#SS Experiment Camp

[saintbarou]

HSJSHJS OKAY ILL CAVE IN ILL PLAY IT AFTER FINALS AND SPAM YOU ALL ABOUT IT

i have the game at home but i’ve never played it, two of my siblings finished it and say that it’s amazing so 👀 im curious to play, oh also i’ve heard many people talk about the attention to detail and how it’s so good to the point where they accidentally came across a bear and a wolf fighting bc of a deer carcass like woah the world is worlding, animals are existing n doing their own thing and you’re just a character that happens to live in the same world instead of it being the world revolves around the main character- ALSO SOMETHING I SAW ON YOUTUBE (it caught on to my arthur brainrot and tried to get me to play the game 💀) WHEN NPCS CUT THEIR FOOD AND USE A FORK TO EAT IT ITS THE SAME CUT SHAPE THAT THEY CUT AND IT SHOWS EXACTLY ON THE PLATE TOO LIKE WOAH ATTENTION TO DETAIL!!

this got me curious; what is something about the game that you find interesting/cool/neat? and what is your favorite thing about the game? 👀

YES !!! TO THE WHOLE TOP PART ! red dead 2 is by far rockstar’s most artistic game and the amount of detail that went into it is spectacular - that with the story of the game makes it One of the Games of My Life (with bg3) as a game i was so blessed to experience as a piece of art

my favorite thing about the game is the interactions at camp - its a solid way to immerse yourself in the game and it really makes you care about the story and the characters in a way i think is rare to most people !

[perfectlyvalid49]

Today is January 27th, which is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and I'd like to get some stuff off my chest.

First, I'd like to take a minute to point out that it is not Yom HaShoah, which is the day Israel (and by extension large portions of the Jewish diaspora population) uses as Holocaust Remembrance day. Yom HaShoah is on the 27th of Nisan, a date that was selected to commemorate the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, centering Jewish resistance in our own story. That date was selected nearly five decades before the UN picked January 27th, which was selected to center our white saviors who came to liberate Auschwitz. This is utter bullshit. And no excuses for not being able to handle a moving date on the Gregorian calendar - April 19th would be the Gregorian equivalent, and it was not selected.

Having said that, given how many infographics I've seen over the last four months about how people are increasingly denying or doubting the Holocaust, I figure any day that acknowledges it is a good thing, so yeah, let's take two days to remember. I think it's worth it.

So given that this is the Holocaust Remembrance Day that centers our goyishe friends, let's talk about how our goyishe friends should observe the day.

1. It is likely that you never learned a lot of details about the Holocaust. Holocaust education usually boils down to, "and the Nazis put Jews in camps in order to kill them, and a lot of Jews were killed in gas chambers, and about 6 million died in all." Go learn some details. Read or watch an account from a survivor.  Learn about the medical experiments, or the death marches. Learn some details about what the gas chambers were actually like. Try to understand the horror. Learn about the SS St. Louis or the Evian conference in 1938 where almost every country on Earth decided it was better to let the Jews die in Germany than to allow them into their own countries.

2. On that note, take the time to understand that anti-semitism neither began nor ended with the Nazis, and that even the "good guys" were incredibly antisemitic.Try to recognize that the antisemitism that was present where you live right now in the 1930s didn't just disappear, it just went into hiding. Think about where it might be hiding now.

Basically, because this is the Holocaust Remembrance Day for the goyim, I want to focus our remembrance of what happened on the goyim. What did they do? What could they have done to help? Why didn't they? We can come back in May for more Jewish focused learning, but the Holocaust could not have happened without A LOT of willing goyim, and I think we should spend the day remembering them and their actions.

And as a side note: if you happen to read this and you've chosen to spend the day engaging in Holocaust denial or Holocaust inversion, then know that my hope for you is that something happens in your life to teach you empathy and basic human decency. And I hope it isn't pleasant for you.

[applesauce42069]

With people like Candace Owens spreading misinformation about medical experiments at Auschwitz, it is important to be literate in this aspect of Holocaust history.

TW below the cut for: medical experimentation and malpractice, forced sterilization, antisemitism, anti-roma and sinti racism, discussion of concentration camps and the Holocaust. I will not include any photos. My source for everything is this book, published by the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum.

There were more Nazi "doctors" at Auschwitz than I will be able to cover in this post. It is important to note that these "doctors" did not just perform experiments, but they also played a direct role in the genocide of the Jews at Auschwitz by participating in "selections." During these "selections," prisoners or prospective prisoners were chosen to be sent to the gas chambers. I say prospective prisoners because a selection usually took place at arrival upon the camp, with most children, the elderly, and anyone unfit for work, or for some people,just because, were sent immediately to the gas chambers without even being registered in the camp. This is a process that is unique to Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Josef Mengele is by far the most famous SS "doctor" at Auschwitz. He was the head physician of the sector of Auschwitz II - Birkenau which held Roma and Sinti families, before the camp was "liquidated" which mean that every man, woman and child in it were sent to the gas chambers. Mengele performed experiments related to twins, people with dwarfism, and a disease called noma (don't look it up its gross).

Lorenc Andreas Menasche and his twin sister were experimented on by Josef Mengele. Menasche testified about undergoing experimentation with his sister:

"They also gave us injections all over our bodies. As a result of these injections, my sister fell ill. Her neck swelled up as a result of a severe infection. They sent her to the hospital and operated on her without anesthetic in primitive conditions"

Elzbieta Piekut-Warszawska, an Auschwitz prisoner forced to assist with Mengele's experiments, describes experiments on Jewish twins:

"Drops were also put into their eyes. I did not see the procedure itself, since they took the children into the next room. Some pairs of children received drops in both eyes, and others only in one. I was ordered to observed the reactions, and not to intervene in any way in case of any changes... The results of these practices were very painful for the victims. They suffered from severe swelling of the eyelids, a burning sensation, and intense watering of hte eyes"

Dr. Miklos Nyiszli, a Hungarian Jew, was also forced to assist Dr. Mengele. He describes being forced to perform autopsies on a pair of "small twins" who:

"... died [were killed] simultaneously... Their death makes it possible to carry out autopsies on them, intended to solve the mystery of reproduction."

Nyiszli says that Mengele was interested in twins with the aim of "increas[ing] the birth rate of the 'higher race'"

At the same time, two separate "doctors," Carl Clauberg and Horst Schumann, were performing sterilization experiments on Jewish prisoners in order to find an effective method of mass sterilization.

Clauberg's experiments involved introducing chemicals into the reproductive organs of Jewish women. Alina Białostocka, an Auschwitz prisoner who was forced to assist Clauberg testified that

"[the] procedure was carried out brutally, and often caused complications"

When it "worked," the procedure left women forcibly sterilized for life.

Horst Schumann's experiments involved the use of x-ray on male and female genitalia. According to Felicja Pleszowska, an Auschwitz prisoner forced to assist with experiments, Schumann's experiments were

"very painful and dangerous to life. There were frequent cases of men dying immediately after such procedures"

From the combined victims of these two men, only very few individuals survived.

Eduard Wirths, Friedrich Entress, Helmuth Vetter, Fritz Klein, Werner Rhode, Hans Wilhem Konig, Victor Capesius and Bruno Weber all tested pharmaceuticals on Auschwitz prisoners on behalf of companies like Bayer (which still exist and operate).

