#tw auschwitz

[daily-lego-sets]

LEGO System:

Concentration Camp

Set: 6772

1996

April Fools!!!

#fun fact this is a real thing #kinda #this is real but wasnt made by lego #it was made by the artist Zbigniew Libera #lego just blindly gave them the peaces to make it #april fools #tw nazis #tw nazi #trigger warning nazis #trigger warning nazi #tw ww2 #trigger warning ww2 #trigger warning concentration camps #tw concentration camp #tw auschwitz #trigger warning aushwitz #tw war #tw implied death #tw death #tw murder #lego #lego builds #lego sets #aushwitz #lego system #lego concentration camp

[stabbylambchop]

I don't know how many of y'all ever watched Hogan's Heroes, but Robert Clary, the last surviving member of the cast, just died yesterday. I'm actually kinda fuckin devastated.

He was a Holocaust survivor, living through almost 3 years in Buchenwald (thank you @atarahderek for the correction, I remember talks with my dad about the the show, but that was, admittedly, a long time ago). He died at 96 years old, which is a long life, but his death just kind of punched me out of nowhere.

I haven't cried over a celeb death like this since Robin Williams, like. We had the whole series on DVD, and I watched it so much growing up. I really adored LeBeau, played by Clary (who wasn't much taller than me at 5'1", a short king).

One episode I remember that always hit me, every time, was "Art for Hogan's Sake". The prisoners discover that General Burkhalter has "confiscated" a famous painting from The Louvre, to give as a present to Hermann Goering; "The Fife Player", a painting by Édouard Manet.

LeBeau, obviously incensed after learning this, goes ahead without Hogan's (the "prisoner leader", so to speak) prior knowledge, and swipes the painting to bring back to the others.

Just imagine; you're a prisoner of war, a proud Frenchman, and you've just discovered that the Nazis have stolen a treasured painting, a symbol of your homeland. The tears welling up in his eyes as he holds the painting in his own two hands, in awe that he's really seeing it in-person, overwhelmed with too many painful emotions to count, it fucking KILLS me every single time.

As someone small, an artist, called names like "cockroach", burdened with PTSD I hadn't comprehended yet...I legit looked up to him.

I'm still processing this whole thing. I really just needed to vent some of it out in writing, so it's not all just a jumbled mess in my head. I'm sorry if this is all a bit troubling to read, I'll do my best tagging what I can, but please let me know if I miss anything.

RIP to Robert Clancy, a wonderful actor, a survivor, a strong and resilient human who turned his trauma into art, to acting.

#Robert Clary #Hogan's Heroes #tw holocaust #tw Auschwitz #tw death #I feel like a piece of my childhood just died and I'm trying to keep the seams together

[statesidesnake]

so i had an asignment where i had to look up what was airing on my local theatre to look at which movie based on its synopsis i would watch, after i skimmed trough most of them i looked at one of them titled "the zone of interest" and after skimming trough the synopsis i thought it was a nice garden building movie with family drama or something but after i read trough it again:

#the zone of interest #text post #tw nazi #auschwitz #tw auschwitz #Youtube

[plebeiangoth]

This is probably over sharing but my therapist suggested I write down any traumas I can think of and good god does this suck. Though there's one I wanna share because it's so fucked up and I hope history won't repeat itself in the school system. This was in 2006, I think (slippery sense of time).

When I was in 7th grade our charter school did something called an "expedition", which was how our semesters were carried out in which each grade group would focus on one big overarching topic called an expedition, and this expedition was the World Wars. Though gonna be honest with you, they hyperfocused on Nazis even though this was supposed to be a much broader scope. So for (actually more than) half a year we dealt with a lot of very heavy subject matter, almost none of which was handled in an appropriate and mature manner. The absolute worst of it is bad, so if you really don't want to read about nazi death camps being made fun, stop now.

Okay the bad part. This is your last warning.

So you chose pain.

