#labour camps

[a-typical]

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappé (2006)

[madewithonerib]

RE: And here I thought I was the only one to get this kind of thing

I picture them crying in bed wishing they could veto some of the decisions their life partner is constantly going back to.

mc'loving it

Tova Friedman: Surviving Auschwitz | Documentary Series

Surviving Auschwitz: Child Emerges from the Holocaust | US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Reagan Library with Tova Friedman Ronald | Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute

A Conversation with Tova Friedman - Holocaust Survivor | EdisonBOE

This is the one I watched in full, all 2 hours & 30 minutes of it, and in it there is great detail provided by Tova, who speaks freely unscripted & unrushed.

[shes-some-other-where]

Rain and Apple Blossoms

[ID: a banner featuring bright red apples, prison bars, and medieval looking text of the story's title, Rain and Apple Blossoms. End ID.]

A nameless convict suffers in a prison camp, sentenced to years of hard labour for his crime. There, he is tormented by cruel guards and an even crueller chief overseer who seems to enjoy humiliating him. Eventually, he escapes, and he finds himself cared for by a kind stranger who is on her own journey of grief and self-discovery. With soldiers still hunting for the fugitive, every moment he spends in his unlikely caretaker's company is a risk to them both.

Heavier on whump than plot. Heavier on hurt than comfort. But it's all there.

Full list of CWs at the bottom of this post.

Written for The Merry Whump of May 2024. All drabbles, exactly 100 words. All connected, but many can be read as standalone pieces. However, if you want to read it as a full "narrative," the suggested reading order is below. (Alternatively, find the list of prompts in event order here.)

Suggested Reading Order

🌫️ The Camp

Day 9 - “You’re nothing.”

Day 27 - C for “convict”

Day 8 - A proud, arrogant fool.

Day 2 - Snake venom and molten sand

Day 2 - “Don’t you dare.”

Day 7 - “Forget about them.”

Day 10 - “I don’t have regrets.”

Day 11 - “Pretty little thing.”

Day 12 - “Let me hear you.”

Day 3 - “See what happens.”

Day 14 - “Leave him alone.”

Day 16 - Your neverending insolence

Day 16 - Twenty-nine and one

Day 16 - “Naïve fool.”

Day 1 - Swallowed by the dark

Day 28 - The indistinct phantoms of nightmares

Day 14/23 - Deserving sinners

Day 5 - The chance to flee

Day 6 - Disobedient dogs who try to run

Day 13 - “To know you'll only fail again.”

Day 8 - “I’m fine.”

🌫️ The Escape

Day 13 - Leave no trail.

Day 7 - The world beyond

Day 6 - A sombre dawn

Day 15 - A fool, a dead man

🌫️ The Cellar

Day 4 - “Who are you?”

Day 15 - “Let me help you.”

Day 17 - “Wait, are you afraid of me?”

Day 24 - “Lean on me.”

Day 23 - Cursed, hunted, condemned

Day 27 - “You’re trembling.”

Day 12 - “I’m dangerous.”

Day 17 - “You’re not a prisoner here.”

Alt Prompt - “No one knows you’re here.”

Day 15 - Her foolhardy selflessness

Day 25 - “Is that wise?”

Day 24 - “Just forget about me.”

Day 30 - “I think you might be a good man.”

Day 29 - “Just another few days.”

Day 15 - Endless pools of sorrow

Day 20 - “Are you alone here?”

Day 24 - “What’s with all the apples?”

Day 13 - “I just wish I could repay you.”

Day 28 - “You've found your smile again.”

Day 25 - “I’ve always loved the rain.”

Day 2 - “What are you doing in my house?”

Day 1 - “What were you thinking?”

Day 18 - “Why do you love him?”

Day 11 - “An arrangement, and nothing more.”

Day 6 - “He would never hurt me.”

🌫️ The Recapture

Day 18 - “Nowhere to run, crook.”

Day 19 - “Rot in hell.”

Alt prompt - “It was her.”

Day 4 - He with no future

Day 20 - “Don’t tell me you forgot about me.”

Day 22 - “It’s been too long.”

Day 22 - A death sentence disguised as mercy.

Day 31 - “Enjoy your last night here.”

Day 31 - “Now you’re a broken man.”

Day 28 - “Hope you enjoyed the last taste of freedom you'll ever have.”

🌫️ The Pits

Day 29 - “You ought to be grovelling at my feet.”

Day 26 - A shambling spectre that once was a man

Day 21 - Leashed, muzzled, and ordered around like a beast

Day 3 - Half-lives in the dust

Day 30 - A creature soft, yet wild

Day 25 - “I’ll always love the rain.”

🌫️ A Free Man

Day 1 - Retribution well-deserved

Day 29 - “You are free.”