I cannot stress enough the mortality rate of all the medical experiments that took place in Auschwitz. I cannot stress enough the harm done to those who survived. I cannot stress enough the fact that the information I have provided here is just the tip of the iceberg, and that these experiments were VERY well documented BY THE NAZIS THEMSELVES.

This is horrifying. This is real. And we cannot let people insult the memory of these horrors by manipulating historical fact for selfish gain.

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Herbert Zipper

Herbert Zipper was a conductor and composer who founded a secret orchestra at Dachau, and wrote a song that became an anthem for death camp inmates.

Born in 1904 to an affluent Jewish family in Vienna, Herbert was a musical prodigy who studied at the prestigious Vienna Music Academy with the great composer Richard Strauss. He found employment as a conductor and composer for cabaret shows.

Germany annexed Austria in 1938 and immediately started persecuting Jewish citizens. Herbert was arrested that year and sent by the SS to Dachau, where he became a “horse,” pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with heavy rocks for 12 hours a day. One of the most talented composers in Europe was doing the work of an animal.

Herbert was not the only music man in Dachau. All the Jewish members of the Munich Philharmonic – comprising most of the orchestra – were also incarcerated there. Herbert enlisted the other musicians in an audacious, even insane, plan. They would make instruments and create an orchestra, right there at Dachau.

How could anybody create musical instruments in a concentration camp? They combed the camp for discarded pieces of wood and metal and fashioned eleven primitive yet functional instruments. At least one guard helped the musicians; Herbert requested a piece of wire for a string instrument, and later found it under his pillow.

Herbert’s Dachau orchestra performed concerts for the other inmates every Sunday, in an outhouse. It’s hard to imagine the experience of listening to sublime music in a filthy environment, while knowing they could be all killed for their participation. Herbert said that the concerts were not for entertainment, but rather to bring purpose and even a bit of normalcy back to their lives.

Noted playwright Jura Soyfer, an old friend of Herbert’s from his cabaret days, was also at Dachau. Together they wrote “Dachaulied” (Dachau song), with Herbert composing the haunting music in his head and Jura penning the sad, sardonic lyrics inspired by the concentration camp motto “Work will make you free.” They thought that writing the song would help them maintain some dignity in an atmosphere of constant humiliation and demonization. Herbert deliberately made the song difficult to learn, so that his fellow inmates would have to use all of their concentration and thereby mentally escape from their horrific surroundings. Amazingly, the Nazis never discovered the secret orchestra.

At the end of 1938, Herbert and Jura were transferred to Buchenwald where they taught other inmates the Dachau song. Soon after, Jura died of typhus at age 26, and Herbert lovingly prepared his body for burial. At this time Hitler hadn’t yet began to implement his “Final Solution” to kill all the Jews, which started in 1941. Herbert’s father Emil was in London, desperately trying to get a visa for Herbert and his two brothers to escape Austria. Miraculously, Emil was able to secure his sons’ release from Buchenwald, and they joined him in Paris on March 16, 1939.

During all this time, Herbert’s fiancee, dancer Trudl Dubsky, was working in Manila, in the Philippines. She recommended him for the job of conductor of the Manila Symphony Orchestra, and he was hired, traveling there in September, 1939. Herbert and Trudl were married on October 1. Although it wasn’t a world-class orchestra at the time, Herbert enjoyed working with the Manila Orchestra and under his leadership it improved dramatically. Life was good for Herbert and Trudl until January 1942, when the Japanese army invaded the Philippines and occupied Manila. It was a brutal occupation and once again Herbert was arrested, this time for refusing to conduct the orchestra for Japanese military officers. He was incarcerated and harshly interrogated for four months before being released. For the next three years Herbert and Trudl survived hand-to-mouth, owning no belongings and traveling frequently in search of safe haven in a country at war.

The most difficult period was the Battle of Manila in early 1945. More than once the building where they took shelter was bombed by the Japanese artillery and they escaped with only seconds to spare. In the end of February they were living with hundreds of other displaced people in a seven-story building in Manila that had neither electricity or water. Herbert volunteered to get water every day, a dangerous and difficult undertaking.  On the early morning of February 26, 1945, Herbert was on his water run when he saw an opportunity to reach the American front line, and he rushed across a battle field to do it. While there he received a crucial piece of information: the apartment building where he was staying was due to be bombed by the Allies within fifteen minutes! Herbert desperately explained that 800-1000 civilians were inside the building! Due to his pleas, the bombardment was delayed for 45 minutes, giving him just enough time to get back to the building and rescue everyone inside including Trudl.

Until Japan was defeated on September 2, 1945, Herbert worked secretly for the American army under the command of General Douglas MacArthur, transmitting valuable information about Japanese shipping schedules by shortwave radio. When Japan finally surrendered, Herbert organized and conducted a concert of Beethoven’s “Eroica” symphony, a goal he’d set during the darkest hours at Dachau. The concert was performed in a bombed-out church.

Herbert and Trudl immigrated to America in 1946, joining the rest of his family. He co-founded and conducted the Brooklyn Symphony Orchestra, and organized another orchestra especially to give free concerts for public school children. Students called Herbert, who had no children of his own, “Papa Z.” For the rest of his life he volunteered and supported arts education for young people.

Herbert was close friends with poet Langston Hughes and they collaborated on an opera together, “Barrier.” Trudl worked as a ballet tacher. They moved to Chicago in 1953, where Herbert founded the Music Center of the North Shore, and then to Los Angeles, where Herbert directed the School of Performing Arts at USC.

Interviewed by a Los Angeles Times reporter at the end of his life, Herbert said “We have to see the world as it is, but we have to think about what the world could be. That’s what the arts are about.”

Herbert is the subject of a biography, “Dachau Song: The Twentieth Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper,” and a documentary that was nominated for an Academy Award. His beloved wife Trudl died of lung cancer in 1976. He continued his music for two more decades, conducting his last concert in 1996. Herbert Zipper died in Santa Monica in 1997.

For inspiring concentration camp inmates and inner-city schoolchildren with his music, and for saving hundreds of lives during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, we honor Herbert Zipper as this week’s Thursday Hero.

Lyrics of Dachau Song:

Barbed wire fraught with death surrounds our world

On which a merciless heaven visits frost and sunburn.

Far from us are all joys, far our home, far the women

When mute we march to work, thousands in the gray dawn.

But we learned the Dachau motto and it made us hard as steel.

Be a man, comrade, remain human comrade

Do good work, pitch in, comrade

Because work, work will make you free!

[zingingdesertrose23]

Sweet Dee’s Complete Backstory (1976-2005)

[cw: suicidal ideation, emotional abuse, bullying, body shaming etc..]

Deandra "Dee" Reynolds was born the older twin to Barbara (born Landgraf) and Frank Reynolds in 1976, the latter of which raised illegitimate children not knowing that their biological father was Bruce Mathis, a man his wife was having an affair with. Barbara was 28 years old at the time, and Frank was 33. Frank has claimed that Dennis and Dee would have had a brother, Donnie, had they not eaten him in the womb.