To learn about the death camps our teachers made a whole-day activity of reenacting a day at Auschwitz. The idea was every student would be assigned a real victim so they can learn their stories and role play them, and they would be led through the different parts of the concentration camp by—this is so fucking bad it hurts to type—professional actors portraying Nazis with prop rifles. I told my parents that this event was coming up and they didn't hesitate to make sure I didn't participate. Thank you mom and dad for that kindness! However day of my teachers insisted I observe. So it went that my classmates were laughing the whole time and having a blast with how the different cabins of the "camp" were essentially fun-houses made to represent different death chambers. Weirder yet I personally knew a lot of the actors because I was a theatre kid. All the while they piped in sad music. Not to mention that one of the death chambers was a shower house where the students were instructed to wear appropriate undergarments so they could "undress" for the shower. The furnace was a cabin where they turned the heat up. So my classmates, in various undress, would go through each "death chamber" and play like they were being killed and laugh the whole time.

My brain chemistry was never the same. Neither was my relationships with a lot of the theatre community, nor my classmates who were having WAY too much fun.

I could go on about this school but y'all ain't my therapist.

The point I want to make is this is a wretched way to teach kids about all of this. I sure hope this school doesn't do this anymore, in fact I constantly wish for them to get shut down. It goes without saying that nothing about this horrific event should be made light of, much less a bunch of fun-houses. Really the only good of this is I hate that school so much that it further fuels my hatred for neo-nazis, antisemites, bad people in general.

Now I'm gonna go do something calm and relaxing and probably sob my eyes out for the second time today.

#tw holocaust #tw racism #tw trauma #tw nazi #tw Auschwitz #tw concentration camp #tw child abuse #tw ww2 #tw school #tw school shooting #tw school violence

[dragonwingart]

This one was for an English assignment on the memoir “Night” by Elie Wiesel. The prompt was to “create a visual representation of the novel and its various themes.” The Star of David was used to represent Elie’s faith and how he eventually became disillusioned from it. The tag with his given name scratched out and replaced by numbers represented how the inmates of Auschwitz were dehumanized. The moon eclipsing the sun represents the motif of the despair of night taking over the joy of day. The background is an interpretation of Auschwitz.

#original art #tw holocaust #tw Auschwitz #Night by Elie Wiesel #elie wiesel #Holocaust #english project #book art #Holocaust art #Acknowledging the holocaust #star of david

[secretswiftymarvelfan]

143, 145, and 149 💖

(Also how did you get a direct link for your asks? Is this some coding thing I have to learn? Haha)

Hi thank you for sending in some asks! 🩵

143. Are you a vegetarian?

No, most people assumed I am because of my zoology degree and desire to work in wildlife conservation but I’m not. I’ve suffered with emetophobia and ARFID all my life so my diet is already naturally quite restrictive, at this moment in time it would not be good for my health to remove where I get the main source of protein from. I’ve spent the last few months trying to overcome the phobia and ARFID and I have got better so many in the future i’ll be in a better position to try it.

145. Tea or Coffee?

I don’t generally drink a lot of hot drinks but I do lean towards Tea over coffee. Even though I prefer the taste of coffee more I only drink it if I need it because caffeine hits me hard and I get too buzzed (like that cold open in B99😂)and then crash real bad 😂 so generally tea is the perfect wake me up because the caffeine intake is lower and doesn’t make me completely wired.

149. Do you believe in ghosts?

100%. And I’m almost certain I’ve seen them. And I say them because it was a group that I’m almost certain I saw.

When I was 17 I went on an educational trip to Auschwitz and we were there all day. At the end of the day when the sun had set we all went to the memorial at the end of the train tracks by the two large gas chambers. The Rabbi that was with us gave a talk and then performed a prayer and I can just remember looking out at the trees behind the memorial and just seeing hundreds of figures between the trees. It’s a sight that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

And for the ask box link I can’t remember how I found it out but its just:

https://yourblogname.tumblr.com/ask

Send me or my characters some cute asks!

