#we have a lot of german and polish people in this state if that’s what you’re looking for though

[barnbridges]

every time i hear someone be like "im eastern european" and then they never talk about their home country or culture with any sort of pride or belonging im like are you actually an american bot thanks

[gothicprep]

[foxglovepng]

Race Headcannons 🥀🌼

Requested: Nu uh I just felt like it

CW: Race, Rook Slander, Ortho spoiler Idia's part.

Characters: NRC students

These are my Race Headcannons for the NRC men. Some of these I just went by feeling a lot of these I did research about the movie setting although with the fishes + beast men I went by geography.

Some of these I'm unsure of (Heavy on Sebek) If anything is incorrect or you want to share your thoughts go ahead I'm always open to corrections and hearing others. (PROOFREAD FOR ONCE)

(Updated Epel on 5.12.24)

🌼

Heartslabyul

Riddle (British)

I don't really have an explanation for this one other than the Red Queen in Tim Burton's version she was British and had a big goofy forehead (I have not seen the animated one help)

Trey (German)

Would you believe me if I told you I whipped out a map closed my eyes and threw a dart and it landed on Germany??

For this one I went with somewhere in Europe and I picked Germany because it just made sense to me I was gonna say Polish, but his Green hair was telling me German.

Cater (Scottish)

It's his ginger hair tbh.

Ace (Japanese)

A lot of people headcannon him as Filipino, but me personally I wanted to be quirky and different /j

This one doesn't really have any evidence I just went by feeling. I also headcannon it that he would love Jojo and Junji Ito.

Deuce (Mexican)

As a fellow Mexican I KNOW ONE OF US WHEN I SEE ONE OF US. He is Mexican and I WILL DIE ON THAT HILL.

Savanaclaw

Leona (Kenya)

I actually googled it and Lion King takes place in Kenya which is a country in the eastern part of Africa. For obvious reasons since he is based off Scar it made sense to make him Kenyan.

Ruggie (Multiracial)

I may get a lot of heat for this one, but this man got blonde ass hair and blue eyes, HOWEVER for the geography of spotted Hyena's I feel he is light skinned. He's got some Kenya in him but he also got some white genes. Geography wise I believe he is also part Arab since there are Arab countries in Africa. So therefore I believe he is white, black, and Arab.

Jack (Bircial)

Another one I may get a lot of heat for.

From what I remember Jack is from the same country as Vil? So, I believe Jack is part black, but also part European. It also isn't explicitly stated what movie he is from we just know he is a wolf.

Pop off Jacob Black (not sorry)

Octavinelle

Azul (Cuban) + The Twins (Filipino)

I googled Coral Sea locations and I came to these conclusions.

There are different Coral reefs going from Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and Maldives. With the Twins I thought how funny would it be to make them Australian, but Filipino just kind of felt right like a gut feeling. The Carribean sea also has coral reefs so I made Azul Cuban. I was going to make him Venezuelan however I ended up going with Cuban, but I feel like both fit him in a way.

Scarabia

Jamil + Kalim (Arab)

I don't really think this one needs an explanation Aladdin quite literally takes place Agrabah which was based off of Baghdad, Iraq (source: Google)

HOWEVER

There is an article that says the Architecture is based on the Taj Mahal which is Indian.

There is also a mention of Allah in the animated version BUT because I don't fully understand religion in general (And also Disney back then was kind of racist) I don't want to use religion as a justification to where specifically they are from. So I will simply just say they are Arab.

Pomefiore

Vil (German)

Snow white was based in Germany. (I have nothing more to say :Skull:)

Rook (French)

Self explanatory

Epel (Sami)

The Sami People are people who are indigenous to Sapmi which is in Northern Europe. (Todays Russia, Sweden, Finland, and Norway).

From doing a bit of research the Sami people seem to be dying out and their language too. (If you want to feel free to Google the Sami people there's a lot to learn about them and it's really interesting. There was basically a bunch of policies put in place to kill them and mistreat them it's really sad)

So in short Epel is Sami Indigenous (If I'm correct he's the first Indigenous character we got so far which is nice representation) (I also hope my research was correct please correct me if not)

Ignihyde

Idia (Greek)

Based on where Hercules takes place and because Hades is quite literally Greek Mythology he is Greek.

Ortho is just a robot, but when he didn't drop dead he was Greek.

Diasmonia

Malleus (German/French)

I am not really getting a clear answer as to where Sleeping Beauty takes place so I made him a French German. He slayed tbh

Lilia (Romanian)

Dracula's castle is in Romania that is the only explanation you are getting

Silver (French/German)

I am being told he is based off Sleeping Beauty so I am making him the same race as Waka Sama.

Sebek (Biracial)

When I first was thinking of a race for him I was thinking Slavic kind of fits him (atleast to me) or possibly Asian. However I had a really hard time guessing so I made him SlavicAsian. Maybe possibly Slovakia and Vietnam?

If you enjoyed Likes and Reblogs are very much welcome. If you want to request something go ahead just read my rules first. <3

[prussiasqueen]

Hey genuine question: how can someone be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine? I understand you have family and friends in Israel but how can you be both when Israel has been

-using white phosphorus bombs

-targeting Palestinian journalists for reporting the truth

-shooting children (even BABIES) in the head

-refuse hostage negotiations

-basically running concentration camps and torturing Palestinian civilians

And a bunch of other war criminal shit that even South Africa has recognized

People criticizing Israel and wanting them to give back the land to Palestine is not antisemitism. Yes, there are people who take it too far but historically, Israel is a settler nation and Palestine should get the land back. No sane person is saying they want Jewish people dead/not have a place to go. There are Jewish people in Palestine, it was never about wanting Jewish people dead, it’s about freedom and ending the occupation.

I apologize for the lengthy rant, I just want to help educate people on this matter.

Ok so I’m gonna keep this simple as I can anon, not because I don’t think your questions aren’t important… but it sounds like to me you may need to actually sit down and talk to some Israeli people and get the full scoop and idea of what’s happening on BOTH sides. Can’t really rely too much on listening to just one side, because ya know… propaganda and how the media twists so much.

As stated a lot of what you are saying sounds like a bunch of propaganda and rinse and repeat of the same things being said over and over again.

Truth of the matter is, you’re not seeing beyond October 7th, you’re not seeing what’s been going on beyond 1948, a little bit of searching online and heck, even checking in with Israelis about said information could help a ton with this. Secondly, all the information you provided, Hamas literally did the same things to the Israeli as well and to their own people. Hamas has been torturing people since before all this has happened. Literally you sound like someone who hasn’t batted an eye to any of this until suddenly when things happened during October 7th.

This was never a genocide, this has always been a conflict.

There’s so much here to cover, maybe I should suggest you chatting with parts of jewblr?

Another man I might recommend listening and watching is Mosab Hassan Yousef.

A Palestinian man who not only is just a Palestinian but the son of Hamas co-founder, he is also known as “the green prince” you want some true insight and someone who can really break it down for you to understand, I highly recommend having a listen to his videos online (if you can find them) and also his book “The Son of Hamas” Will help give you a better perspective.

I personally could actually sit down and look at you and say, “alright, so where do we start” but I really don’t feel I need to explain when you can literally see what a lot of us have been saying. I mean hell, if you really wanna know more… (I won’t say tumblr is the best of sourcing but, the Jewish community here and my own reblogs on my other blog have walls and walls and walls of text and sources you can go and read.)

“Shooting children, even babies in the head”

Were you…. Not present when you heard what they did to some of the hostages? Umm… you do know that Hamas killed women and children too, right? I mean this is a conflict and war… I mean like I said so much to cover…

War is gray area when it comes to how it is, it’s never fully one sided, there’s casualties everywhere and there is no winning outcome in it at all.

Also can I just… can I throw one thing in here, yes people want Jews dead. People have been wanting Jews dead since the beginning of human existence on earth, I don’t know what planet where you think this is not the case, but Jews have been ostracized for many many many many years, by the Romans, ancient Egyptian, Greeks, the Germans, the polish, the Russian, the Turkish, and the list goes on and on and on, let’s be real here most of Middle East does not want Israel to exist and the people in it. (Especially Jewish) most Palestinians that support Hamas, do indeed want the Jews dead. That’s not up for debate, so by saying no “sane” person wants Jews dead, well when you support a terrorist group like Hamas, you do want Jews dead. End of discussion.

Many one else willing to help put in more info here… that’d be awesome.

@bottlepiecemuses you have anything to add to this for anon? I’m like really tired and don’t feel like breaking this down more…

[cinemaocd]

My april films list

The Scar/Blizna (1976): When I was in college my roommate was in a Polish class and she had access to a library of films and we watched a lot of Krzysztof Kieślowski and they are all good, I think. This one is about a mid level manager who inherits a white elephant of a project: clear a forest to build an industrial plant. The local people and the forest itself turn against him. It's magical realism with that Slavic touch of fatalism that always feels relevant.

Sweetie (1989): I saw this in the 90s at a film festival and so it was a bit of a shock when The Piano came out and it felt like you could not have two more different films at least on the surface, but both are directed by Jane Campion. Sweetie is a frank and often dark comedy about an ungovernable woman--a cautionary tale about the infantilisation of women, seen through the eyes of her long suffering sibling.  Akira (1987): Iconic anime with a beautiful smooth style. Copied so frequently it can look a bit basic to those who've grown up with its imitators, but the heart of it is a great score and atmospheric noir setting that make the set pieces like the night motorcycle ride through Tokyo the perfect accompaniment to millennial angst. Near Dark (1987): Katherine Bigelow's shot at the sexy vampire genre features most of the cast of Aliens as a troop of vampires who follow around a Confederate soldier. Bill Paxton does an entertainingly nasty turn as one of the baddies. Feels like an Aliens/Lost Boys AU and that is a compliment, really.

Cleo from 5-7 (1962): Not to be like this already in what amounts to a two sentence blurb, but the summary for this film describes Cleo as a hypochondriac? Excuse me but she is waiting around to find out if she has cancer. It seems to me that this is a movie about the way women are dismissed and not seen, even when they are famous and actually the center of attention wherever they go. On the surface she looks like a spoiled diva, but behind the scenes we see she is frightened and lonely. Anyway fuck the patriarchy and Free Cleo! Twelve Angry Men (1957): We rewatched this because my son is on some weird reddit sub thread discord where everyone rpgs as jurors from this movie...I'm not joking. Imagining a super niche fandom for Jack Warner. It exists. THe internet is a wild place. Anyway, this holds up. Don't mix up Syndey Lumet and Sydney Pollack like I did, lol. Embarrassing!