Dee was raised not by her emotionally distant mother, Barbara, or her father, Frank, but rather a "series of Mexican women" who served as nannies. Barbara, who chose Frank under the belief that he was wealthier than her former lover Bruce Mathis, consistently favored Dennis over Dee. Thanks to Frank’s real estate business and shady dealings, the twins had a financially stable childhood.

The neglect from her parents was supplemented by the dubious influence of her maternal grandfather Pop Pop (Heinrich Landgraf), a former SS officer, whose presence in her life introduced her to extreme ideologies and further complicated her moral landscape. Based on his uniform, he was a low ranking gestapo officer. He may have even been an acquaintance of Adolf Hitler. Barbara was certainly raised with a Nazi belief system, a tradition he would go on to continue with his grandchildren Dennis and Deandra. His home was filled with Nazi memorabilia including the German Shepherd painted by Hitler.

In 1981 when the twins were five, Pop Pop attempted to indoctrinate his grandchildren through a Neo-Nazi summer camp. All of this was so normalized within the family that the twins didn’t realize there was anything wrong or off with these things until their 20s.

Dee and Dennis went to Waldron Elementary school. They grew up in the Reynolds house that would later become the “Party Mansion”.

Frank was often away conducting business and Barbara was an absent mother addicted to amphetamines. Despite this, at some points they take trips to the Jersey Shore and the twins build positive memories there together.

Frank and Barbara were incredibly neglectful and verbally abusive to Dee, the “black sheep” of the family. Among other things, Barbara used to always say “Worst is first” because Dee was born first.

Raised primarily by a series of caretakers rather than their own parents, the twins were subjected to cruel psychological games like the Christmas "fake out," where Frank would show off the gifts the children had wanted most for himself, while Dee and Dennis received empty boxes. Frank would make home movies of Dee and her brother opening the empty boxes, laughing at their disappointment.

Such experiences contributed to her complex relationship with reality, where she often downplays or rationalizes the abnormal behaviors witnessed in her family, including those of her brother Dennis. For instance, she dismisses Dennis's violent act of snapping a crow's neck, revealing her struggle to maintain a semblance of normalcy against her better judgment. Later in life Dee still defends and downplays this behavior saying,

“Well, he kind of... snapped the neck, uh, off a crow one time a little bit. But that... but that's not not normal right, you know? (laughs) I mean, it was just like boys being boys. Yeah. That...Look, we had a totally normal childhood, and...Look, Dennis wouldn't hurt a fly. No way.”

To which Frank would say : “Whatever Deandra says is BS. She's probably just covering for him because she's afraid he's gonna snap her neck like that crow.”

While she does tend to minimize what she saw, she began having recurring nightmares about it that would haunt her for life. “I still have nightmares about it…And I'm old.”

Her tendency to put Dennis on a pedestal despite his glaring flaws also highlights her conflicted feelings of loyalty, envy, and shared identity as twins. Dee has always put Dennis on a pedestal, so when he does things that are clearly wrong she has to find ways to compartmentalize and rationalize it to herself. You can also see that Dee tells herself that her childhood was normal, despite all of the traumatic experiences.

Their extended family consisted of at least Pop-Pop, Uncle Max and Aunt Donna (Barbara’s sister) as well as their cousin of similar age Gail “the snail” who they found annoying, so they would frequently bully and throw salt at her.

Dennis:“No one likes salting the snail but she gives you no choice.”

Dee: “She doesn't leave you with any options.”

Barbara was a perfectionist about appearances, which not only made her extremely insecure about her own looks and aging but also incredibly cruel towards Deandra. She constantly told Dee that she “wasn’t pretty enough” for whatever she was trying to accomplish. She would also fat shame her when she was clearly not fat at all. (Also, Barbara later on dies from a botched neck lift after Frank makes one remark about her “turkey neck” after their divorce.) Barbara held herself and her children to impossible beauty standards, and Frank didn’t exactly help; he actually perpetuated it, going so far as to call Dee “a dog” and never calling her pretty. Dee grows to hate and resent her mother, and neither twin attended her funeral later on.

Dee was a successful child beauty pageant winner, winning several shows she entered on her own despite both parents’ constant criticism of her looks and lack of support. (Later in life when she performs for Frank’s Little Beauties Pageant, during her original song “Moms Stink” she throws a photo of Barbara in the trash onstage).

Dennis and Dee were also raised Catholic, frequently attending church and confessing their sins.

By the time she reached middle school in the late 1980s, she had been diagnosed with scoliosis and made to wear a back brace, which became the source of a lot of bullying down the road and earning her the nickname “Aluminum Monster”. Dennis began to fit in with the “cool kids” more than Dee was.

Later on Charlie reads her middle school diary entries from her childhood bedroom in the Reynolds House / Party Mansion and discovers the following snippets from this period..

“Dear Diary, the dance was a total disaster. I cried myself to sleep again last night. Mom forced me to wear the back brace. And all the school chanted "aluminum monster!”

and

"I'm totally gonna tell Eric how much I like him tonight. Even though Danielle was like all over him today in school. Mother said, "Don't bother. He wants a pretty girl instead. "'

This period marked a turning point for her depression and possibly the beginning of her s**** ideation.

In the early 1990s, the gang entered high school. Dee attended the Academy of Notre Dame an all-girls academy that was affiliated with St. Joseph's Preparatory School, which Dennis Mac and Charlie went to. By 1993 Frank was gone in Vietnam opening a sweatshop. Dee had already established herself as unpopular due to her back brace and horrible self esteem. However, she continued to try to fit in and become a “cool kid”. Having no friends, she hangs out with Ingrid “Fatty Magoo” Nelson, another girl in her class that is frequently bullied.

Other classmates of hers included the Waitress, Maureen Ponderosa, Stacy Corvelli, and Nikki Potnick.

She attended physical therapy twice a week with Matthew Mara, a boy from St. Joseph’s with a huge crush on Dee and whom the gang would tease. Dee found belonging and power in taunting him, making him do all of her math homework as well as embarrassing things (like making him eat horse poop before getting to kiss her then refusing because ‘his breath smelled like shit’) much to Dennis and his friends’ amusement. She would also make fun of Brad Fisher for his acne along with the other students. The gang would also drink and party underage frequently.

During this time Dee found an escape in drama class with Dr. Larry Meyers. He made her feel a sense of self worth when she was performing, as he encouraged her talents and cast her in roles.

Around 1994, the twins graduate high school. Around this time Dee decided to stop going to her church, which may or may not be linked to her newfound passion for the pro-choice movement. She got into University of Pennsylvania and chose Psychology as her major, and was assigned a dorm with a female roommate. Somehow Dee’s insecurity and possibly internalized misogyny created a strange dynamic between them of jealousy, rivalry, and obsession.

By 1997 her back brace was removed. Dee enters into a secret sexual relationship with her professor Dr. Gainer. Her roommate issues escalate as Dee finds her “annoying” and accuses her of copying her and wearing her clothes, which Dennis claims happened the other way around. The conflict came to a head when, as she puts it, she burned her roommate “Down to the box springs whilst she was sleeping” after she “crossed” her.

Dee is sentenced to be institutionalized, and presumably get no support from her parents during this phase. Not only does Barbara see her as even more of a disappointment, Frank probably wouldn’t set foot in another mental hospital even if he wanted to. The family becomes more estranged, and while the twins remain in each others lives, they distance themselves from their parents. [edit: this would actually be mainly after the roller rink era, as the twins were still very involved in with their parents’ expectations at this point]

By 1998 Dee was released with medication and a treatment plan, which probably caused her personality to seem more “sweet” than usual. Mac and Charlie were working at the roller rink where she also had a head injury around this time that went untreated.