#niamhanswers #TW Auschwitz #tw holocaust

[jewish-sideblog]

During last year’s Chanukkah, I toured Yad Vashem. My tour guide ended with a story that will probably stick with me for the rest of my life.

A Jewish father and his son are held prisoner in Auschwitz— they are lucky, all things considered. Most Jews were gassed upon arrival. The Nazi guards instruct the prisoners that they have to dig mass graves for their fellow Jews every day. The father is appalled by this, of course, but he doesn’t have much choice. A week goes by, and the father and the son are subjected to horrors they could not have imagined before. The first Friday evening in Auschwitz, the father goes to his son and says, “I cannot work on Shabbat. I will not dig graves for Jews on Shabbat. For all my other reservations, I cannot do it, because the Talmud forbids it.” The son is barely fourteen, but he knows that if his father refuses to work, then his father will die. So he goes to meet another prisoner, a former Rabbi. The son pleads with the Rabbi to help his father see sense, and so the Rabbi and the son go together to meet with the father.

“The Talmud forbids us to work on Shabbat,” the Rabbi says, “but pikuach nefesh overrides Talmudic law when a life is in danger. Your life is in danger. Your son’s life is in danger. You are allowed to work on Shabbat.” The father begrudgingly agrees, and he saves his family’s life by digging mass graves on the day of rest.

A few months go by, and the Nazis are running low on food, so they start grinding pig hooves and guts into the slop that gets fed to the prisoners at Auschwitz. The father finds out about this and begins to starve himself. “G-d commands in the Torah us not to eat pork,” he says. The son, out of concern for his father, gets the Rabbi again. “Pikuach nefesh overrides the Torah as well as the Talmud. You must eat, for your life and for your son’s sake. Eat what is given to you. G-d will overlook violating kosher if it means surviving in a place like this.” So the father starts to eat what he is given.

Miraculously, the father and the son survive until winter. There’s never enough food for all the prisoners in Auschwitz to eat, and so there are frequent fights over scraps, but the most valuable thing in the slop is fat. Fat can keep you warmer in the winter, and it can be used to cover up and heal small injuries. If the Nazi guards noticed so much as a scratch on you, they would send you to the gas chambers that same day. Fat was gold in Auschwitz. At some point, the son noticed that the father had been ignoring food and collecting fat. He wasn’t trading it for scraps or favors, he was just keeping it. And he was starving to keep it. So once again, the son and the Rabbi approached the father.

“I’m turning it into a candle,” he said, “for Channukah.” The son and the Rabbi were appalled. The Rabbi said, “Channukah is a cultural holiday. It is not ordained by G-d. Neither the Torah nor the Talmud command you to celebrate it. Why in G-ds name would you sacrifice your food for that?” The father replied,

“You can live three days without water. You can live three weeks without food. But you cannot live three minutes without hope.”

The son and the Rabbi helped the father fashion wicks from rags and clothes, and helped steal small bits metal of metal off corpses and guards to make a spark. They lit Channukah candles in the middle of a Nazi concentration camp. The father and the son survived off of hope for the rest of that year, and they both lived to see the liberation of Auschwitz. The father died soon afterwards, but the son, Hugo Gryn, went on to become a Rabbi himself. In fact, the Rabbi of West London Synangoue, and the leader of the British Reform movement. He was described as the most beloved Rabbi in the country. He never lost sight of hope.

#Channukah #hanukkah #jumblr #shoah mention #Auschwitz mention #tw ed #I think I convered all the relevant triggers but please reach out if I’ve missed one

[nobrashfestivity]

Today is Holocaust Remembrance day

Born in the Czech Republic in 1904, Vilma Grünwald was 39 years old when she wrote a final letter to her husband, Kurt. They had been held at Auschwitz with their two sons for 7 months, separated for much of their ordeal following a stint in a “family camp” that was soon dismantled by the Nazis. One day their eldest son, John, who walked with a limp, was noticed by SS physician Josef Mengele and directed towards the gas chamber; Vilma, unable to watch her son go alone, immediately followed.