Ashes and Diamonds (1958): Polish film master, Andrez Wadja's be bop riff on neo realism, is a chronicle of the final day of German occupation, and a Hail Mary attempt by a young resistance fighter to wrest the country back from the Soviet Army which is already there. It's a hopeless mission, born of drunken desperation in smokey back rooms, one that comes apart in daylight. It's feels like Rebel without a Cause, but like...he has a cause? There a sense of tragic waste that mirrors Nicholas Ray's vision of restless American youth. Scoop (2024): A rather weak entry in the behind the scenes journalism drama genre that I seem to be unable to resist in any form. This has Billy Piper as a booking agent who manages the coup of getting Prince Andrew to sit down for an interview with the press about the pedophilia allegations. Your average episode of The Thick of It, probably has more meat than this made for TV film.

The Two Popes (2019): For those playing along at home this was my fourth time watching this. What can I say, two of my fave old lovies flirting away in Pope costumes. It's a comfort film. You are not immune to propaganda. Bulworth (1998): Featuring just about every working black actor of the era, this movie was kind of ahead of its time. About a liberal politician who is so depressed about the state of his party being owned by powerful business interests that he decides to commit suicide by hiring a hitman to kill him so that his family will at least get the insurance. Warren Beatty at his most ridiculous, this is underrated gem.

Great Expectations (1974) After revisiting this version, I went back to David Lean, which is no surprise. This is a made for TV movie that has a lot of familiar faces from 50s British film including Robert Morley and my boi Anthony Quayle. Michael York is Pip. Heat (1995): I might become slightly obsessed with Michael Mann after watching all this moody atmosphere punctuated with bursts of violence, with long passages set to a synth score that made Chris Fleming want to crash his car. Some beautiful lighting and camera work in the final set piece which takes place on an airport runway. Iconic and yet, bloated and overlong and I just don't know why I like it so much? Maybe it's Al Pacino's reactions which are just so off the wall in some scenes, and the disconcerting normality of the other people in the same scenes, ya know? Like they are in two different movies. I shot Andy Warhol (1996): Watched this for Jared Harris (who is adorable as always and terrific as always and completely sinks into the role as always) and came away remembering why Lily Taylor was a 90s icon/IT girl and boy can she act. Like wow. Andy Warhol is the title character, but it's more about Valerie Solanas the radical feminist lesbian who shot him because she believed he stole her work. (The movie implies that he did, a little bit...). Her SCUM manifesto remains controversial to say the least, but her story is a utterly heartbreaking, told with humanity and nuance. Actually a great choice for Pride month because it talks about gay history and it's not pretty or comfortable but it's necessary to learn. Hopscotch (1980): Delightful comedy starring Walter Matthau and Judy Collins as a spy couple. Combines actually decent spy thriller with actually funny stuff and it's romantic and sweet as well.

[life-in-the-garden]

A Spell for the Honey Eaters

Introduction

In a lot of Slavic languages we see the word for “bear” (the animal) being formed from epithets. In Russian, the modern word for “bear” is transliterated as “medved.” That, along with the Polish “niedzwiedz” both translate roughly to “honey eater.” This same use of epithets is demonstrated in a lot of Germanic and Scandinavian languages—the Old Norse “bjorn,” the less-common English word “bruin,” and even the German “baer” all ultimately refer to the animal’s color: brown. Indeed, this use of epithets for the animal was so widespread in the ancient north that, according to The Linguistics Encyclopedia (2002) we now have no record of what the actual name for the winter sleeper was in any northern Indo-European dialect.

But why did this taboo exist against saying the name of the honey eater? Until effective post-mortem communication is established everything is speculation, of course, but the most common consensus on this issue among paleo-linguists is that the people of the ancient north were very… let us say respectful of honey eaters. Nobody wanted the winter sleepers to steal their kills, raid their camps, or—worst of all—actively hunt them. Bears (let us be brave with this name) have power; they are massive, strong, and deadly apex predators.

Who are also very cute!

photo by Mark Basarab on Unsplash

Bears also get very fat every autumn and then sleep through the winter in order to avoid the problem of otherwise not having enough food available through the lean months of the year. Smart! But also fat. Very, very fat. So fat, in fact, that the United States National Park Service hosts an annual contest called Fat Bear Week where people can vote on their favorite bear every autumn. The linked website says it best:

“For bears, fat equals survival. Each winter, bears enter the den where they will not eat or drink until they emerge in spring. During this time, they may lose up to 1/3 of their body weight as they rely solely on their fat reserves. Survival depends on eating a year's worth of food in six months.”

So what does this mean for us humans? It means… stop hating yourself and/or others for being fat. This spell uses the spirit of the bear as an animal ally (if you are white like I am, please do not use the term “totem” or “spirit animal” due to those terms being cultural appropriation) to inspire yourself towards a better sense of self-love when it comes to your weight. And if you really struggle with internalized fatphobia, then you can at least use this spell to see yourself in a more neutral way that doesn’t reflect negatively on your self-worth.

Method

When pondering the nature of the primordial winter sleeper, I was initially drawn to food-focused witchery—because is it really a spell channeling the power of bears if you don’t eat at least one salmon? (this is a joke)—but this isn’t always an accessible option for people who struggle to cook and/or have a history with eating disorders. Therefore, the goal with the honey eaters’ spell is to nourish your body—but not necessarily with food if that doesn’t work for you. Therefore, more specifically for this spell you need to give your body what it needs to not just survive, but thrive.

And you know your own body infinitely better than I (a rando on the Internet) certainly do, so you get to decide what exactly your body needs to thrive. It could be 8+ hours of sleep, a solid meal, and/or an extra bottle’s worth of of water throughout the day… but these are just the basics. Maybe you need something more complex than that. Maybe you need a lot more than that. That’s okay. It’s okay to need things, and also okay to want things that aren’t necessities. It’s okay to pursue the things you want and/or need, like a bear tearing through a blackberry patch in search of the ripe, tart fruit. If you feel like you need permission to go after what you want, this is your sign to give chase with all of your power.

Please keep in mind that this spell lasts 24 hours once begun.

You will need:

Writing supplies OR a method by which to digitally store an image and quickly/frequently refer back to it

Accouterments for self care (your choice & discretion)

Instructions, such as they are:

First, draw a picture of a bear with your writing supplies. It doesn’t need to be fancy! Arguably one of the most famous pictures of a bear ever made was created more than 30,000 years ago in a cave called Chauvet in France. It looks like this:

photo by Jean Clottes, retrieved from Smithsonian Magazine

(If you want to learn more about the cave paintings of Chauvet, you can do so here).

If you don’t have the spoons to draw, lack confidence as an artist, or otherwise just don’t want to draw a picture, you can find a picture of a bear online and save it to your phone or another device for quick/frequent reference. Remember the power of the honey eater as you do so, and know that you are keeping that power close to you throughout the day that this spell will last. The attention of the winter sleeper is upon you, and though not cruel the honey eater will ask that you be kind to yourself; winter is never too far away, and you need your strength to survive the cold.

Once your image of a bear has been created or saved, the spell is begun. For the next 24 hours, your mission as a magical practitioner is to ensure that your body thrives. Take care of yourself as much as you are able; live lavishly, indulgently, and without regret. If you ever find yourself caught in a sudden trap of shame or doubt, think of the honey eater—refer back to your image if necessary—and say an epithet or name for "bear" that feels comforting to you (some examples: Arktos, Ursus, Medved). You can say the name aloud or just think it really hard; the point of doing this is to interrupt the shame/doubt and not allow it to take root and fester in your mind and heart. Keep doing this until the 24 hours are finished. Repeat as you see fit.

The purpose of this spell is to help your body and mind escape negative patterns of behavior and thought through the power of the winter sleeper. Remember that bears are fat, and that bears were some of the most awe-inspiring and terrifying animals ever encountered by ancient humans. There is nothing wrong with being fat, and fat is often necessary for survival through the long, hard months of winter. Unlike bears, we can’t sleep away months of darkness and cold—whether that darkness and cold be mental illness, abuse, or something else entirely—but we can bring the strength of the honey eater into ourselves for the eternal quest to continue living until the next spring.

If you liked this spell or even just found it intriguing, please consider checking out my ko-fi where I share spells and witchcraft-focused zines. As a struggling college student in an abusive home, it means a lot when someone is able to toss some spare change my way!

[frida-kahl-of-the-rocky-horror]

In Anthropology, there are three main distinctions of what it means to be “from” somewhere

It could mean your ethnicity — eg, where are your parents from or your ancestors. What tribe of people did does your genotype come from, specifically pre-1492

It could mean your nationality — eg, where are you legally from, where is your passport country, where do you pay taxes

Or it could mean where you were enculturated — eg, where did you grow up, where is your accent from, where did you go to school, where were you born

(Depending on the context it may also be where were you a few minutes ago, but usually we use a different tense like “where did you come from”)

I think U.S. Americans of non-WASP or WASP-passing origin often get confused by how WASP Americans condescendingly ask the question “where are you really from”

For many people, nationality is the most important factor in determining where they are from, and this question implies that their national identity is less valid than a WASP’s, hence the animosity towards this micro aggression

This really only is a problem in the United States

I’ve heard it happening in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, but because ethnic hegemony is much higher their, it’s more rare

And in pretty much every other country, the answer to the three is all the same.

Most people in Lithuania are Lithuanian and have a Lithuanian passport and grew up in Lithuania

There are thousands of, say, Americans who are Chinese American and have USA passport but have lived in Hawaii, Vermont, Michigan, and France over their lives

But all of these factors are what makes humans so complex, and I think it is personally a fault of the English language that there is little nuance and a lot of vagueness in our terminology

Asking “where are you from ethnically”, “what passport do you hold”, “what locations did you experience your life in prior to here” all feel intrusive and robotic

We need better alternatives!!!

Sincerely,

A person who is Texian, Mexican, Irish, and Polish by ethnicity, U.S. American by Nationality, and South Carolinian, Douglassian (Washington DC), Kartvelian, Fijian, Qatari, German, South Floridian by enculturation

[spitefulfemme]

Hey, idk if my ask got received, just in case it didn't here's the thing again, have a great day

hey there, fellow lesbian here. Little rant up coming, about a few things on your blog. Please, please, read it all the way through and the article I linked before you call me a Nazi. (I may have German heritage, but we left to the US in the late 1890s, I'm German and Polish American, if you're curious) I put way too much thought into this.