At some point Dennis and Dee get involved with gay culture to the point of having an almost encyclopedic knowledge of gay slang. The gang also creates the board game “Chardee Macdennis”, during which in one game the boys emotionally abused Dee for two minutes straight, which led her into a deep depression and she attempted to commit s*** with pills. The guys purchase Paddy’s Pub and hire Dee as their bartender to help her get back on her feet. She manages to get a one bedroom apartment and a cat, as well as taking up acting classes again where she meets her friend Artemis. and that brings us to episode one!

[er1chartmann]

Josef Mengele

These are some facts and curiosities about Josef Mengele, The Angel of Death:

• He injected blue dyes into people's eyes in hopes of changing their eye color to blue, studying whether Aryan physical traits can be artificially produced.

• He was Irma Grese' lover and they often made the selections together.

• His only ''informal'' photos are taken from the ''Höcker album''.

• In 1940 he volunteered for military service, subsequently serving in the 5th SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking" on the Eastern Front. In 1942 he was wounded on the Russian front and deemed unfit for combat; he was promoted to the rank of SS captain thanks to the rescue of two German soldiers, for which he was decorated with the Iron Cross.

• He was the only doctor at Auschwitz to possess such a slew of medals, he was immensely proud of them and often referred to his combat experience as a source of authority on various matters.

• Once, one of the iron crosses fell from his uniform while he was cycling through the concentration camp and was found after a frantic search conducted by a group of prisoners

• Mengele became the spirit of the place (Auschwitz), the character most in tune with the place, an example for others.

• One surviving prisoner managed to convey something of Mengele's aura when she said: ''He represents what this (Auschwitz) represents for us.''

• He had a wife named Irene and one son named Rolf.

Sources:

Josef Mengele: Wikipedia

Military Wiki: Josef Mengele

Robert Jay Lifton: the Nazi doctors

I DON'T SUPPORT NAZISM, FASCISM OR ZIONISM IN ANY WAY, THIS IS AN EDUCATIONAL POST

[fatehbaz]

Thinking about the Holocaust in Africa.

Here, European notions of anti-Blackness and antisemitism became intertwined.

There was a fusion between the dispossession and racism of European imperialism and colonization projects of the late nineteenth century, and the prison regimes imposed by European fascism in the early twentieth century.

Scholars Sarah Abrevaya Stein and Aomar Boum have recently written much about the importance of recognizing the trauma of labor and internment camps in North Africa during the second world war.

And I want to express my gratitude for their work. I want to share some of what they’ve written in a couple of recent articles.

In their words: “Nazism in Europe was underlaid by an intricate matrix of racist, eugenicist and nationalist ideas. But the war – and the Holocaust – appears even more complex if historians take into account the racist and violent color wheel that spun in North Africa.” [1]

France's prison camps in North Africa were filled with Algerians, local Jews, deported European Jews, Eastern European refugees, domestic political dissidents from France, people fleeing fascist Spain, Moroccan residents, Senegalese subjects of French rule, other West Africans displaced by French occupation, and more.

The anti-Blackness and antisemitism that had fueled Europe's colonial expansion was finding new expression in fascist Europe.

---

Seems France is a central antagonist in the story of evolving approaches to empire, racism, and resource extraction.

After their 1940 alliance with the Nazis, the Vichy French government maintained technical control of French colonies across Africa. Beginning in 1940, the French government “alone built nearly 70 such camps in the Sahara.” [1] This was in addition to another six labor camps which the French government built in West Africa (in Senegal, Guinea, and Mali).

---

By the beginning of the twentieth century, French-influenced or -controlled territory in North Africa was home to around 500,000 Jews, many of whom had been living in the region for centuries or millennia, speaking many languages, “reflecting their many different cultures and ethnicities: Arabic, French, Tamazight – a Berber language – and Haketia, a form of Judeo-Spanish spoken in northern Morocco.” [1] The Vichy French government officially stripped North African Jews of formal citizenship and seized their assets.

Then, deporting residents of Europe and political dissidents in “early 1941, the Vichy authorities transferred hundreds of Jewish and non-Jewish refugees, including women and children, to the Saharan labor camps.” [2] Under French rule “in Algeria [...], it was estimated that 2,000-3,000 Jews were interned in camps [...] resulting in a total prisoner population of 15,000-20,000.” [2]  France pursued an “unrealized dream of the nineteenth century” [2]: the completion of the Mediterranean-Niger railroad line in the Sahara, a transportation route across the vast desert to connect the prosperous West African port of Dakar with the Mediterranean coast of Algeria.

Meanwhile the “Vichy regime [...] continued racist policies begun by France’s Third Republic, which pushed young Black men from the empire into forced military service,” including forced recruitment from “Senegal, French Guinea, Ivory Coast, Niger and Mauritania; [...] Benin, Gambia and Burkina Faso; and Muslim men from Morocco and Algeria. In these ways, the French carried on a wartime campaign of anti-Blackness and Islamophobia, pairing these forms of racialized hatred from the colonial era with antisemitism. Antisemitism had deep roots in French and colonial history, but it found new force in the era of fascism.” [1]

---

In late 1942, during the Nazi occupation of Tunisia, the SS “imprisoned some 5,000 Jewish men in roughly 40 forced labor and detention camps on the front lines and in cities like Tunis.” [2] The fascist Italian government had been experimenting with racist and anti-Black policy in their colonization of East Africa; these policies were expanded in Libya. Here, “Mussolini ordered the Jews of Cyrenaica moved” as “most of the 2,600 Jews deported [...] were sent to the camp of Giado” while “other Libyan Jews were deported to the camps of Buqbuq and Sidi Azaz.” [2]

---

Stein and Boum describe the diversity of prisoner experience: “In these camps, [...] the complex racist logic of Nazism and fascism took vivid form. Muslims arrested for anti-colonial activities were pressed into back-breaking labor” and “broke bread with other forced workers” including ‘Ukrainians, Americans, Germans, Russian Jews and others [...] arrested, deported and imprisoned by the Vichy regime after fleeing Franco’s Spain. There were political enemies of the Vichy and Nazi regime too, including socialists, communists, union members [...] overseen by [...] forcibly recruited [...] Moroccan and Black Senegalese men, who were often little more than prisoners themselves.” [1]

As Stein and Boum describe it: “Vichy North Africa became a unique site [...] where colonialism and fascism co-existed and overlapped.” [2]

They write: “Together, we have spent a decade gathering the voices of the diverse peoples who endured World War II in North Africa, across lines of race, class, language and region. Their letters, diaries, memoirs, poetry and oral histories are both defiant and broken. They express both faith and despair. All in all, they understood themselves to be trapped in a monstrous machine of fascism, occupation, violence and racism.” [1]

---

[1]: Sarah Abrevaya Stein and Aomar Boum. “80 years ago, Nazi Germany occupied Tunisia - but North Africans’ experiences of World War II often go unheard.” The Conversation. 15 November 2022.