Vilma with her children. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Vilma wrote the letter days later as she and John waited to be taken to the gas chambers, somehow managing to pass it to an elderly guard before boarding the truck. Soon afterwards, against all odds, that guard tracked down Vilma’s husband—a physician who had been put to work treating his fellow prisoners in a distant area of the sprawling camp—and handed him the farewell message.

Auschwitz was liberated seven months later. When told by his father about the precious note, the Grünwalds’ surviving son, Misa (later known as Frank), couldn’t bear to read it. It would be another 22 years until he did so, after discovering it amongst his recently deceased father’s belongings. It read as follows.

11 July 1944

You, my only one, dearest, in isolation we are waiting for darkness. We considered the possibility of hiding but decided not to do it since we felt it would be hopeless. The famous trucks are already here and we are waiting for it to begin. I am completely calm. You—my only and dearest one, do not blame yourself for what happened, it was our destiny. We did what we could. Stay healthy and remember my words that time will heal—if not completely—then—at least partially. Take care of the little golden boy and don’t spoil him too much with your love. Both of you—stay healthy, my dear ones. I will be thinking of you and Misa. Have a fabulous life, we must board the trucks.

Into Eternity, Vilma

This post is taken from https://lettersofnote.com/

#tw genocide #holocaust #nazi germany #auschwitz

[psychologeek]

Holocaust (and culture appropriation)

(TW: holocaust, death camps, sexual assaults, rape, industrial murder. I will put the graphic shit undercut. Include children death and human experiments).

Sometimes I think about how fucked up it is that for most non-jews (and some jews) "The Holocaust" is Anne Frank and Auschwitz "where they killed people".

I think about the fucking, the goddamn AUDACITY some people have to take our trauma and use it as a tool. As a lesson.

People that for them the holocaust is nothing but a story, a bunch of facts, probably as aware of it as they're aware of the crusaders.

(Once upon a time, in a far away land, there were Troubles)

People who didn't hear about it as children, who didn't grew up with six million and one-and-a-half million and yellow stars and quiet ceremony and Yizkor (remember).

That.

Would look at a pile of hats and bones and wigs and hair and make it about them.

But also

Sometimes I think about how wild it is, that this looks so horrific to them.

(And they never heard about half of it.)

Like.

Dear.

Deary.

We are used to death. We are so used to being murdered, and loosing loved ones by hate, that half of our culture is basically based on it.

I think about how non-jews keep talking about the holocaust, like it's a clean cut, like it's a thing that was, like it's that's all that was - there were people hiding, and there were gas chambers, and that's it.

And I remember being a kid (maybe 10 yo?) reading a kid/ya book that was an autobiography, and I remember the writer (who was a young teen at the time, and pretended to be a Christian German) wrote about someone came into the shower and touched him. (Writer) Panicked, and turned around - and then the other man asked him "wait- are you jewish?"

As a kid, I remember that this is all that was in it.

As an adult, I remember that scene, sometimes. And I can have a pretty clear idea on why the older man didn't tell about the kid.

I remember, several years ago, reading about a therapy group for holocaust survivors that were sexually assaulted.

I remember reading about an old lady, that (70 years later) told about what happened to her when she hide away with her sister, (I think they were two, or three girls?) she was sixteen, or maybe fourteen. I remember

"I did it so they'll share their food with us".

~

I think about people talking about the "death camp" Auschwitz, and how someone said (those who went there, were the lucky ones. When the newbies asked what happened, where are their families? We just pointed at the burning chimneys of Birkenau ,and the smoke.)

~

I remember the HUNDREDS who died once the camps were "freed", because they didn't know the dangers of eating two pieces of bread after a long period of starving.

I remember the massive Jewish community of Poland that was just. Erased. 99% of 3 million population pre-war. Whole communities we only remember and mention as the community's name (and even that is a very long list.)