So, I do really like your blog, and I like a lot of other blogs that kinda post the same stuff about Gaza and Israel every once in a while. I don't agree with what Israel is doing. It's abhorrent. But so is the hate *you* guys are spreading. Below: My thoughts and rant. (yeah I commented this like yesterday, but I wanted to make sure you and other could see it, so I shot in an ask.)

Uhm...guys...this isn't the answer. First statements: I'm not Jewish. I'm not Zionist. I'm not Muslim. Raised kinda Christian, like I'm baptized, my family rarely goes to church, and we are very open and affirming. (two pride flags in the sanctuary, open gay members, we do ceremonies, all that jazz)

However i think neither of them are right in the first place. Israel, yes, they're the aggressor. But the way the world has responded is shocking. I don't support Israel's actions. I don't support Palestine. But I scroll through these blogs and the amount of hate towards people who aren't directly involved in the conflict, from people it's lives are not going to affect is crazy! Comparing Zionism to Nazis??? Wtf??? I think y'all don't know what Zionism actually is.

This, is taken from annefrankhouse.com. (https://www.annefrank.org/en/topics/antisemitism/are-all-jews-zionists/#:~:text=Zionism%20is%20about%20the%20pursuit,inhabitants%20of%20Israel%20are%20Jewish.)

"Many Palestinians and supporters of the Palestinian cause no longer distinguish between the words 'Jew', 'Israeli' and 'Zionist'. That is not correct. Most Jews do not live in Israel. Not every inhabitant of Israel is Jewish; there are also many non-Jews living in Israel. And not all Jewish Israelis are 'settlers' who want to conquer more and more Palestinian land. The vast majority of Jews believe that the State of Israel should continue to exist. But many Jews, both living in Israel and elsewhere, are in favour of a Palestinian state alongside Israel as a possible solution to the conflict. To cut a long story short: although many Jews identify with Zionism, there are still many different points of view. That is reason enough not to mix up the words 'Jew', 'Israelis' and 'Zionists'."

so, what is wrong with wanting to have a state, a free state, where your religion is respected and your culture is celebrated? Wouldn't anyone want that? Yes, Israel's done some bad shit, I ain't denying it. But that is NO reason to go full anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic. From reading your posts and such, I get the feeling some people don't know what they're getting into.

Also, stop. Stop calling them Nazis. As much as you may hate acknowledging this, this is how Holocaust denial starts. This is how more people, end up dead. So, before you 'pick a side', do your research. Know what that phrase you're chanting at protest actually means. (some of them mean kill all Jews) And know this; what is happening in Rafah and Gaza is wrong. What is happening around the world is wrong. But by only increasing the hate? You're making it worse. So, please try to voice your concerns and be open about your thoughts, without spreading more hate! Anti-Semitism is already a huge problem in the US. We don't need to be making it worse.

And for the people calling for the dissolution of Israel? Where tf are all those people gonna go? Cause you've made it clear you don't want them, so for many citizens, you'd be creating another massive Human Rights issue.

For the people calling Zionists Nazis? What the ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU? I'm sorry, yes, terrible things are happening. But that does NOT, AND WILL NEVER give you the right to call them Nazis. Six million people. No. Just no. That's near as bad as denying the Holocaust happened.

**YOU MAY NOT LIKE ISRAEL, YOU MAY OPENOY DISAGREE AND PROTEST THEM. BUT THAT DOES NOT GIVE YOU THE RIGHT TI DISGRACE THE DEATHS OF SIX MILLION PEOPLE BY CALLING THEIR DESCENDANTS NAZIS.**

And even if you're taking this from a strategic standpoint, the Israeli army is not using tactics and methods the the Nazis did. They're completely different. So please, I beg of you, think about what you're posting. Don't call people Nazis if they aren't fucking Neo Nazis.

I hope you actually read this. I hope you read the article I sent from annefrankhouse.org. And please, think about what I've said.

Sincerely,

-a concerned Bleh-345.

you are right. no one should be called neo nazis if they aren't nazis. i apologize for the harm i've caused by spreading this narrative around. thank you for taking the time and writing this out. i haven't outright called the jewish people nazis but i will look into my blog and delete any reblogs that even feel like an anti-semitic post. it isn't activism by ignoring the harm caused by the holocaust while advocating for the palestinian people. it's ignorant, inconsiderate, and dumb, to put it bluntly. i am so very sorry for any negative feelings i've caused by my own negligence. (sorry if this seems half-assed, i hope it doesn't come off that way. i am so down to have a further conversation with you though if you'd like.)

[lepartidelamort]

Poland: High Court Judge Defects to Belarus, Claims US Planning to Turn Poland Into a War Zone

Andrew Anglin

The Americans get ideas in their heads, abstract concepts, and then preach them as some kind universal law.

Yes, Sunnis do tend to hate Shiites. Yes, Poles do tend to hate Russians. In both cases, there are serious histories that involve a lot of war.

But does that actually mean that there is no limit? That it can just be assumed that Sunnis or Poles will agree to have their countries completely destroyed in the name of this hatred?

Presumably, there are things that the Poles care about more than the hatred of Russia. Probably, most of them are more against gays than they are against Russians, for example. They also probably don’t want to have their entire country destroyed, like the Ukraine, in the name of hatred for Russia.

In actual reality, the Poles surrendered to Russia, knowing that Stalin would take their whole country, because they didn’t want to fight a war that they couldn’t possibly win against the Red Army. So, that sort of disproves the American theory in a pretty extreme way.

Basically every country in history surrendered if it was clear they were going to be annihilated. The only country that didn’t do this is the Ukraine. The Americans apparently think they can do this trick again in Poland.

Politico:

A high-level Polish judge asked for political asylum in Belarus on Monday, saying he was doing so in “protest against Poland’s unjust and harmful policy” toward Belarus and Russia. In his resignation letter published on X, Tomasz Szmydt said he was giving up his position as a judge at the Warsaw Administrative Court “with immediate effect.” Szmydt described his decision as a protest against “activities to push my country to a direct military conflict” with Belarus and Russia, and appealed to the Polish authorities to “normalize” and establish “good neighborly relations” with Minsk and Moscow.

Tomasz Szmydt at the press conference in Belarus

The judge also appeared at a press conference in Minsk, one of Russia’s few allies in its war against Ukraine, praising the regime of President Alexander Lukashenko for running a “blooming country.” He argued that the authorities in Warsaw, under the influence of the United States and the United Kingdom, are “leading the country to war.” His flight to Minsk was denounced in Warsaw. “Whoever is fleeing Poland to Belarus to slander Poland and the NATO community of which we are a part is a scoundrel and traitor,” Stanisław Żaryn, an aide to President Andrzej Duda, told reporters in Warsaw. Foreign Minister Radosław Sikorski said: “It’s shocking information that I’m finding hard to comment on.” … It’s not Szmydt’s first brush with fame. Polish news website Onet reported in 2019 that Szmydt belonged to an informal group that discussed how to discredit judges who didn’t pledge loyalty to the former nationalist Law and Justice party government. He later switched sides and went public in 2022 to expose what he said was unethical behavior by pro-government judges.

Poland could flip rapidly.

They are being completely Ukrainized, which is their most pressing problem. There are cities in southern Poland which are now a majority Ukrainian. Hilariously, at least half of these people speak Russian as a first language. Because they are actually Russian people, because the Ukraine is not a real country.

The West has installed Donald Tusk as Prime Minister. This guy is a total product of the EU, and doesn’t really share any common values with Poles. He’s from a minority ethnic group and has a German grandmother. He’s a prime example of the worthless, rootless technocrat that always serves American/Globalist/Jewish interests.

It’s unclear what America’s plan for the Ukraine actually is. The original plan was to crush the Russian economy and force a color revolution, but that has been off the table for two years. The Ukraine has already lost the war. If they keep pushing, Poland will end up under Russian control.

Who knows what this judge knows. Maybe he’s just reading the internet. He was a pretty high ranking official though, and he is saying that the Polish government is working with the Americans to escalate in a way that is going to involve Poland directly in the war.

[jacensolodjo]

Speaking of "yeah but people cheered during Operation Barbarossa" I think people are like... completely missing the whole reason WHY anyone would think being invaded from the West was going to be a GOOD THING for them.

They were under SOVIET RULE. The Soviets were killing people en masse so of course if you have people claiming to be your liberator from THAT you're going to at first think it's great. Remember, there was very little info coming into the Soviet Union about the Holocaust. This was on purpose on some level BY THE SOVIET UNION. Because they were allies with... Nazi fucking Germany. Y'all keep forgetting this and I'm tired of it. What do you think happened to Poland? Do you somehow not even know about the Pact that bisected Poland?

It's the absolute start of the whole 'there's soviets then there's everyone else but we're not gonna say that we're just gonna say either you're Soviet or you're a fascist". That was the absolute. You're either a comrade or you are a fascist. There is no middle ground. And the only one pushing that line was... Soviets. Once Barbarossa happened, it was no longer censored about what was going on re: Holocaust.

The funniest part though is people claiming that is what happened during the Donbas shit and then the new invasion since 2022. When it wasn't. At all. NO ONE has been suffering under 'Ukraine rule'. There was never ANY anti-Russophone action like there has been for those who speak Ukrainian. For centuries speaking Ukrainian was a killable offense. People act like Ukraine then turned around and made speaking Russian illegal. None of that has happened after making Ukrainian the state language of... Ukraine. Russian was never made illegal, it just isn't being used for schools and government and such.

People want so badly to be persecuted and they simply aren't. Persecution is what russia is good at. You had folks in the eastern Ukraine area who may have collaborated but it wasn't a wholesale thing like russia has been pushing in their propaganda. And we actually have been getting people stepping forward and admitting they were WRONG to think anything was going to be good for them when russia invaded.

Here's a little secret: Nazis didn't like Slavs either. In fact, Nazis wanted to add a little 'e' after the 'v' for Slavs. They wanted a nation of slaves. There was an entire secondary plan for Operation Barbarossa to make this happen. You section out all the volk from the icky Slavs and then you send the icky Slavs to camps, often camps that are already occupied by enemies of the soviets that you've just taken over.