[2]: Sarah Arbevaya Stein and Aomar Boum. “Labor and Internment Camps in North Africa.” Holocaust Encyclopedia online. Last edited 13 May 2019.

[scotianostra]

Doctor Margaret Thomson was born on August 20th 1902.

Born as Margaret Hunter in Leith, she went to Edinburgh Ladies College and then to the University of Edinburgh where she qualified as a doctor in 1926. Margaret married a rubber planter named Alexander Thomson and went to live on Carey Island is now

Margaret was working as a doctor in Singapore when the city fell to the Japanese army in February 1942. She tended to the wounded as they were the last of the evacuates by sea on the SS Kuala on 13th February 1942. The medical staff were ordered to evacuate despite having to leave wounded behind.

They took to lifeboats when the ship came under attack, but as there were only two lifeboats many staff and patients were in the water, where they were attacked by Japanese planes. Thomson had to swim and she was later pulled into a lifeboat. The lifeboats made it to Kabat Island and they then moved on to Senajang Island. She tended to the wounded and rowed the lifeboat despite a leg wound. They were using wood splints and washing wounds in sea water. She arranged evacuation of the wounded to Singkep Island and this in time included herself with a septic leg wound. Margaret went on to Sumatra where she was imprisoned in Japanese camps. The guards stole the Red Cross supplies and she saw her fellow inmates die.

Her husband had also been mistreated as a slave building the railways. They recovered in Edinburgh before returning to Malaya. However, due to the unrest in the country, they returned to Scotland and bought a farm. Thomson's husband died in 1971.

The BBC consulted Thomson for the television series Tenko which portrayed life in Japanese work camps. She did not like to talk about her experiences and she never watched the programmes.

Margaret Thomson died in Huntly in 1982, you can read a much more detailed account of her time as a POW here

https://www.thenational.scot/.../18654115.unsung.../...

[coco-bee]

INSIDE OUT 2 AND ANXIETY

Welcome to Media and Topic where I discuss a piece of media and how they handle a certain topic either in the story department or the production!

Today I’m discussing Inside Out 2 and how the movie handled Anxiety!

!! SPOILERS AHEAD !!

(I need to scratch the itch this movie gave me)

So I watched Inside Out 2 in the cinema with my friends after not going to the cinemas for a few years now AND I LOVED IT!! Very entertaining movie and I can’t wait to rewatch it on Disney+ :D

I want to discuss more about the first and second movie sometime when I get to watch them again

For now I want to discuss how this movie handles having anxiety!

Keep in mind I won’t go as in depth as I would want because I only watched the movie once and I can’t thoroughly watch it to find stuff I missed so I’m going off my memory.

So to start off of course we can’t discuss anxiety without well… Anxiety!

I genuinely love the way she’s portrayed! Not as an irredeemable monster but just wants the best for Riley and goes about it the wrong way. The way the movie interprets Anxiety as someone who prepares for the future is really smart! (and makes me rethink MY anxiety..)

Most people personify Anxiety as a monster who takes over the mind that they would like to be removed. But in this movie- Anxiety seems like an overbearing mother that is just trying her best but goes about it the wrong way. (at least to me)

The movie doesn’t go into the direction where Riley has an excessive amount of anxiety that requires medication or therapy but more of goes into the anxiety you get when you’re a teenager but it shows a lot more in certain situations than having it be a constant thing. Which explains why Anxiety while not gone is managed by Joy so that she won’t go off the rails.

Anyway I first want to mention the scene after Riley does her first game at Hockey Camp and Riley hears the Firehawks talk about her (I love how Val defends her btw I love her sm ARGHH)

(sorry the ss is bad quality I can’t find more)

The way Anxiety handled the conversation so smoothly was a very interesting scene! It adds nuance to the idea of anxiety not always being a bad thing. Anxiety can help someone stay alert in case of danger, make them aware of risks and motivate us to solve the problem/find a solution and in my experience helps with quick thinking. It only turns into a bad thing when it’s taken over ALL the time.

Basically the message of the first movie but instead of having toxic positivity it’s having unmanaged anxiety.

But things go downhill when Anxiety bottles up the other emotions in order to make Riley look cool and make new friends with Val and the Firehawks

And also removing Riley’s sense of self as she plants in more self deprecating ideas in Riley’s head to make this new belief that Riley isn’t good enough and has to ALWAYS improve (heavy emphasis on ‘always’)

Which gets Riley to abandon everything about herself. Like lying about her favorite band.

And abandoning her friends in order to look cool and mature.

In my experience this is VERY accurate. When you get overruled by Anxiety you tend to lose your sense of self. You lose your core personality traits in favor of what is seen as cool. PEOPLE PLEASER ALERTT ‼️ (Me too Riley… me too<3)

I also notice how Riley tends to make decisions that are completely against her morals and the rules when she’s letting her emotions take too much control instead of thinking rationally like sneaking to the Coach’s office because she was fueled with not knowing if she made the team or not.

A similar thing happened in the first movie where she stole her mom’s credit card. So just a detail to point out.

There’s also the scene where Anxiety got these…thought artists?? (I forgot what they’re called) to write the worst possible scenarios for Riley before a big game while she’s asleep. THAT SCENE IS SO RELATABLE I DO THAT A LOT especially when I’m going through something.

Again very accurate and not to mention a creative representation of this kind of thought process.

I also remember when Joy is formulating a plan to get back Riley’s old sense of self, in her plan she says to Anxiety “Hey! Stop worrying so much” and Anxiety (in Joy’s mind) replies with “I didn’t think of that! Thank you”

Which is PAINFULLY accurate to how people respond to others that have anxiety. They just respond with “Don’t worry” WHEN LIKE… THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS 💀

We need a lot more than “Don’t worry” to be able to well..not worry.

For me I talk it out for me not to worry anymore because I prefer having someone with me instead of being stuck in my head. And other people have different needs when they have anxiety.

I just really like that detail

There’s also the panic attack Riley gets

I love how Anxiety rushes around the console trying to think of some sort of solution but she’s stuck in this loop and just couldn’t stop worrying and panicking and that just… it hit way too close to home. When you’re having a panic attack you tend to get stuck in your mind to the point where you need an outside force to get you out of it. Like how Grace went to ask her if she was ok while Riley was in the penalty box which helped Riley get out of it and finally open up and slowly be herself again.

Usually if this movie was written by out of touch writers Anxiety would be “defeated”, Joy puts back Riley’s old sense of self and Riley is all happy again! BUT NOPE thankfully the movie doesn’t go in that direction because the writers understand how the brain works.

I like how even if Joy puts back the old self, it doesn’t automatically make things better. That sense of self was great for Riley when she was a kid.. but she’s not a kid anymore. She needs something else. So her new self is a mix of positive affirmations and negative affirmations about herself which is very realistic. Because as you get older you become a lot more humble and aware of your flaws.

I also like how Anxiety is not “defeated” in the end but instead becomes managed. When she starts spiraling, Joy helps her calm down and asks “We can’t control what happens but what can we control now? What can we do right now?” which is an AMAZING way for it to be handled.

It works a lot on me which helps me calm down and get my head back to earth and think rationally.

Overall this movie is very accurate with how it depicts being a teenager with Anxiety! And it really touched me as someone who tends to have it every now and then.