I remember how people remember it as "German jews" (and some Poland) - but it's not. My grandma had cousins in Debretsen, Hungary. And it's Ukraine and France and Morocco and Greece and Lybia and Lithuania and Latvia and almost everywhere in Europe and North Africa

(except for Denmark. we love Denmark. My grandad's step-grandma survived there. She immigrated to her family in Israel after that.)

~

Idk if Goyim ever heard about Mangele. I wonder, how many of them heard during their childhood about:

The eye experiments, where he injected serums in people's (living) eyes, to see what would happen?

His obsession about twins. The toddlers that got their back skinned, then stitched together in "to see what will happen".

(They died after four days of misery.)

#holocaust #jewish history #goyim can reblog #but not add #except Roma #many tw #auschwitz birkenau #we don't talk about Sobibor #i guess #or babi yar #or the way survivors were murdered when they tried to go back home #Goyim be like “oh you don't learn from the holocaust” #well actually #we did #we learn that we'll always be haunted and killed #that there'll always be a new excuse to kill us #we were called communists in the USA and in the USSR we were called capitalists

[troythings]

how to describe the first avenger in 2 pictures

#tw holocaust #tw auschwitz birkenau #military industrial complex #anti mcu #the first avenger #captain america the first avenger #american propaganda #us propaganda #propaganda #us politics #american politics #noah get the nuke

[99raritah]

thanks twitter

#mine #twitter #auschwitz tw #antisemitism tw #nazi tw

[drifting-pieces-blog-blog]

This is dark but do you think Comics!MK have any surviving extended family or is he truly the last of his family?

I like to think he has cousins but their parents didn't flee to America like Elias did so he hardly sees them

MCU Marc doesn't talk to family for very different reasons obviously

I got an ask!

Now this is a truly difficult question to answer for a lot of reasons, but I will do my best!

Comics Moon Knight has a LOT of re-writes. Moench only included Randall in Marc's known family. He was killed off before Moon Knight even had his own official comic (See the Incredible Hulk appearance, which I will review someday in the hopefully not too distant future). We don't get a lot of references to Randall in Moench's run after that. Like at all. In fact, there is so little discussed about Marc's family in Moench's OG run that I'm pretty sure that people forgot about his brother all together unless Marvel decided they needed to do something and then we got a quick "Oh yeah and then this happened" moment.

Zelenetz gave us Elias Spector and more of a family backstory. We got the story of how their mother died when he was very young, which is going to be retconned later on in Lemire's run when we see his father dying much earlier in Marc's life and his mother still being alive. We get no mention of Randall in this. There are a lot of people at the Shiva/Funeral, but since Elias was a prominent figure in their community (Rabbi), it's hard saying who is family and who is community.

As far as I am currently aware (I haven't dived through ALL the comics in a VERY long time and my re-read is slow and steady), no other family has ever shown up or is mentioned.

HISTORY LESSON!!! (TW Holocaust)

Elias Spector, as noted by Zelenetz, is from Czechoslovakia. Those of you that got a bit more of a history lesson than what they bothered to toss at you in high school, may recognize that this country has been through A LOT. So much so that it has been split, reunited, renamed, taken over, given independence, divided, and renamed and split over and over and over again.

It is safe to assume that his family lived there for a few generations. It's hard to say when they arrived there, but Jewish history is…strife with certain parts of Europe inviting Jewish people in then going "Just kidding" and kicking them out (or killing them) immediately afterwards.

And with the history of Czechoslovakia's REPEATED wars and revolutions and divides…. Who knows the history of the Spectors of if they all settled there or if they had been divided over time.

But what we DO know…

According to a census. In 1921, the Jewish population was 354,342. In 1946 it was 55,000. This was not because they decided to move.

The numbers continued to drop. By 1990, it was 7,800.

The German occupation started in 1930 and was not a pretty picture from the start. In 1939, the Jewish population realized this was not going to go well and desperately started to get out, but 78,000 had already been killed. Many were sent to surrounding camps where Typhus epidemics along with brutal conditions started to wipe them out even before 'the final solution' was put into action. Getting dark here: of the 15,000 CHILDREN that were sent to Auschwitz, only 93 came back.