A lot of people found this out the hard way, sadly. But it was NEVER a whole bunch of people being FOR Nazism. It was them being AGAINST communism. And there IS a difference. Remember, there is no absolute binary of fascist and commie. Yes, there were Ukrainian SS divisions. But they were small. Guess what other countries had SS divisions. Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, Latvia, Bosnia, Croatia, Georgia, etc.,. Overall you only had 500,000 non-German SS soldiers. Out of tens of millions of people. Out of all of those different countries. Romania above all was the most eager to join and did.

In fact, every other SS unit HATED the Polish and Ukrainian units. 53,000 people tried to sign up in Ukraine in 1943. Only 12,000 were accepted to a final number of 23,000 by the end of the war. And yet now you have people acting like Ukraine has been a nation of nazis. Why do all the other collaborator countries get a pass? Hell, everyone knows what Switzerland did and yet it's just peachy keen now. The nordic countries were downright rabid in their antisemitism but it's Ukraine that is the evil one.

You are not immune to Russian propaganda. You claim to be antifascist and yet you support fascists. The russcists ain't gonna fuck you. Russia and the US being at loggerheads is not a binary of supporting one (russia) over the other (US). With Ukraine somehow being viewed as a satellite territory of the US hence supporting President War Crimes. Or just the general binary of "we support everyone who isn't the US" even when the people of the countries you 'support' tell you point blank to stop it because their country has done bad shit too that they have been trying to hold people accountable for and your blind support isn't helping (notably north Korea and China but the list does go on).

[ineffablebookgirl]

☾ ✌ ❀ ☆ ! <333

Moi? Oh goodness. So, my native language is English. But I teach Spanish and also speak Russian decently well. So maybe I'll answer for all three, if you'll indulge me.

☾ Favorite word in Russian is войлок, which means felt, as in the material, but I love the way it feels to say it. Closely followes by конечно, "of course." In Spanish, I really like the phrase, ¿te apetece un cafecito? because of the rhythms and the consonants and because, yes, I would like a cup of coffee. And, as an English-speaker, the word trabajaba makes me chuckle. In English, I think one of my favorites is elude or possibly lovely or experiential.

✌ I wonder if the memes of today will be the proverbs of tomorrow? "But I'm being so brave about it." "Now we don't have time to unpack all of that." One thing my friend once said that I think aboit a lot is, "We healing on the way." Meaning, there isn't an end state of "healed" that we need to reach before we deserve a good life, or love, connection, joy. In Spanish, I like "pensando en la inmortalidad del cangrejo," but I'm not sure how many people actually say that. (I also don't think that's really a proverb, per se)

❀ Which language(s) would I like to speak fluently. This is a tricky question. The thing is, I really enjoy the puzzle and the struggle of studying and learning a language. Of course I also love the fruits of that labor - the ability for more connection with others, to read and hear stories from a different perspective or totally different stories than I can hear in English. People (in the U.S.) have this idea that English is such a monolithic lingua franca now that it almost doesn't make sense to learn other languages, but there's so much that isn't translated into English. I find it really interesting to look at wikipedia articles in English and then switch them to Spanish or Russian, because often it's not just a direct translation one way or the other. If it's something relevant to a Spanish-speaking community or culture, the article will be way longer and have more detail in Spanish, naturally. And what the author chooses to emphasize may be quite different. So I think that the challenge of learning a different language, and especially learning less-commonly-taught languages is very important. I will never be a native speaker of any language other than English, and I probably won't ever be considered "fluent" in Spanish or Russian. I would like to keep getting better at both thosr languages. I would like to learn German and Lithuanian, for personal reasons. I have dear friends who are Polish, so I would like to know more Polish. And I have dear friends who are signers, so I would like to improve my ASL. I would love to know Quechua and Nahuatl, and I would like to learn some indigenous languages of North America as well.

☆ The coolness of the riverbank and the whispering of the reeds / Daybreak is not so very far away

Hermanos y hermanas de otras razas / De otro color y un mismo corazón (Brothers and sisters of other races / Different colors and one heart)

В этом городе я знаю пути / Знаю тех, кто мне мешает идти... / Каждый шаг, каждый ��иг / По кольцу и в час пик... / В этом городе не каждый герой / Кто не первый, тот уже не второй!