Please go watch this movie while it’s still in theaters (or available for streaming)! It’s worth your time!!

PIXAR HAS GOTTEN ANOTHER W

(also off topic I love how Fear is so fucking smitten for Anxiety it’s so cute I need a pixar short with them PLSSSSS SOMEONE DISCUSS THEM W MEEEE)

This is Coco typing… Thank you for reading!

[flutefemme]

Skyward sword summer au please!

I think this will be my next longfic once I finish my other 2 (Technically Speaking and Fallback Plan). Skyward Sword, but they're all campers at Camp Skyview. All the locations on the campground will be SS location names (I love names so much!). Premise is that Zelda's dad is the Camp Director, and Groose's family is the largest donor to the campground. Link attends on a scholarship for underprivileged youth (Lives in a boys home). They're all sophomores/juniors except Groose is a senior and gets special privs bc his parents are rich, and Zelda is a freshman and gets special privs bc her dad is the director. It will follow the summer as they go through a traditional camper experience. I'm only just starting to flush out plot points but yeah! That's that! Thanks for the ask, @mistresslrigtar ! Hoping to start before Christmas!

[misscammiedawn]

Story time. Allow us to ramble a little.

Recently we have been reading interviews about I Saw The TV Glow. In one interview Jane Shoenbrun mentioned her experience rewatching her own Pink Opaque, that being Buffy's musical episode, Once More With Feeling.

Reading it unlocked a key memory. A memory I'd like to share today.

CW: Suicide mention

Text version:

We have never seen Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Not all the way through anyway. By the time we had the ability to our distaste for Whedon soured the idea. We had seen the musical episode. We were sure of that, however it was lost in the sea of blurry memories from the period of our life where we were making it on our own. I shall spare the details but at 16 we were pulled out of school and at 17 kicked out on our own. This story takes place sometime within those fuzzy years.

These were the days of web forums, HTML and Limewire. The days that told you System of a Down wrote a Zelda song and that Mew could be found under a truck by the SS Anne. We lived in London at the time and during our early days of homelessness we found free ways to keep ourselves going. Did you know that one of the HMVs in Oxford Street had a movie theatre in the basement that just showed off DVDs? We watched Shrek 3 times in a row in that baby. It gave us somewhere to be that wasn't the abandoned flat we were holed up in.

More often than not we were at the library using a computer and logging into Yahoo Groups and a video game web forum. There we met a person I shall call Rosy. Rosy was an admin at the forum and was, like us, keyed in on a specific comic adaptation of the franchise. We used to read each issue religiously, camping on the floor of the W.H. Smith's in Waterloo station. Funny... we have no memories of our little sister growing up but we can remember the exact space that the comic was stocked on those shelves. Two and a half decades later...

Our mutual love of this niche comic and the fact that we were both ostracized from a portion of the fandom that was attempting to do a fan-made continuation made us fast friends. In many ways Rosy was our first true friend. She was 5 years older than us. She was also moving to London for university. We met up. Spent time at the same internet cafes and libraries.

Time flowed. We grew closer. We shared our intrigues and stories. We would sit with our back to the wall curling the wire of our landline around our finger vividly picturing the tales she told us about her roleplay adventures. That became a fixture. She would talk and talk about the fantasies and stories of her daily life and we would just visualize it.

She was a fan of Buffy.

She was excited for the sixth season starting on BBC.

As she spoke about the plot she described in great detail the plot of Glory from the previous season, elaborating on how much she enjoyed and appreciated that storyline. An orderly named Ben who was possessed by a goddess named Glory and would become her.

I cannot recall the details that she laid down, but I do recall that we would picture it vividly and clear in our head. This becoming a woman. I do not recall if we focused on the topic or she was preoccupied with it, but she elaborated on the differences between representations of men becoming women in fiction.

She elaborated that in much of culture a man becoming a woman was seen to be disempowerment. A joke. Something of a humiliation. That it was constantly looked down upon.

I feel like she was venting frustrations about her gender being used as a tool for ridicule and how Buffy as a show empowered her as a woman not just in the strength of its predominantly female cast but in that a meek and lowly man was seen to become an all powerful goddess in feminine form and how much that impressed her and resonated with her.

She even went on to elaborate on examples such as a story she had stumbled upon about a group of male prisoners having their violent urges suppressed by a feminizing treatment and how it made her feel sick to her stomach that being turned into a woman was treated as this horrific thing within that fiction.

These memories are likely inaccurate from the years and years between, particularly as they were lost to me until recent weeks. Even still... I recall us feeling somewhat hurt and confused in that moment and yet in time I believe we misunderstood her at the time. We were not yet ready to grapple the topics being laid at our feet.

I pause now to mention that note that Rosy a cis woman.

So we decided to tune in to BBC2 and see what all the fuss was about. The musical episode was our first exposure. It was adorable. We keyed in on Allison Hannigan's Willow instantly. If we had tuned in for gender related reasons then having a red haired queer woman to focus on did not hurt at all.

Plus it was lesbian representation.

A side bar which can fit its own storytime segment is that our mother is a lesbian. Our mother is a strange figure on the edge of our life, particularly as the UK courts deemed her "unsafe" to raise us and the gay community of 90s London had some biphobia strong enough that though I cannot recall any memories of seeing our mother face prejudice for having biological children I know it was an issue.

We would watch Hercules, Merlin and Xena with her. She was not shy about sharing her feelings about Lucy Lawless. In fact, now I say that, it is pretty odd that I am aware that Angelina Jolie in Girl Interuppted was her biggest screencrush.

Allosexuals are going to be allosexual, I suppose.

Point is, since a very early age we were aware of sexualities beyond hetero and just how much it made the target demographic light up to see themselves on screen.

We'll get back to that...

The musical episode of Buffy is not one to walk in on. Yet it has a romantic ballad of lesbian bliss with a mild undertone of psychological abuse strong enough that it could be detected by someone who lacked the broader context that Willow was rewriting her girlfriend's memories rather than communicate openly and honestly.

It also is entirely based about characters who have had their emotions reach a boiling point burst out into song. Song and dance in musicals are expressions of emotion that can no longer be contained by dialogue alone and that episode was forcing each character to spill their truths. Leading to the reveal that Buffy is deeply angst-ridden about being brought back to life.

Rosy had taken effort to explain that Buffy died at the end of Season 5. Between the conclusion of Season 5 of Buffy and Season 2 of Twin Peaks, it's clear that Shoenbrun also had feelings about killing off the lead in a season finale cliffhanger.

That... hit. This is a topic about our gender and not our mortality so I shall not elaborate. But that final song and the episode ending on a discomforted emotion that Buffy regretted being alive? That was the moment we became engaged with the show.

It's funny...

We watched it for 12 weeks.

The plot followed the slow corruption of the redhead that we had fixated upon. How her addiction to magic was ruining her relationships and compromising her good-natured spirit. I do not recall the episodes well enough to comment upon their quality or how well the story was handled.

I do recall how the story between Willow and Tara ended, however.

It was so senseless. So cruel. So... pointless.

Certainly, it allowed the queer backbone of the show to become an evil witch and likely be defeated in the season finale, perhaps turned back to the side of good once more? I do not recall and did not stick around.