In 1948, Communist Russia took over. Russia does not have a good history with their Jewish population.

In fact, the 40 year period of this occupation is called "Communist Holocaust". Jewish people were forbidden from practicing their religion and Jewish leaders were forced to leave, convert, or die. Children were prohibited from learning their own culture or religious practices.

So do I think that Moon Knight has any cousins surviving in Europe that didn't flee to America like Elias did?

It is with a very heavy heart that I have to given an honest answer: No.

Is it possible that maybe some of the family left with Elias and came to America or went to England? Maybe. Possibly some made it to Denmark or one of the few places that tried to help get a few out. But if they stayed in any of the countries that were occupied, I don't think they made it. And this may have given another reason behind Marc's anger at his father's unwillingness to do anything about the anti-antisemitism that he witnessed.

Perhaps Marc saw the children with extended family and wondered why he didn't have any. Or why they had no pictures or why his mother and father wouldn't talk about those that were left behind.

If he DID happen to have ANY family that survived, Marc probably has no idea where they are or how to find them or who they are. After the Holocaust, the surviving Jewish population was so scattered and left without homes to return to. The countries that they had fled did not welcome them back. Many didn't want to go back. It has only really been recently with the modernization of the internet that efforts have been made for survivors to reach out and try to find out what happened to their families.

With their father and mother gone, I wonder how much about his family Marc actually knew. The REAL question is: Would Marc, Jake, or Steven make an effort to try to reach out? Would they want to find survivors? Would they feel guilty? Would they be able to even talk with the surviving family? Would they want to?

I don't think Marc would. I think this is one more burden on his shoulders and he doesn't want to be a dark shadow on the surviving family tree. I think Steven would be curious and attempt to dig up records to find out what happened to his father's town or people, but I don't think he'd reach out. Jake doesn't travel. Jake's home and people are New York. I think his soft heart would feel the loss too much to want to know. But I do think that if he found any family living in New York, he'd wander by to say hello.

That being said: What about their daughter? Is she being raised Jewish? Marlene certainly is not Jewish. Or at least she was never given that designation in any of the comics that I can recall or in Moench's run. Even if she is not being raised Jewish, perhaps she would be the one to reach out. A generation reaching out to another to find answers and connection. And maybe through her, it would bring the Moon Knight system back to their own connections.

I can see Jake curiously looking at pictures of grandparents and aunts and uncles and saying "Look I have my Great Uncle's mustache!" only to be reminded that his mustache is very much a fake mustache and him quipping back that he has the same taste at least. I can also see Steven being delighted to trace his roots back and saying "The Spectors are survivors." I think even Marc might be able to sit down with his daughter and recall stories he had heard growing up about the town his family comes from and the people there.

And that does bring me a bit of optimism and hope. That they can share good things about a past that they used to look at and find only pain in. That maybe it would finally let them talk about it when it was something they couldn't talk about growing up. A way for him to say "I have generational trauma, but at least I can start to let it heal through my daughter."

SO.... That's a really long answer to your question, and maybe not the one you were looking for... But it's honest and probably more than Marvel will ever give us (I fear what Marvel might do to the history if they tried).

Thanks for asking!

#moon knight #Moon Knight comics #Got asked #Ask away #Seriously people my inbox is always open #Always happy to talk about Moon Knight #I left out a LOT of history here but I didn't want to write a novel

[babka-enjoyer]

TW: Islamophobia, settler colonial violence, holocaust

So I read “Choosing A Jewish Life” by Anita Diamant like many converts do. There’s a supplementary reading list in the back of it and I thrifted most of them.

I just got After Auschwitz: History, Theology, and Contemporary Judaism by Richard Rubenstein (first published in the 60’s - when I bought it I thought it was written in the 90’s) and I was flipping through it when I came across this horrifying little nugget:

I doubt I need to explain to explain how wildly racist and colonial this is. They were really saying the quiet part out loud in the 60’s!