(In this city I don't know my way / I know those who would lead me astray / Every step, every moment / Around the ring and at rush hour / In this city not everyone is a hero / If you're not first you're not second either)

~~~

Thanks for the questions! I enjoyed rambling on about the answers :)

[simplicius-simplicissimus]

Disbelief and Sadness!

My wife's aunt is an US citizen (her husband was an US Army helicopter pilot) and has lived in the USA for decades. Before the US election she visited Germany and we also talked about the situation in the USA - and of course compared it with recent German history. It's hard to bear when a people runs after a fool and just throws their identity and centuries of heritage into the gutter. Thinking and talking about this fact in our history was very emotional for me. I guess that a similar emotion flashed through Jimmy Kimmel's head as well and brought tears to his eyes:

I watch a lot of US news (thanks to YouTube) because I have learned to love the country, culture and people on many trips - and because developments there also have an impact on Europe. It was often annoying when American journalists, politicians or even comedians (also Jimmy Kimmel!) spoke condescendingly about Germany out of a feeling of “moral superiority” - whose history they often only know parts of (mostly just the last 120 years) and maybe even then don’t really understand it. We (at least I am) probably know their history better than they ours🤓. But that's just how Americans are: like a carefree, immaculate, self-centered, almost naive child….that faces now adulthood! Maybe they understand now - because it can happen that overnight you start to live in a different country. I made the following comment on the video above:

„Welcome to the club - Germany's last dictator was not elected with a majority👏🥳! “Project 2025” is the plan of the now open “fascist GOP” to “bring the country into line” at the federal level. The „technical term“ from the „one o one“ for dictators is called „Gleichschaltung“ (synchronization). Germans know this term very well because it’s taught in school - not to apply it, but not to fall for it again! Some idiots over here vote for them (AFD) anyway. Churchill once said: „The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.“

By they way, the GOP has been doing this „synchronization thing“ openly and shamelessly through gerrymandering and voter suppression at the state level for years. These boys and girls are no longer interested in “democracy” - they have long been switched to play another game called “autocracy”. The “Democrats” on the other side want to continue to stick to the “rules of the game”🤦🏼‍♂️.

The good news is: you can also get rid of autocrats - giving up is not the order of the day! Sometimes even bloodless - like the Poles with their PIS party government recently (by the way, the PIS party introduced a nationwide abortion ban!). But sometimes (and that is the bad news) it can cost destroyed cities, destroyed cultural treasures, destroyed identity, destroyed international reputation (Germany used to be known as the country of poets and thinkers - today as the country that killed 6 million Jews) or 6.6 million own deaths (5.5 million soldiers who fought for the wrong ideals and 1.1 million civilian deaths).

I hope that „this dilemma“ ends for you the “Polish way” - and that one day you will not be asked: “Why didn’t you prevent this?” or “What did you do about it?” All the best for your future from over the Atlantic - but I fear it’s going to be a rough ride 👋🏻.“

Moderate Americans must do their homework now - and we Europeans ours!

„It happened so slowly. Yeah, kind of overnight. We woke up one morning and Europe was at war.“

-Lee Miller

[gryficowa]

I love how anti-Russian people use Russia's past to spread hatred towards Russians and anyone who looks at Russians even slightly positively (Because many of them are LGBT+ and is anti-Putin) is suddenly considered "Spreading propaganda about the good Russian"

Information for you: According to this logic, Ukraine is also bad, because Ukrainians, before they gained the land, were bad people and raped Polish women, yes, you heard right, this is the history of Ukrainians, and does it mean that what Putin is doing is fucking good? No it doesn't and it shouldn't fucking matter because these Ukrainians who are alive today are not the Ukrainians who raped Polish women, you fuckers

Seriously, Ukrainians did a lot of bad things to Poles, which you want to erase to show that all Russians are bad because "Their history shows them as evil"

"Even before the outbreak of the German-Soviet war, both Polish and Ukrainian political and military organizations operated in Volhynia. They were in sharp conflict with each other. After June 1941, quite a large part of the Ukrainian political circles in Volhynia decided to cooperate with the Germans - to such an extent that that Ukrainians constitute the main part of the auxiliary police forces in this area. They participate in carrying out the Holocaust of Jews and take part in the pacification of villages - both Polish and Ukrainian"

"As the months of the war pass, the tension in Polish-Ukrainian relations systematically increases. In 1942, we are dealing with increasingly frequent physical attacks on the Polish population - both the intelligentsia and the peasant population. In the fall of 1942, about six thousand Ukrainians leave the German auxiliary forces and join the underground, which causes a new, very important military and political factor to appear in Volhynia. The structures of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army are being formed, which remains in a very close alliance or is simply politically subordinated to the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, a splinter group led by Stepan Bandera. Poles decide to enter the place abandoned by Ukrainians. This is done in consultation with the structures of the Polish Underground State and not to help the Germans, but to create an opportunity to defend against attacks from those Ukrainians who went underground. Ukrainian political groups, but also part of the Ukrainian population, view the takeover by Poles of functions previously performed by Ukrainians as extremely negative"

You see right, Ukrainians hurt Poles, so according to this logic you should hate them…

The history of Ukraine is quite bloody (And that's probably why Zionists think that Poles collaborated with the Nazis, so eh…)

So should I be anti-Ukraine because evil ancestors hurt Poles? No, there's something wrong with your head

What Putin is doing is inexcusable, but I blame Putin because he is a shitty person

This turned out to be a series of posts, so you see…

But I can't hate someone for their country of origin or ethnicity, I hate people for supporting genocide, or I mention the problem (I compared Russians and Israelis in previous posts because I noticed a key difference that is ignored, which is trust in your government, so yeah...)

I don't like Russia and Putin, but that doesn't mean I have to hate Russians, because many Russians are wonderful people, just like Jews who are hated by Zionists and some pseudo-pro-Palestinians (Mainly with right-wing views…), let's stop judging people for their origin and ethnicity, and for what kind of people they are

[firespirited]

folks, we might look all mayo to you but “white on white” racism is ancient and complicated. Let’s begin with something simple and widespread in the UK: the Welsh, who are very much part of our genetic makeup, often described as swarthy, often cast as latinos (Catherine Zeta Jones for example) and implied to be hillbillies with all the farm animal coitus jokes that go with. Now let’s expand to britain’s first colony: Ireland which was used as plantation and famously was punished with a “famine” (most famines are engineered), anti-irish jokes and stereotypes are present in Harry Potter with an irish kid who’s reckless, a bit dim and into explosives.

Now serious anti-polish sentiment is about 20-ish years old in the UK https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Polish_sentiment and when you hear someone with a british accent complain about bloody foreigners that’s usually what they have in mind: not brown people but Polish people (they have other dog whistles for the melanated ones)

Here’s the thing, it’s building on a millennia+ of anti-slav racism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Slavic_sentiment On the racial pyramid of the nazis, aryans are above, other europeans below and below that, slavs exist as “untermensh” subspecies to serve as work horses which is why they annexed Poland, killed hospital patients and took the hospitals for their own soldiers, killed random folks to take their houses.... lots of killing, lots of gruesome experiments, lots of slavery. The racial policy was that jews had to be exterminated as an “outside contaminant” but slavs had to be dominated and culled. lots of references to animals, pests, cockroaches.  Ok so now you’re seeing why the Slav person as speaking broken english and a lowly worker is historically charged and even the use of slavic here is uncomfortable as these are distinct countries with distinct languages and cultures.

The intellectual erasure is compounded as countries will claim Polish scientists, thinkers and writers as their own because they had to flee Poland (Marie Curie? actually Maria Sklodowska–Curie - Have you heard about the big film of 2023 Oppenheimer? A bunch of british and american actors are about to play jewish Polish, Hungarian, German and Belorussian scientists).

Now we’ve been talking about anti-polish and anti-slavic xenophobia in britain amongst ourselves a lot, this is something that’s been a regular topic of discussion because of how blatantly anti-polish various political parties and campaigns have been: notably brexit - so JKRowling doesn’t have the option of saying she had no idea. We’re threading the needle of being able to critique Poland’s current government without leaving any space for racists to hijack the message with old anti-polish stereotypes and their anti-polish agenda.

So this is writing that any respectable editing house would have sent back crossed out in red pen because it’s lazy, very obvious signalling to the right wing. It’s the type of thing you would write to show that a character is bigoted and regressive.

Outside of the USA, whiteness is defined differently. We have other signifiers of who belongs or does not, other hierarchies. When Russia attacked Ukraine, we saw news agencies who usually spout strong anti-slavic sentiments grant “whiteness” to the people of Ukraine and there’s the feeling that should immigration exceed certain limits or governments change, that state of whiteness could be revoked as they become job-grabbing grubby slavs again, you see what i mean? Our racial hierarchies have real life consequences for people who live here or people who will be trapped in Ukraine. They had real life consequences for polish-brits and poles who live in the UK.

So this is also interesting as it positions JK Rowling outside of her usual benevolent neoliberalism where carefully worded transphobia might slide: this is some overt slippage into conservative territory.

[tehuti88-art]

12/23/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Holiday Free Draw Friday." (Sorry, I use Free Draw Fridays to practice my characters although I'm not too good at it. I may draw something holidayish soon.)

This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Untersturmführer (2nd Lt.) Paul Wozniak, sans cap (top drawing) and with cap (bottom drawing). He's one of the bad guys but has a secret that would make the other bad guys turn on him in an instant if they knew. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se.

Regarding his design, he's a gray poodle. (My poodle characters don't have those goofy fluffy cuts.)

TUMBLR EDIT 1: Only tangentially related, but I felt like sharing. As I was finishing up Paul Wozniak's entry, I got the urge to try to dig around and find out if I really have German ancestry or not. I definitely have French-Canadian ancestry through my maternal great-grandmother--there are records--but all I had to go on for my dad's side of the family was vague word of mouth. My mother had told me I have Pennsylvania Dutch (German) ancestry, but there was nothing to back that up; plus, when I asked her more recently, this time she said my ancestry is Dutch--completely different thing. My surname sounds German and I'd been told it is--BUT, it's also a word in English, and Google searches told me it's more often found in the UK--it could be German, yet it could also be English, Dutch, even Ashkenazi Jewish. It isn't included on Wikipedia's list of German surnames. I'm not close to extended family, I won't post my name online for safety reasons (people tend not to answer me when I post questions on forums anyway so I've given up), and I figured my dad himself either doesn't know or doesn't care (he's the sort who finds lots of questions irritating)...so I decided to try Google again. All I had to go on was my paternal grandfather's name, and my hometown, where he'd also lived. I started there.

This brought me first to the 1940 Census and my great-grandfather--as well as a tie to a Pennsylvania county with a high Pennsylvania Dutch population. I followed him to a genealogy site where I found my great-great-grandfather. I followed him to a personal genealogy site of Pennsylvania families, then followed that to various other sites. After a couple of hours (during which I took a break to work on my art for that day), plus a few additional details in the day or so after, I'd at last solved the mystery of my uncertain paternal ancestry and the origin of my surname.

I learned that my family had resided in Pennsylvania for over a century before coming to Michigan.

I learned that my family surname had changed spelling likely sometime in the late 1700s.

I learned my ancestors immigrated from Europe to Pennsylvania in 1767 on a ship called the Sally.

I learned that the earliest ancestor I could track down was a farmer named Georg, who was born around 1590. (Here the recorded trail I can find ends.)

And I learned that my family and my family name could be tracked to a particular state in Germany: We are, in fact, of German descent.

As for the name of the particular state in Germany from which my family originates?...my family comes from the state of Hesse.

