on the Nazis’ Most Wanted list, and was given the nickname “Little Wanda with the Braids.”

For three years, Niuta evaded her German pursuers and continued her resistance activities, until she was captured in 1943 and imprisoned with thousands of other Polish Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, where she participated in the famous uprising of April 1943. For most of the ghetto fighters it was a suicide mission; they knew they were likely to die but wanted to go down fighting. Niuta was one of the few who survived the ghetto battles and managed to escape. However, in July 1943, her hiding place in Warsaw was discovered and she was arrested by the Gestapo. Niuta was beaten and tortured for several weeks, but she refused to give information about any other resistance fighters or activities. Niuta was executed by the Germans later that year at age 25.

For her heroic resistance activities, including killing four Nazi officers, we honor Niuta Teitelbaum as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[open-sketchbook]

... okay that post going around about the wind rises is fucking killing me. no, the movie doesn't go to nazi germany to admire nazi engineering. the movie goes to nazi germany, portrayed as a nightmare where the gestapo chases people through the streets, a nightmare the myopic main characters are blind to because they get distracted by the shiny planes.

there, they admire the work of hugo junkers, who their company made a deal with eight years prior. the man who will, a year later, lose his airplane business because he refused to build warplanes for the nazis, who takes the principled stand that Jiro fails to. who sees the same visions Jiro does and has the courage to say no.

the film is not fucking subtle about how germany and japan are both lurching toward a monumentally monstrous and stupid thing, a thing that Jiro just kind of ignores because he's infatuated with his art, with his planes. this is, you know, the central theme of the movie, which sees the man neglect his dying wife to draft more blueprints?!?

no, the movie does not look at the screen and go "this is a bad thing" because its not a movie for fucking four year olds, but if you think the movie ending with a character standing in a nightmare hellscape of all his broken dreams, his wife dead and country in ruins, going "yeah but we built a nice airplane" isn't a statement about that fucking guy, you've very much missed the point.

and look, the wind rises is not even, really, about history. the film is a metaphor for what it feels like to dedicate yourself to making art under capitalism. it's about how Miyazaki feels about his legacy. it's about dedicating yourself to your craft at the eve of destruction (be it World War Two or climate change driven by capitalist consumption) and knowing that the beautiful thing you are making is contributing to it. it's about the nightmare of knowing you can't control your art after you release it, disgust knowing what you make will be used to advance causes you despise.

its a complex and raw movie, a meditation on despair and pain and pride. there's conversations to be had about how responsible it is as a film, but you are not having that conversation because you are incapable of anything more that the barest surface read.