I don’t give a turquoise fuck if this is a historically significant book. It does not belong on a reading list outside of a classroom setting and I want other converts to know to avoid this, esp. non-white converts.

It’s wild that this sentence has to be uttered but does anyone have any recommendations for books about the effects of the Holocaust on Jewish theology that aren’t casually pro-genocide?

#jewish conversion #anita diamant #choosing a Jewish life #jumblr #settler colonialism

[psalm22-6]

Program for Les Misérables: Une Tempête Sous Un Crane (1934) at the Paramount Theater, 2 Boulevard des Capucines, Paris. On the cover is Harry Baur as Jean Valjean, drawn by David Olère. More on Olère and Baur below the cut [tw: discussion of the Holocaust]

Olère was a Polish Jew who immigrated to France and became a French citizen. This image is a good example of the pre-war art he made while employed by Paramount. However, he was arrested in 1943 and sent to Auschwitz, where he was made to work in the Sonderkommando due to his skills as an artist and his fluency in several languages. Today he is remembered for his drawings of Auschwitz, made both during his imprisonment and after, which provide documentary information about the death camp and how it operated.

With regards to Baur, he was one of French cinema's great stars and his film career was initially able to continue despite the war. However, due to his pro-French statements and suspicions that he was Jewish, he and his wife Rika Radifé were arrested by the Gestapo in 1942 (Radifé, who was Jewish, was accused of espionage). Baur was imprisoned for four months and shortly after his release, he died under suspicious circumstances. So while this is a beautiful piece of Les Mis memorabilia, it has very sad associations.

#les miserables #lm 1934 #jean valjean #antisemitism tw #genocide tw #so I found this program at an antique store and was so excited to go home and google the artist and this is what I learned

[goddess-of-all-creation]

Chapter 4 Lost fragments

TW: this chapter is mostly about psychological effects of torture, though it won't include graphic descriptions of it.

(Chapter list / Read on ao3)

●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●・○・●

The Auschwitz camps were a devastating sight. Even thirty years later, without the blood and screams and aching bodies clinging to life. It was heart-wrenching to be back. But there was a promise to be kept.

He could still pinpoint where everything had been back then. The different buildings and what they were used for. Where he had been tortured, experimented on, trained on Schmidt’s words. In those very same buildings, he had seen many like him die. He had seen the worst humankind had to offer. The columns and beams trembled near his presence, and soon the whole ground started to shake. He heard his name whispered in the background but paid no attention. That was where he had last seen his mother, where he failed to protect her. Where he failed to help others. Where he let himself be used. Charles had told him one time, “You were a kid. It wasn’t your fault.” But Charles hadn’t been there, he had. And after… What had he done after? Other than fail once more to protect his kind. He had a target on his back, and an unfinished sentence for a murder he had not only not commited, but actively tried to prevent. Pieces of concrete and brick started to fall as the structures shook. Such was his legacy; his life had been worth nothing and brought nothing but pain. For him and for others.

“Erik?”

He promised himself he would only come back once he was done. Once he finished with every single one of the monsters that had done this. But he'd never be done. Not really. His feet weren’t touching the ground anymore. He was pulling on everything he could. On the metal of those blood covered buildings, and the metal inside the blood drenched earth. Erik was a man possessed. Dirt flew everywhere in a dusty mess. He didn’t care. He wanted that place to finish the job. To end him.

“Erik!” And in an instant, everything stood still. The metal particles in the air and the beams and the columns. And him. He heard a voice in his head. Her voice. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to do this. But you’re hurting yourself.”

It wasn’t like when Charles did it. This felt strange, invasive, like someone pulling on his soul and taking it for a walk. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” He couldn’t see anymore, blinded by the tears he was trying to hold. “Breathe” His cheek was touched softly by a ghostly hand. He took a deep breath. “You did what you could, you can rest now.” Images of his mother, his father, his friends, his neighbors, all came to him in flashing light. Images form a better time, a time when he had enjoyed life. He fought against it, it was a lie. He could never rest. He’d never be done. He could never erase the tragedies, the loss. But the memories persisted until he was fully embraced by them. “There’s a lot of evil in our worlds. You’ve been through so much. You survived so much. Please don’t let it take you with it now.”