I make up lots of stuff, but I could not have made this up if I tried.

Hope somebody enjoyed.

TUMBLR EDIT 2: So all right. I mentioned previously that I'd explain this SS character's decidedly odd name, so here we go.

I've made passing reference to newish character Lt. Paul Wozniak in previous entries, though until recently (I think it was Dobermann's entry?) never referred to him by name. This is largely because he only recently acquired one, and he had his first name quite a while before the last name came along. I had trouble figuring out what "Lt. Paul's" name should be but was already leaning toward something unusual; then "unusual" clearly developed into "Polish," so here we are. I went with one I knew how to pronounce (having attended school with a girl surnamed Wosniak, who I believe secretly hated my guts, but whatever).

This is a matter I haven't looked into as much as others, but suffice it to say, the Nazis hated the Poles. I don't know if they were persecuted to the same extent as the Jews, but many Slavic peoples, Poles included, were considered subhuman, and often forced into camps. Lt. Wozniak, being in the SS yet having what comes across as a "forbidden" name, seemed like it'd make for a pretty juicy plot point. And there was a tiny basis in fact for giving an SS member such a name, so I couldn't pass it up.

So what inspired such an odd choice? A fellow named...uh...Odilo Globocnik. *checks* Holy crap I spelled it right, though it took me a few backspaces. Anyway. Who is this weird-named dude? Long story short, he was an Austrian SS officer who participated in murdering the Poles, as well as various other garbagey acts. I shan't dwell on him as all he and Wozniak have in common is their odd naming circumstances. According to Wikipedia, Odilo (easier to type that than that surname) was Slovenian/Serbian/Croatian. I. e., Slavic. Yet he was still a high-ranking member of the SS and even participated in ethnic cleansing of other Slavic peoples. What up? I'm not sure if I understand what I'm reading right, but Odilo seems to have been another instance of the Nazis being big ol' flaming hypocrites when it suited them. Some of Odilo's fellows apparently ridiculed him for his non-Aryan name, but others, including Himmler himself, simply came up with an excuse: Oh, dude named Globocnik is TOTALLY Aryan! He just has a funny-spelled name because it was "Slavicized"! Yeah, that's the ticket! 🙄

I'm not sure what it was about Odilo that got him this easy pass, but there you go. It's similar in my story. Paul Wozniak, I believe, actually IS of Polish descent, so technically he should not end up accepted into the SS, but he is. He comes from a well-off family with connections--this plot point isn't developed yet, but perhaps they're even connected to Col. Rupprecht Heidenreich, which is one of the biggest connections you can get in this storyline without being connected to the Reichsführer himself. (Himmler never appears by name in my story though a guy who might be him briefly appears once or twice.) Heidenreich proves he's a hypocrite elsewhere in the story by expressing virulent antisemitism--e. g., he vows to shoot any Jew who sets foot on his land--while being a-OK having an affair with a half-Jewish woman (when she tells him this and asks if it'll be a problem, he outright says that makes it more "exciting.") Anyway, Wozniak's family are living in Germany at the time of the story and they consider themselves German and all that but, well, technicalities. They have big hopes for their son, big hopes he doesn't really share but he has no real say. They pull strings, insist they're not dirty Poles but they just have "Policized" names (yes that is a completely misused word there), he meets the SS criteria, and joins the Waffen-SS. Goes off to fight in the war. He's kind of young and definitely inexperienced, and the guy who ends up with him in his unit doesn't want to deal with the task of showing him the ropes, so passes him off to one of his other guys who has a lot more combat experience, having served in the Great War, and is named, you guessed it, Gunter Hesse.

Hesse's not terribly enthused about having to babysit New Guy but doesn't complain, gives him a crash course in how things are done. Wozniak is a fast learner so it doesn't go too badly. His personality is quite different from Hesse's--Hesse is more of a loner, doesn't really "click" with most of the younger soldiers, is the quiet stoic type, rather humorless most of the time, definitely not chatty, and comes from a lower-middle class background--his parents were killed when he was an infant so he was raised in an orphanage and spent some time in poverty after being dismissed from the army. Wozniak is younger, more sociable, loves to chat and joke around, and as I already made clear comes from the upper-middle class, has never wanted for anything. The two of them shouldn't really get along, but Wozniak wears Hesse down and they become rather decent friends. They aren't always in touch with each other since Hesse actually serves in Vincenz Immerwahr's unit, but they meet and fight alongside each other often. So of course Wozniak catches word when Hesse submits a complaint against Immerwahr for acting inappropriately toward him. Immerwahr's interest in younger men (he's older than Hesse is) is well known by most in the Waffen-SS, though Hesse wasn't in the loop. Well, he is now, and he complains about it. And his complaint is promptly brushed off by the Allgemeine-SS, which investigates such things. Hesse is humiliated but has to abide by the decision; he just decides to try to avoid Immerwahr's company as much as possible until he can figure out how to transfer to another unit.

Wozniak doesn't comment on the situation since he knows that'll just embarrass Hesse even more, though he does feel rather disappointed about it. Not because he's disgusted by Immerwahr's behavior, but because he has a crush on Hesse, too. And now he's just learned it'll never be requited, because Hesse is skeeved out by people like him. Le sigh.

So now you see Wozniak in fact has TWO very big things working against him: He's of Polish descent, AND, well...you know. He never really wanted to be in the SS, that was his parents' idea, but here we are.

Wozniak ends up getting seriously wounded and carried off to hospital; he sees Hesse, who helped save his life, standing and watching as he departs. He learns that he can remain in the SS by transferring to their noncombatant branch, the Allgemeine-SS, which deals in security and intelligence; it isn't glamorous but he transfers. He ends up serving Heidenreich's vast office dealing with recordkeeping and investigating complaints against SS officers. One day a new officer arrives in an adjacent office and Wozniak is surprised to recognize his old companion, Hesse--much similar to Wozniak, he too ended up wounded, and on the advice of the Waffen-SS physician who saw to his injury, Erich Arzt, decided to transfer so he could continue serving in the SS. Wozniak pops in to say hello and Hesse, surprised, greets him back. It looks like they'll be serving by each other yet again, albeit in a completely different capacity.

Wozniak isn't one of the major characters, and over time Hesse's friendship with Theodor Schulte kind of supplants his relationship with him, though this is largely because Schulte follows him out in the field more often, and carries out unpleasant tasks for him, whereas Wozniak tends to work from the office. One big exception to this is when Hesse is assigned to investigate the deaths of Inga Dobermann, a close friend, and the Nazi official whom she killed before dying herself. (I believe this occurs before Hesse and Schulte meet, though I could be wrong.) It's outside the scope of this entry that Inga is NOT, in fact, dead, her death was merely faked by her husband and members of the resistance movement, the Diamond Network. Despite his years-long friendship with the Dobermanns, Hesse is again out of the loop, for obvious reasons. Inga's husband, Louis Dobermann, requests that the investigation be kept low key out of respect for Inga (actually, to avoid the truth coming out, that she's Jewish and not really dead); he knows Hesse has long had romantic feelings for her, and plans on this working in his favor. Indeed it does, with Hesse taking the lead in the investigation and asking Heidenreich to allow him to keep things quiet. He requests to work with only one other officer, and chooses Wozniak, knowing he can keep things mum.

Wozniak has of course heard of the Dobermanns--they're a prominent Junker family well known for their philanthropy--though he's never really interacted with them, and doesn't know all the details of Hesse's relationship with them. (Louis Dobermann saved Hesse's life in the Great War, and Inga, who'd met the two men as they recovered in hospital, insisted on taking him in after he overdosed on morphine--prior to joining the SS, he'd lived with them and helped care for their daughter ever since. He now divides his time between the Dobermann estate and his SS-provided apartment in the city.) He picks up bits and pieces as the investigation goes on. One big hint about the exact nature of things is Hesse's reaction to Inga's "death." He initially reacts with numb shock, running on autopilot as he hurries to the estate to check out the crime scene and then returns to the city to seek Heidenreich's approval to investigate. Heidenreich calls Wozniak since it's quite late at night and most officers are at home; Wozniak agrees to meet Hesse early in the morning, while Hesse goes to get a few hours of sleep. Wozniak isn't quite sure why Hesse has gone to all this trouble, but starts to assume there's more to it than meets the eye. He shows up to work yet Hesse doesn't report to the office as expected, so Wozniak goes to his apartment, knocks, waits a bit. Hesse finally answers, groggy and bleary eyed, and lets him in; he's still dressed from the previous night but is rumpled, and asks Wozniak to wait a few moments while he washes and straightens himself up to head back to the Dobermann estate. Wozniak does so, but is vaguely perplexed; Hesse is well known for being a teetotaler, at the most he may have a glass of wine or beer once a week or so but he almost exclusively sticks to club soda. So why does he look so hungover?

Wozniak wanders around the suite a little bit and notices that the door to Hesse's private quarters is cracked open; peering within, he notices something sitting on the bed: a small kit with a syringe. He knows exactly what that must be. When Hesse comes out of the bathroom, still drying himself off, Wozniak gestures at the kit and murmurs, "You sure you're good to go, Kamerad...?" Hesse glances at the kit but then nods, and Wozniak exits the room to let him get dressed. As they leave a few moments later he can tell Hesse never actually took the drug; something must have stopped him from doing so after he prepared the needle. Something else is to blame for his uncharacteristically shabby state when he answered the door. There's no smell of alcohol on him, so Wozniak assumes a completely different cause: Hesse must have cried himself to sleep. He still isn't sure of all the particulars, but now he can tell Hesse cared for Inga very deeply.

Wozniak assists in the investigation by doing most of the behind-the-scenes work, such as digging into the SS personal records for information on the man Inga killed and why he might have been on the property in the first place. He's a bit more clear eyed than Hesse is about the whole affair, and senses something is fishy, but Hesse quickly shuts him down when he tries to suggest Dobermann may be hiding something; Hesse isn't stupid, Wozniak knows that he knows, on some level, that things aren't quite right. Yet Hesse deliberately chooses to ignore this, so Wozniak goes along with it. Both of them know Dobermann isn't telling the entire truth about Inga's "death," and is in effect using Hesse's feelings for her to ensure the investigation doesn't go too deep...and they allow him to do this, anyway. Hesse is a very by-the-book type (him filing a complaint against Immerwahr and expecting it to go anywhere is proof of this), so his behavior in the Dobermann investigation is very atypical indeed. The two of them basically pin the blame on the dead guy and let things rest there.

As time goes on, Wozniak does get to learn that the Dobermanns are Hesse's big blind spot, with him willing to bend or outright break the rules for them, and not just in regards to Inga's death. Hesse feels he owes them, and he's devoted to their daughter Adelina--treating her almost like she's his own--so even though he gets into heated arguments with Dobermann himself, he lets them get away with almost anything. The presence of Tobias Schäfer within the Dobermann household is a pretty big sign of this. Dobermann rescued Schäfer from the labor camp while Inga was still "alive," and brought him back to the estate to serve as the in-home physician. The thing is that Schäfer is Jewish, and it's illegal for him to practice medicine; also, he's deaf, which in the Nazis' eyes makes him even more "subhuman." So Dobermann's actions here are a big no-no. Wozniak meets Schäfer only later in the story when he accidentally runs into him during a visit to the estate; normally, Hesse has Schäfer hide when Nazis visit, though this time there was an oversight. (The same thing happens with Hasso Reinhardt, who currently runs the camp.) Wozniak isn't terribly antisemitic, despite working for the SS; he's more curious about Schäfer's presence than alarmed. Especially when he learns that Hesse's first reaction to Dobermann showing up with Schäfer was to demand that he return him to the camp, where Schäfer was just about to be sent to the firing squad. By the time Wozniak meets Schäfer, he and Hesse are on generally decent terms, and as I already mentioned, Hesse actively participates in concealing his presence, now. It's weird but Wozniak chalks it up yet again to Hesse's devotion to the Dobermanns. He never tips off his boss Heidenreich as to any of these irregularities, partly because of his own secrets.