The emotional tension between the troubled couple had hit its apex and discussions were forced to happen and Willow was discovering that she could not abuse Tara into staying. She could not bespell her without circumventing her agency and understood that she had been doing that very thing by not allowing her to remember their fights.

Then Tara drops dead.

Tara just dies.

An accidental stray bullet from outside the house just pierces through her body.

I do not know the history of this character. I was attached to her only in the way of knowing that so few pieces of positive queer media existed in the awful landscape of the 90s and it was nice to see a lesbian couple allowed to exist openly and without inference and innuendo.

And they killed her.

They just murdered her so Willow could become evil for a few episodes.

Rosy was livid too.

I have no memory of the conversations we had but I recall our intent to stop watching was solidified and she did not blame us. She knew our history. She likely knew we were trans, even if we were a lifetime away from accepting it.

Buffy may be a good show and worth watching. Perhaps some day we'll get over our distaste for Whedon and watch it.

But now we have the memory resurfaced, I wish to linger on the version that existed in our head before the musical episode. Before we knew what Willow looked like and projected ourselves upon her.

Just the mental image of a meek boy turning into a literal goddess and how that expression of empowerment resonated so deeply with our cisgender friend that it blossomed into an emotion that we would someday recognize as gender euphoria.

I have no clue how Ben was in the show. I do not know if he was an allegory, if he communicated with Glory, if this big bad of the season was someone worthy of Rosy's admiration.

All I know is that someone saw positivity reflected in the screen and a dumb kid who had so very few role models saw someone she respected described crossing the chasm of the gender spectrum as a positive thing.

Even if the representation is not perfect, even if the creative team themselves are not perfect... sometimes someone can find language to convey their truth from seeing the ideas play out on screen and sometimes hearing someone else's truth can be the key to unlocking your own.

I did not see the TV glow.

But I heard it in her voice and felt it in my heart.

It took over 15 years from those events to come out. But I did. And Rosy was there with a message on social media "It'd be rude to say 'I always knew' but..."

[precious-little-scoundrel]

I have been doing a great deal of thinking about how the taunts by the SS in the camp mimics the sexualization that Lu experiences post war. Because in the camp, you’ve said that she feels absurd amounts of shame from it but I feel like, as much as she internalizes it and maybe tries to act like she’s ok, she doesn’t pull away from Buck and Bucky. Because, she can’t really because of the proximity but also just the general shitty-ness of the stalag overpowers the desire to? Also, she’s so empathetic that I feel like she would know that coddling her makes them feel better so I think everything remains ok. But then post-war, she has this new freedom and the comments are coming from the people that are supposed to be on HER side and I just think it would be her final straw.

The mimicking of that insult and injury by your one goverment is so horrible and I just…ugh, makes me sick. My poor girl/s.

Ok also, because i agree with what you and others have said above, one other aspect strikes me as somewhat helping in camp. And that’s the fact it’s quite obvious the men she repeats and admires are not immune to the same abuse. Thats helpful, in some ways horrible as it is. If Gale Cleven is going through it too, your shame is a little more easily born.

But when you go home and it’s made public and it’s a subject of discourse where your race and nature are under attack, meanwhile your goverment would bribe and threaten those men not to ever speak of their own? Thats fucked, that’s gonna send you over the edge.

[barbiegirldream]

Related to Q/T (not very Dream sympathic even though I'm a big fan) : I doubt it's for clout, Tommy has always been pretty consistent about doing what he likes.

I think it's just simply what happened for all the streamers (Q, Slime, Phil, Tommy...) and that's why the skit is like that, bc it's what happened for them. Because I really don't see Tommy just switching on his friends, especially not for clout.

BUT, and that's what is so terrible about this situation, they just don't get how much hatred is throwned at dream fans and Dream himself ? Like, for them it was a "Q didn't say anything bc he doesn't have to say anything. Dream copied, he deal with the accusations it's his own bed." So Q not saying anything is OKaying the USMP and Dream is a drama queen for airing public messages and overreacting. In that vision, Dream is the one breaking the friendship, creating drama for nothing, and overreacting. Not continuing the USMP is Dream's decision (and that's something so many people are saying against it !).

But that's completely disregard the amount of hate and vitriol the USMP got because they can't know, you don't know how hard someone can be harrassed. The space with at least 1k of people doxxing Dream ? The ss where there was a coordinate effort to attack him ? I remember externs mocking us for speaking about "sending assassins" before realizing that oh, actually it happened.

So I do get Tommy's video : Dream should have stayed silent about everything and just went "the USMP will not happen yet, wait for it". But I dislike how that take completely disregard that he was pressed by very real hatred both online and IRL, and that's something that people love to ignore about Dream and his stans.

So yeah. Dream made his bed, but I'd like for once to have those guys have the same pressure put on them and see how they react.

PS : absolutely hate to see people discard that T made his own reputation and that he should be thankful for Dream's friendship. I can't bother to watch him anymore, but he is talented and has always been pretty straight about himself. It's also more than getting on the QSMP.

Sorry if it cloggs for asks, it was a bit long and not very positive. Feel free to ignore, your blog just made me feel free enough to share this.

None of this is true tho... like no one thinks Dream aired private messages there were no private messages. they made fun of the long twit longer because they can't genuinely comprehend someone stalking and committing crimes bad enough for the FBI to get involved. They genuinely think Dream is lying out of his ass unaware this isn't even the first time it's happened to Dream. You know who's more than aware? Tommy more than any other random CC on the internet knows exactly what happened to Dream because Dream talked Tommy through the same debacle. Tommy just had an entire livestream tour around England telling everyone how Dream protected him and prepared him because of Dream's experience with criminals trying to ruin his life. This round of doxxing happened because they wanted Dream scared enough to not do the USMP which it worked he didn't they won. But it's still not enough. These freaks spend all their time tweeting about Dream because he's all they care about. QSMP is just their new camp from which to throw grenades at Drean.

Tommy's reputation is as a Dream SMP streamer it's all he ever wanted his reputation to be. Tommy's youtube channel is based off the DSMP. Tommy literally said with his own mouth you can thank Dream for everything about his channel because Dream told him how to do everything from thumbnails to video descriptions. I remember during Minecon Tommy going I had a brilliant idea and by that I mean Dream had an idea and I went oh yeah that's good. Tommy has never ever in the past shied away from giving Dream and anyone else who inspired him their flowers. The simple truth is he probably thought he could get away with the joke and being a teenage boy comes with an inherent cruelty to it 🤷‍♀️

[wagingmywarsbehindmyface]

hi, I watched the series yesterday and thought I could share my little essay here. please, feel free to reach out if you saw it too, and want to talk 🥹