Day 29 - Charcoal and silver

Day 26 - Fading stars and blooming sun

Alt prompt - Rain and apple blossoms

Full List of Content Warnings

pain, angst, prison, prison camp, labour camp, forced labour, chains, blood, restraints, cruel law enforcement, branding, taunting, humiliation, physical violence, beatings, very brief minor whump, whipping/flogging, gag/muzzle, exhaustion, thirst/dehydration, mine collapse, minor character death, death mention, failed escape, torture, barbed wire, exposure, guilt, fear, grief, loneliness, prospect of a loveless marriage, betrayal, recapture

[ratsreading]

"It looks like... Well, on Earth, we have delightful critters named sea spiders which are mostly leg, to the extent that actual vital organs end up squeezed into those legs because the body is so small. And the legs are very long, with lots of hooks and things at the end. They exist to punish arachnophobes who thought that diving into the deep ocean would keep them safe from regular spiders, and look like the nightmare distillation of all the things people hate about them. But at least they do only live in the deep sea, and being there, they don't scitter about like monkeys in the throes of a grand mal seizure. Oh, and sea spiders have the decency to be bilaterally symmetrical and relatively flat. This thing is very big on being in the third dimension. It has a body that's all long spines like a sea urchin, with a lot of legs projecting off from this at all angles"

- Alien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky

[supermanshield]

Just appreciating the fact that Bruce is putting make-up on Clark's face while they're both dressed in underwear and not much else

World's Finest #193

[solarbird]

Trump's tariffs and mass deportations fit together to create something even worse

I think I’ve squared a circle. Doesn’t mean it’s real; just that I’ve found a way to square it.

Let’s say you’re Trump and you’ve promised mass deportations and huge tariffs on China and other countries.

Now, walk with me:

[cator99]

I always get detained at da border because PROFUNC never ended but basically I'm like if a targeted individual didn't even care

[andorerso]

sorry but comparing whether Jyn or Cassian suffered more in their life like it's the fucking trauma Olympics is fucking ridiculous

they both suffered the same and it's literally not a competition, hope this helps <3

[bauliya]

the “coconut is a slur” discourse is why we need to hunt lunchbox trauma diaspora creatives for sport

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

guys

im going to Uzbekistan. to work on excavations on a site from the middle paleolithic... wow...

paleolithic professor invited me to join her team. so i had to accept

[doreyg]

I am actively campaigning for a political party (go Labour! The least cartoonishly evil of the two currently viable options) so I cannot say this to anybody because I have to win votes and so on. But god, is it hard not to scream at some people for being TOTALLY FUCKING STUPID DID YOU REPLACE YOUR BRAIN WITH A ROCK OR-

[a-typical]

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine - Ilan Pappé (2006)

[shes-some-other-where]

“See what happens.”

Contains: prison/labour camp (implied), physical violence

“Talk back to me again, scum.” The chief overseer’s face twisted, a garish mask of scorn and hate contorting what might have been a passably handsome countenance into the grisly snarl of a bloodthirsty beast. “Try it. See what happens.”

He kept silent, watching the overseer’s eyes. They snapped and glinted, blazing with savage fury.

“Nothing more to say, huh?”

Without warning, the overseer swung his club, cracking it into his jaw. He fell, tasting the bitterness of blood on his tongue.

“You keep your mouth shut and your eyes down, rat, or next time, I won’t be so gentle.”

suggested reading order | MWM event masterlist

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All my writing is original. Feel welcome to interact/comment/reblog. Pls don’t steal or repost.

[istherewifiinhell]

Coffee man acting somewhat befuddled about a powertool battery powered coffee maker. Spoken like someone who never had to brew a bunch of travelers during the morning rush... bruh. Construction workers like their coffee.

[cathkaesque]

Getting into Generalplan Ost in my WW2 book and it's pretty bad not gonna lie

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“REDS CONDUCT TWO MARTYRS TO GRAVE,” Montreal Star. April 29, 1930. Page 6. ---- Huge Demonstration Precedes Burial of Strike Agitators ---- STREETS ARE LINED --- Communist Army Out in Full Force at Port Arthur ---- PORT ARTHUR, Ont., April 29. (CP) - Determined to uphold to the last the theory that the two lumber strike agitators, Voutilaine and Resvall [sic: should be Rosvall and Voutilainen] had died martyrs to the cause. A Communist army yesterday paraded through the streets as the two bodies were borne to the cemetery.

Out in the thousands to view the eclipse of the Sun, Port Arthur residents watched the great procession move slowly through the darkened streets. Nearly 2,000 men, women and children marched, a display of Communist sentiment beyond any ever be fore seen in the two cities of Port Arthur and Fort William.

BOTH DISAPPEARED Last Fall two lumber worker organizers, sent out to organize the men in the camps for a strike, disappeared at Onion Lake. Provincial police investigated and reported they had probably met death by falling through the ice while attempting to cross the Iake against advice. The explanation was not accepted by the Reds and letters were written to the Department of Justice at both Toronto and Ottawa asking further inquiries.

This spring the bodies were found. The talk of foul play was renewed and sensational charges made public, given circulation in red-ink circulars spread about the two cities and in a Finnish paper published at Sudbury. Three surgeons instead of one as usual, attended the post-mortem examination preceding the inquest to assure those interested on the point of foul play. One was a nominee of the Communists. The Coroner's Jury found accidental death by drowning on the basis of the medical men's report. 

Yesterday the Reds paraded in strength through the streets, taking Rosvall to the cemetery, where interment was made without religious ceremony of any kind, in keeping with the cult. The army was assembled from Port Arthur, Fort William and West Fort. 

The cortege was headed by a brass band, playing funeral dirges. [AL: Very unsympathetic news report on the largest funeral in the history of what is Thunder Bay, Ontario, that repeatedly calls the Communist Party, very influential among the Finns of the Lakehead, a cult.  Rosvall and Voutilainen’s mysterious deaths were sensational stories then, and local legend held they had been murdered by thugs hired by the logging camp bosses. Read more here.]