At one point in the plot, a Lebensborn maternity home is bombed (still working out the details of this), and Wozniak, who was visiting at the time, ends up trapped with an unwed pregnant woman who goes into labor; he helps her deliver the baby. He runs into her (she needs a name now) later on in the story and learns she's going to give the baby up for adoption. This is normal; the SS established the Lebensborn maternity homes to provide for pregnant SS wives and unwed mothers, the latter of whom, if they're racially desirable enough, are expected to adopt their children out to SS families who don't have their own. Lebensborn helps protect these women from the stigma generally attached to being pregnant out of wedlock, and ensures their children a good home. Wozniak chats with this woman and gets to know a bit about her; she had a brief relationship with another SS officer, but he wasn't interested in making it serious, and bailed out when she discovered she was pregnant. Her family aren't thrilled about the situation, and threatened to disown her if she didn't get the situation "taken care of" somehow. Abortion is illegal for Aryan German citizens, due to the low birth rate, so Lebensborn is her only option. Despite all of Wozniak's efforts to get her to laugh or smile, she remains gloomy and vaguely hostile, so he asks if she even wants to put the child up for adoption; the look on her face makes it clear she doesn't. She simply has no other choice.

Wozniak suddenly hits upon an idea: He proposes. Out of the blue. (Yes, similarities to Ludolf Jäger's and Magdalena Jäger's tale, though keep reading, it's different.) He'll marry her, and pose as the officer who got her pregnant, insisting he's had a change of heart and has decided to marry her after all--this should resolve all her issues with her family. New Mother just gives him the most flabbergasted stare.

Wozniak: "Well...?"

New Mother: "What are you even getting at--?"

Wozniak: "Exactly as I said. What do you say?"

New Mother: "I say you've lost your head! What nonsense is this? We hardly know each other."

Wozniak: "So? I get the feeling that's pretty common with this thing, ja? Sounds like you didn't know the other fellow too well, either."

New Mother: "You're really terrible at this, you know?"

Wozniak: "And yet you're not saying nein."

New Mother: "And neither am I saying ja! You're being a horrible Arsch. Last thing I need right now is jokes."

Wozniak: "For once I'm serious. And so what do you say? Ja or nein?"

New Mother: "What do you think? I'm not even interested in you like that!"

Wozniak: "...Huh. I suppose I should be offended. I guess it's a good thing I'm not interested in you like that, either."

New Mother: (angrily) "And what's that supposed to mean--?" (blinks) "...Oh."

Wozniak explains: He's not being ENTIRELY selfless with his proposal. A marriage wouldn't benefit just her, it would benefit him as well: His family have been nagging at him to find a nice wife, settle down, have some kids. None of which he's interested in doing in the least. But they're getting kind of pushy about it, and the SS is too, since they request their eligible members to have families. Here, they can kill two birds with one stone: He can placate his family and the SS and help cover up his preferences by marrying her and claiming her child as his own, while she placates her family by marrying the "father" of her child and not getting disowned. She's very reluctant about this scheme, as it strikes her as terribly unfair to expect him to give up his own chance at a relationship by helping her; to which he frankly responds, "I already have no such chance, not unless I want to be executed." New Mother knows of course that the Third Reich forbids the sort of relationship Wozniak would be interested in, but she admittedly never thought about just how harsh the consequences can be--Wozniak doesn't look at all like the sort of person who'd be put in a camp or outright killed, yet he is. Still, she feels so much guilt over this--"It isn't fair, this isn't the way it should be"--that he has to do a lot of convincing to bring her around that it actually benefits him more than her, and she has nothing to feel bad about, she's not responsible for his happiness. They plan to visit their families before seeking permission from the SS, since the blessings of their relatives should carry some weight. Accordingly, they go to meet her parents first.

New Mother's parents watch in consternation as an unfamiliar car pulls in, an SS officer gets out (it's almost never a good thing to get a visit from the SS, so although they're good law-abiding Germans, they're nervous), then helps someone out of the passenger side--it's their daughter, and she's carrying a baby. They hurry out to meet her, wondering what's going on; when New Mother awkwardly introduces Wozniak, and he clarifies that he's the same officer she'd been seeing previously, they're surprised, but everyone goes inside to talk over tea. Wozniak is of course asked about his name (he provides the same BS story his parents always have--he's Aryan German, just the family name was changed when they lived in Poland--and they agree it must be true, he wouldn't have been allowed in the SS otherwise), and when asked the circumstances of him being there now, after he'd dumped their daughter, he expresses great contrition, explaining how when he saw her with their baby he realized what he had turned his back on; he's had a change of heart, and wishes to start a proper family. They ask how the two of them met in the first place; New Mother gets flustered, but Wozniak comes right out with an elaborate story that even explains why she didn't answer the question ("She's embarrassed that it isn't as romantic as she thinks it should be"). Her parents buy it hook, line, and sinker, and leave the room a moment to talk amongst themselves.

New Mother: (whispering) "What was all that??"

Wozniak: (whispering) "I had to say something, you weren't answering!"

New Mother: "How did you learn to--to LIE like that? Like you do it every day!"

Wozniak: "I DO do it every day! I sort of have to!"

Parents return to the room, give Wozniak a gentle finger shake over "his previous behavior," but for the most part are too thrilled to be angry. They offer their blessing. The two next visit Wozniak's parents. They're even more surprised than hers: "We had no idea you were even seeing anybody," his mother exclaims, "and now you show up with a baby?--why did you never tell us?" This time, Wozniak hems and haws, and New Mother speaks up--"He's embarrassed that it isn't as romantic as he thinks it should be"--and repeats the story Wozniak had told. His parents excuse themselves a moment.

Wozniak: (sideways glance) "I must be rubbing off on you already. You did that a little too easily."

Wozniak's parents reappear, give their blessing. Next up is the SS. Considering that both Wozniak and New Mother have already met SS physical/racial requirements, this step is the easiest of all; the most complicated aspect is the marriage ceremony and the baby's christening. Wozniak warns New Mother these might be weird. They go through with it, then depart, newly wed, New Mother carrying the baby and both of them staring off into space, brows furrowed pensively.

New Mother: "You're right. That was...weird."

Wozniak: "That's sort of how we do things."

New Mother: "What was that book he kept reading aloud from...?"

Wozniak: "Ah...Mein Kampf."

New Mother: "Oh."

Wozniak: "I don't recommend it, it's not very good."

New Mother: "Ja."

New Mother repeatedly agonizes over their choice to pose as a couple, feeling like she's depriving him of his own life, and Wozniak has to keep reassuring her otherwise. Over time it becomes clear she's actually developed some feelings for him after all, though he has no interest in reciprocating (a fact that he feels apologetic about, but it's not like he can do anything about it). They have to deal numerous times with awkward situations such as sharing a bed and keeping their families convinced they're into each other, as well as why no more children seem to be forthcoming...I haven't delved very much yet into all this, so I'm not sure how far they're both willing to go to maintain the act. They do grow to genuinely love each other in an unusual way, though, so the marriage isn't as pure a con job as it started out as.

Wozniak participates in Hesse's investigation of the murder of their boss, Col. Heidenreich; everyone is stunned when the killer turns out to be his own wife, Eva, with the assistance of...Capt. Arzt, who tended to Hesse's injuries and suggested he join the Allgemeine-SS all those years ago. Eva is hanged, whereas Arzt commits suicide while Hesse and Wozniak are taking him into custody. Wozniak sees Hesse's former blind devotion to the SS starting to waver, and he spends more time with his mistress Sophie; Wozniak catches wind of Hesse proposing to her, and encourages him to follow through--and soon. Ominous news is trickling in from the Eastern Front that the war is taking a bad turn, and Wozniak tells Hesse this might be a good time for him to retire to the country with Sophie--Hesse is surprised when Wozniak admits he's making similar plans in case things get worse. Surprised, because Wozniak is still young, and so resigning from the SS now seems premature. Hesse gets the same advice from SS major Jan Delbrück, who just returned from the front and so knows what's going on. Unfortunately for Hesse, he ignores this advice, although he does indicate to Sophie that he'll leave the SS if they refuse his request to marry her; events come to a head before he can act, and he, Schulte, and Sophie don't meet good ends.

Delbrück and Wozniak--independently of each other--are more clear eyed, and take action sooner. Delbrück barely makes it out of the city as the Allies arrive, while Wozniak hurries to fetch New Mother. She's bewildered when he bursts in, dressed in plain clothes, and tells her to get the baby and a few belongings as they have to leave right then. He urges her to contact her parents and tell them to leave as well, but a telephone call to them results in nothing: They've decided to stay where they are, confident the enemy will be defeated. Wozniak tries to suggest they go pick them up but New Mother cuts him off--turns out her parents have gone full Nazi, she's certain they won't come along, and what's more, they'll definitely never accept it should they find out the truth about their marriage--she suspects they may even become dangerous. Right now, it's best for them to focus on themselves, and the baby. He's surprised that she's willing to leave her family behind--he'd made the same decision regarding his own--but all she has to say to that is "We're the family now, ja?" She gathers some supplies for the baby, they get bundled into the car, and head out of the city and toward the mountains, where Wozniak reasons they stand a better chance of surviving. He says he knows someone he can contact for help after things settle down a little.

While I was taking a small break from typing this, Wozniak revealed the rest of his story to me, and it doesn't end the way I'd originally thought. Here we go, though. He and New Mother hide out in the mountains for a bit, then make their way toward Poland, where Wozniak says he still has extended family who might be able to help. (Here is where New Mother--holy cripes do I need to find her a name, by this point she's not exactly a new mother anymore--asks, dumbfounded, "Your family really does come from Poland?--you have Slavic blood? How on earth did they let you into the SS??" Wozniak simply confirms that yes, he's ethnically Polish, and also his family had connections, which counts for more than blood, apparently.) He tracks down a distant cousin who, from the looks of it, knows of his service in the SS. Relative agrees to meet him in an out-of-the-way place with some material to aid him, though it's not a friendly meeting.

Relative: "You have some real nerve showing your face here."

Wozniak: "I appreciate your help."

Relative: "Well, I don't appreciate seeing you." (nods at New Mother) "Who's she?"

Wozniak: "This is my wife."

Relative: "Wife--? Oh, this is rich. So you married one of them, too. Nice."

Wozniak: "I don't want to take up your time--"

Relative: "Don't worry about me, I don't want you taking up my time, either. Here. I do you ONE favor." (hands over some documents) "Papers you people love so much."

Wozniak: (looks at papers; they're in Polish, but New Mother can tell they're identity papers for three members of the Wozniak family) "Who are they?"

Relative: "WERE they. Don't worry, they don't need these papers anymore."

Wozniak: "What happened to them?"

Relative: (livid) "Don't you dare act like you don't know. Now I did my part. I don't want to see any of you ever again." (leaves)

New Mother: "Paul...you had family who died in the camps?"

Wozniak: "I didn't know any of them too well. Haven't been here since my parents left. Anyway..." (tucks papers away) "We're them, now."

New Mother can tell the tense interaction wears on him, but doesn't press. He gets the papers back out later for them to study and remember the details (Paul Wozniak's new name, for example, is Piotr (Peter) Wozniak) and ends up with tears flooding his eyes, but says nothing about what he's thinking. The three of them manage under their new identities to secure some funds and a small cabin in the woods--Wozniak deems living in the country safer than returning to a city--and they squeak by on hunting and gathering, supplementing this by doing minor jobs for their few distant neighbors who mostly keep to themselves. It isn't easy, but at least it's a living, and the two of them genuinely care for each other and the child. Things are sure to get easier as time goes by.

That's where I thought Wozniak's story basically ended, with the little family making it by on their own, relatively content. But a bit more emerged. They live this way for a year or so, maybe three, and are quite resilient and happy with each other. Winter arrives and it's always a difficult season but by now they know how to handle it. One day Wozniak heads outside to go hunting in the woods, but halts as soon as he notices footprints in the snow; further examination shows that during the night, someone came up to the cabin and tried peering inside. Feeling dread creeping up inside, Wozniak orders New Mother to lock the windows and door and to take the child and hole up in the cellar for now, and not come outside for anything; she repeatedly asks what's going on, but he doesn't answer, just insists: "Not for ANYTHING." She obeys, locking up everything after him and taking Child into the cellar--their food and supply stores are down here, so they can stay for a while--and waiting, filled with dread. After some time she hears it--a gun blast. Then a few moments later, a second. She huddles hugging Child tight, fighting not to burst into tears or to hurry out of their shelter, but there are no more gunshots--and no other sounds at all. Only after a few hours have passed without anything else happening does she instruct Child to stay hidden in the cellar, then ventures out. The cabin is just as it was left; no one's tried to enter. She unlocks the door, taking a rifle and sled with her--in case he's hurt--and follows Wozniak's tracks into the woods.