[I’m aware I’ve been quite loud about it in the past few weeks, but as the book’s fan, as a historic nerd, and also as Jonah and Anna’s fan, I felt the urge to write something after watching the series.] As we all know, the story of the Holocaust has been portrayed on screen many times, some of the most recognisable ones being Schindler's List (1993; Steven Spielberg), The Pianist (2001; Roman Polanski) or The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas (2008; Mark Herman) I believe The Tattooist of Auschwitz will become one of them. I think it’s very unique to tell a story like this in a way it was done by its creators. It’s important to know that the inspiration was the book written by Heather Morris, who meet Lale Sokolov in early 2000s, who was a tattooist at Auschwitz II-Birkenau after he was sent to the camp in 1942. He decided to share his life story with her, and then with the whole world. After hearing it, and then writing it, it has become Heather’s mission to spread his words. Although it’s based on his own experience, it’s historical fiction novel, which the author herself emphasises. [She said: "The book does not claim to be an academic historical piece of nonfiction, I’ll leave that to the academics and historians.”] The six-episode series directed by Tali Shalom-Ezer inspired by the book under the same name unfolds the life of a young Slovakian man who in horrific circumstances finds something, which keeps him going. The love for the Slovakian girl, Gita. The main characters, excellently portrayed by Jonah Hauer-King and Anna Próchniak, give the audience hope to see the light in the darkest of places, and that’s the most important message of the story. To remain human in the most dehumanised situation, to give love and to receive it. You can see every emotion in Anna’s face even though she doesn’t say anything in a particular scene. Her portrayal of strength, optimism, and faith in the centre of hell, brings out a light. You can see the pain in Jonah’s eyes with every "I’m sorry”, he whispers to his fellow prisoners when he’s made to put the number on their arms. They’re both intuitive, sensitive, and just brilliant actors, who carry the series alongside with equally excellent Jonas Nay as SS officer Stefan Baretzki, Melanie Lynskey as Heather Morris herself, and Harvey Keitel as older Lale, in the centre. I must say I was terrified of seeing Jonas’ portrayal on his every pace or look, which only proves how incredible actor he is. It was said by the Jonah and Jonas that they first created a bond with each other in order to later enact some disturbing, uneasy scenes. It enabled them to trust each other on the set. It was amazing to see Lynskey and Keitel acting together in scenes. Their chemistry can be really felt through screen. The idea of Lale being haunted by the ghosts of the past was incredibly incorporated, even then giving us the feelings of uneasiness, tense, and fear. As the director of the series said herself: "One misconception I would want to debunk would be that when the camps were liberated that everyone lived happily ever after. Trauma is a lifelong burden to carry for the survivors. This isn't a history lesson from the past. This is something that's very much alive.” I couldn't finish without saying something about the wonderful music that was created by Hans Zimmer and Kara Talve. You know it is good when you get shivers all over your body, and the same happens when you hear the haunting melodies of violins in the very first track. The whole soundtrack is available to listen to on music streaming platforms. This series is a must watch for everyone who read the book. It is incredibly well acted, well written, well made. You can feel the sorrow, the grotesque. The Tattooist of Auschwitz depicts the duality of the human nature on full display, showing the possibility to find a light in such a hellish place, and also unfolds the monstrous, evil side of what hatred makes of people.

[girlactionfigure]

Robert Clary, who played Corporal Louis LeBeau on Hogan's Heroes, died today, November 16, 2022, at 96 years old.

In addition to being a beloved performer for decades, he was a survivor of the Holocaust during World War 2, but he lost almost all of his family. He was only 16 years old when he was arrested in Paris and deported.

"....[W]e were not even human beings. When we got to Buchenwald, the SS shoved us into a shower room to spend the night. I had heard the rumors about the dummy showerheads that were gas jets. I thought, this is it. But no, it was just a place to sleep. The first eight days there, the Germans kept us without a crumb to eat. We were hanging on to life by pure guts, sleeping on top of each other, every morning waking up to find a new corpse next to you.

"....The whole experience was a complete nightmare, the way they treated us, what we had to do to survive. We were less than animals. Sometimes I dream about those days. I wake up in a sweat terrified for fear I'm about to be sent away to a concentration camp. But I don't hold a grudge because that's a great waste of time. Yes, there's something dark in the human soul. For the most part human beings are not very nice. That's why when you find those who are, you cherish them."

~ Robert (Widerman) Clary

Only three of Clary's 13 siblings survived the Holocaust. On the wall of the apartment building on Rue des Deux Ponts in Paris where he grew up, there is a memorial plaque that reads:

"A la mémoire des 112 habitants de cette

maison dont 40 petits enfants déporté et

morts dans les camps Allemands en 1942."

In memory of the 112 inhabitants of this house,

including 40 young children, deported and dead

in German camps in 1942.

Adieu, Monsieur Clary. Merci, et shalom.

Historia Obscurum

May his memory be a blessing.

[glitchdecay]

Suzuki Tatsuhisa Talks Behind-the-Scenes of FFXV: Part 1

Part 1 of a series of translations I did! Check more here~

Listen along here! This part goes from 1:17–3:24.

———

The video is an episode of 島津真太郎の週末ゲームCAMP (Shimazu Shintarou's Weekend Game Camp), a radio show that brings in people from the video game industry to chat about what they do. In this episode, host Shimazu Shintarou (CEO of event company groundinglab Co., Ltd., with years of experience in the VG industry) is assisted by voice actor and singer Kubota Miyu.

The guest is, of course, voice actor and former OLDCODEX frontman Suzuki Tatsuhisa, the voice of everyone's favorite sleepy prince, Noctis Lucis Caelum from Final Fantasy XV!

Shimazu Shintarou: You've played Ban in Nanatsu no Taizai, Takao in Kuroko no Basuke, and Tachibana Makoto in Free!... But I wonder. Because to me, you'll always be that guy from Final Fantasy XV.

Suzuki Tatsuhisa: I get it. I was involved with it for a long time, after all. It took about 10… Maybe 12 years? Until it came out. 

SS: I mean, it used to be something else, right? [Final Fantasy] Versus XIII, wasn't it?

ST: Yeah, yeah. Speaking of which, the people at Square Enix were battling themselves with fear at the time. They always told me not to tell anyone about it.

SS: You had to be careful about it.

ST: Yeah, yeah.

SS: I'll tell you what happened from my perspective. The game was supposed to be a spin-off game of Final Fantasy XIII. And [Tatsu] was supposed to be in it. That was what I heard behind the scenes. 

SS: Yeah, and I was amazed. He's going to be in a Final Fantasy game. A Final Fantasy spin-off.

SS: Every year, I'd be involved in this thing called E3 in Los Angeles where all the world's biggest game companies… It's no longer a thing this year, though. 

ST: Yeah, it's no longer a thing.

SS: I was there every year. There was an announcement at the Square Enix booth, and when I watched it… It wasn't the Square Enix booth, but the Sony one. A Sony conference booth.

ST: Sony conference.

SS: Or something like that. They were about to announce what would happen to Versus XIII. [T/N: Watch here for the FFXV announcement trailer at E3 2013.]

SS: And I thought, "That's the one Tatsu is in. What's gonna happen to it?" At the very end, the Versus XIII logo got all "drdrdrdrdr" and changed. It wasn't a XIII-related title, but XV. 

ST: Yeah, the 15th main title. 

SS: The 15th main title.

SS: And it [the ordinal number "15th"] was read in Tatsuhisa's voice.

SS: So I was like, "What? It's going to be a numbered title?" That's when I realized that my friend, whom I've known since the days he couldn't get cast in anything, was in the game series that had some of the best games in my life, as the protagonist of a numbered title in that series. 

ST: Yeah. It was going to be in the form of an alternate game, but it ended up becoming one with a numbered title. At the time, Shinta was working with Square Enix and heard about the development, but he didn't expect that it'd be a numbered title. I wasn't allowed to talk about it either.

Kubota Miyu: Of course.

———

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