Wozniak has followed the other set of tracks. As soon as he catches a flicker of movement among the trees, he makes a noise--deliberately giving away his location--then, hearing the snow crunching, he hurries deeper into the trees and away from the cabin. The fact that nobody tried to break in in the night makes him hope that whoever this is isn't interested in his wife or child, but he leads them as far away as he can just in case. Finally he turns and his pursuer emerges: An unknown man with a shotgun, which he aims at Wozniak as soon as he sees he's turned around. He undoes the flaps on his cap to show his face and yells, "Do you remember me?" Wozniak has to squint at him for a moment or two, but at last a vague memory comes back to him; some years ago, when he and Hesse had been visiting the labor camp, a group of newly arrived prisoners had paraded past; one of them had stared keenly at the two SS officers, making eye contact with Wozniak; his stare had unsettled Wozniak and he'd turned away. That was it, that was the total of their interactions--yet Wozniak remembers him, and the man now says, "You do remember me. Good." He approaches, shotgun still aimed, as Wozniak slowly steps back, hands raised.

Stranger: "I told myself to never forget your faces. After I got out of that place. Tried tracking you both down. Couldn't find that other bastard. I guess you'll have to do."

Wozniak: "Bitte..."

Stranger: "Pretending to be a Pole to hide in plain sight. Sneaky, even for you fellows. You know some of you even put on prisoners' clothes to get away? Clever, but not clever enough."

Wozniak: "Bitte, I have people who depend on me..."

Stranger: (screaming) "SO DID I!" (raises gun) (voice cracking) "Maybe you'll meet them! Since I don't believe in Hell!" (fires)

There's a special kind of irony in Wozniak concealing his true ancestry all this time to protect himself, yet in it not protecting him when he needed it to, I guess. He falls to his knees, topples over backwards, goes still. The shooter stands there a moment, then approaches and kicks Wozniak's foot a couple of times--"Get up. Wake up." No response, so he nudges him with the gun barrel; Wozniak is limp. Then, unexpectedly...shooter starts gasping and shaking and his eyes flood with tears. He halfheartedly wipes them away.

Stranger: (crying) "They're still gone. It's not supposed to be like this." (sinks to his knees, drops shotgun, starts sobbing) "It isn't fair. Nothing's changed. I did it for nothing." (removes pistol from his belt, puts it to his head)

New Mother had heard two gunshots. She crests a rise, panting from all the trudging, then spots it: two forms lying still in the snow in a clearing. Lets out a cry--"Paul!"--and stumbles toward him. She drops down and pulls his head and shoulders into her lap and cries, "Nein, nein, nein, Paul," and hugs him tight, but he's growing cold by now. She eventually pulls herself together enough to dig a hole in the snow--pushing the stranger into it and covering him up--then gets Wozniak and the guns onto the sled and, still weeping, pulls him back home with her. All she can think of are the relatives he left behind in Poland; they made it clear they never wanted to see him again, but she makes plans to get to them anyway. She wants Wozniak to have a proper burial.

New Mother's story continues a little bit longer, but that's pretty much it for Wozniak's; I toyed with the idea of him having been wearing some sort of armor under his clothes and playing dead after the shot, but that was silly, and Wozniak himself wouldn't have it. I guess I don't like the thought of too many "bad guys" getting off with happy endings--even though Wozniak tries to be good, and never murders anyone, and never wished to be in the SS in the first place--he likely would have ended up a victim himself if he didn't join--still, he COULD have defied his parents and refused to join, or at least quit after being wounded rather than transfer into the Allgemeine-SS, whose investigations and recordkeeping often helped out the Holocaust as much as the actual killings did. He had a choice, and technically he is a bad guy. He survives the war, but not for very long.

[Paul Wozniak 2022 [‎Friday, ‎December ‎23, ‎2022, ‏‎4:00:13 AM]]

[Paul Wozniak 2022 2 [‎Friday, ‎December ‎23, ‎2022, ‏‎4:00:22 AM]]

[historicity-was-already-taken]

im gonna be a dick and call this post “Gender Trouble”

@hellocutenerd4life first of all, THANK YOU for the kind words. For new kids, this is the original post @hellocutenerd4life is referring to. There are multiple versions going around, some with really good commentary, some with commentary that makes me want to claw my eyes out, and one that @neil-gaiman​ penned and he doesn’t know it yet but he’s going to be endorsing my book. Look through the notes. Second of all [this got really really long because it raised a lot of fascinating historiographic and methodological questions and concerns]…..this ^ commentary brings up a really interesting set of points and questions. For example:

-how does the culture/society/nation in question define gender, and how, according to the available sources, did ordinary people living in that context define it for themselves?

-is the gender binary a historical constant, or a quirk of contemporary western society?

-how do we look for genderqueer and trans identities in societies which conceived of gender differently than we do now?

-How did members of the culture/society/nation in question understand genitalia, and its relationship (or lack thereof) to gender

-If members of the culture/nation/and society were gender nonconforming, how would they have expressed that in the available sources? How did they use language?

The best work I've seen which truly questions and investigates sources with genderqueer and trans identities is The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Twentieth Century America by Margot Canaday.

Now, let's apply your concerns to a. Jewish women and migration in late 1930s Germany, and b. young Polish Jewish women who were at least in their teens by 1939.

First, Germany. The Weimar Republic had an active and well documented queer* scene. I can only assume that Jewish people engaged in that world--I can't give you definite statements here, because I've never done that specific research and asked those questions. But, I do know enough about the history of 1930s German Jewry to make several assumptions.

The women the original post was about were generally upper/middle class women, whose husbands worked outside the home. Though Central European Jewish gender roles allowed for all kinds of fun--analytically speaking--we're still talking about a conservative heteronormative group.

So, how would we queer Marion Kaplan's work in Between Dignity and Despair? What questions do we need to ask of the available sources? What language do we need to look for? Can translations be of any service in this particular area, or will they inherently distort any turns of phrase which can give us clues to genderqueer identities in this period? I can’t answer any of these right now, but they’re the questions we need to ask should we attempt to look for these histories, expressions, and identities in upper middle class 1930s German Jewish households.

Now, interwar Polish Jewry in their teens and early 20s by 1939. This is a very cool, weird group. They were known as a "youth without a future," because they were coming of age at a time when heightened Polish anti-Semitism and the Great Depression were coming together to well and truly screw them out of jobs, universities, educational access, etc. They, by and large, felt that their parents were incapable of helping, let alone understanding, their situation, and so they turned to political youth groups for guidance and identity.

Interwar Poland had a fuckton of political youth groups in every political flavor imaginable: Orthodox anti-Zionist, Orthodox Zionist, Orthodox Neither, Bundism (anti-Zionist Polish nationalist in terms of working class solidarity across and beyond Polish ethnoreligious boundaries), Socialist, Communist, Socialist Zionist, Communist Zionist, Pioneering Zionist, Hardcore Right Wing Zionist that the other Zionists didn't fuck with, etc. Meaning, that these young people looked outside the construct of the nuclear family for guidance, morals, etc. 

It also happened that this generation rejected the traditional manner of Polish/Eastern European Jewish engagement in national politics. For quite a time in Eastern European Jewish communities, the way Jews got rights for themselves was basically like, by begging and scraping before the local governor. Like, humbly supplicating yourself before the local Polish magistrate to try to get protection from pogroms.

Interwar Polish Jewry (ie these political groups and the cultures they fostered) rejected these modes of political interaction, and instead moved to a space of demanding rights for Jews under their constitutionally given status as a National Polish Minority. No more begging, no more scraping, no more acting like the Polish Catholics would be doing them favors if they were to suddenly refrain from harassing Jewish university students.

So, what does that mean for gender and gender roles? Certainly you have the classic Eastern European Jewish gender roles and ideals: nuclear household, husband stays home and studies, wife raises children and makes money for the household in a public sphere kind of way (see Gender and Assimilation in Modern Jewish History: The Roles and Representation of Women by Paula Hyman for more). BUT THEN you throw in the youth groups and their influence over young minds. What did they teach about gender and sexuality?

Well, we know that some were immensely puritanical when it came to issues of sex and sexuality. Some were pretty chill about sex, and were very into public health and sex education. Others encouraged romance between its young members, but didn't have an ideology in either direction. Where the youth groups really shine, though, is the very specific way they handled gender.

Like, yeah they did have strictly defined gender roles and conceptions of what men should be doing, and women should be doing. But what's interesting is that I do not see, in the sources, much straight-up misogyny. I actually see a lot of deep male respect for their female peers, in that these men perceived women as their equals, merely carrying out different functions. There was obviously patriarchy and sexism, but its presentation in these cultural groupings was just....different. It's wearing a very specific, complicated, and muted hat. The biggest Thing I see was that men consisted referred to their female peers as “girls,” in memoirs and such, but....so did the women. Like I said, it’s a very specific hat.

And that brings us to questions of sexuality, and gender presentation. How do we queer Interwar Polish Jewish youth? Do we look to gender role subversion, modes of dressing? How do we look at modes of dressing for members of ideological groups which dictate "androgynous," physical labor-ready clothes for everyone and look down on cosmetic usage [ie pioneering Zionism; like, Queen Zivia did not fuck with lipstick]? What language do we look for to find evidence of gender and sexual ID?

How does language impact these questions? Interwar Polish youth groups were extremely political about what language they and their members used to carry out their work, and the choice between Hebrew, Yiddish, and Polish was a deeply political/ideological one. All of those languages have their own constructs and expressions and nuances in the context of gender, sex, and interwar Poland, so what should we look for when questioning the sources? Can we even attempt to ask these questions when it comes to translated sources?

This is very long and potentially boring, but what I'm trying to do here is illustrate all the questions we (as historians) have to ask, and contexts we have to understand, before we can approach the sources with questions regarding sex, sexuality, gender expression, etc. These constructs are in constant flux, so you need an in-depth understanding of where they stand in the exact time and place you're looking at before you can even begin your interrogation of the sources.

And to be clear, I don't have these answers for Interwar Central and Eastern European Jewry. I have a grasp on what the questions might look like, but certainly not the answers.

It makes me want to claw my eyes out (my second time using that turn of phrase in this post; I am both dramatic and unoriginal today), but Judith Butler's Gender Trouble is really good at demonstrating all of the questions we have to ask ourselves as historians before we even begin to question the sources. I'd also take a look at Joan Scott's works.

If this post reads to (general) you as "ummm there were no trans, genderqueer, or otherwise queer identities before 1970s k bye" then (general) you need to do a reread. There absolutely 100% most certainly were. But before historians can look for them, they HAVE to understand how that time/culture/place/etc understood gender. And in historiographic terms, the work being conducted to understand those questions--in my field and many others--is still fairly new.

There's still SO much work to be done, and I, for one, am extremely excited about it. One of my biggest regrets is that I struggle so much with languages, that I'll probably only ever be able to do this work outside of English-language (originally, not translated into English) sources.

*I am as interested in getting into the "queer" discourse as I am about getting into the "Kristallnacht" discourse. As in: I'm not. Don't even bother.