He was tired, too tired to keep fighting the past but also too tired to keep fighting himself. She took advantage of this moment of vulnerability to pull him out of his shocked state, returning him to his body. He hit the ground with a thud, falling to his knees. Everything returned to how it looked before, if a little bit dustier and rougher. She offered a hand and he took it, ashamed of his outburst.

He walked around, seemingly aimless. He spent a couple minutes trying not to think, only feeling instead. Feeling the metal underground, looking for something. After a couple minutes he found it: the tiny pendant that belonged to Edie Lensherr. A simple star of David made from silver, gifted to her by Jakob. In life she had only worn it on special occasions. He found it near the gates, covered by decades of dirt and debris. Erik pulled it out and stared at it for a moment. The only thing they hadn’t taken from him was his memories, and even those had been buried under piles of hatred and plans of revenge. “It’s beautiful.” Kay said. He put it in his pocket and started walking, facing away from her.

“You had no right to do that.”

“Maybe not. But I wasn’t going to let you kill yourself.” In a second, she was right there beside him, struggling to keep up with his fast-walking pace.

“Still, it was none of your business.” He had been blinded by rage before and knew exactly what followed. Chaos, destruction, a desperate attempt to both drown in self-pity and not feel anything at all. “You should go.”

“Really? I should go. So, you don’t want me here?” She stepped in front of him, stubborn and beautiful. It was hard not to feel like a monster when she had just saved his life, and all he wanted was to tell her to fuck off. She sighed. “I get it, I do. You deserve closure. But this is a place of mourning. And out of all people, you should understand that the most. Don’t you think other survivors deserve to mourn too? Would you really take that away from them?” Erik remained stoic, focusing on the way she threw her arms everywhere when she spoke, or how some stray hairs were getting on her face. Anything to ignore what she was saying. Because it was true, and it hurt how true it was. “I’m not gonna tell you how to live. Or how to die, for that matter. But here? Like this? Out of the rage they put in you? I might be wrong, but it looks a lot like this is in line with what they wanted. If you do it like this… Then they win.” Her voice had softened until it reached a faint whisper. She looked down, a single tear slowly making its way down her cheek. “You don’t have to listen to me but…”

He gave up. With a hand on her shoulder and his head down, he took a deep breath and a step closer to composure. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t need to be. I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to be safe.” And there it was again. Safety. Safety wasn’t made for people like him. “Maybe it’s silly to want that for people like us. But we could try. Don’t you think we should try?”

“Are you reading my mind?”

“I don’t read minds. I could get in your head but it’s more…”

“Are you in my head right now?” He spat impatient. Looking at the brown in her eyes made him feel like his insides were burning. His muscles tensed and jaw clenched. But the intense burn in his chest that wasn’t unpleasant like before. It was something else. They were too close, both breathing heavily.

“No. I won’t do it again. I promise.”

“Good.”

#erik lensherr x oc #erik lensherr x reader #erik lensherr #x men fanfiction #x-men #writing #fanfiction writing #marvel #mcu

[kentuckycaverats]

👪✏️📎- for Kovac!

tw: shoah mention

👪 FAMILY - what is their family like? what is your ocs relationship to them? does your oc have any siblings?

in this lifetime kovac was born to a mother who survived auschwitz and a father who didnt, and they're very much grounded in that history. kovac's mother moved to new york with them when they were just a baby, and they lived in a tiny shitty apartment, just the two of them. they were close, though there was always a barrier of misunderstanding between them due to kovac's then-unknown fae nature. their mother told kovac lots of stories; it was very important to her that kovac help carry on the names, stories, and legacies of the friends and family she'd lost during the shoah. this is where kovac's commitment to ensuring that no one is ever forgotten comes from. kovac was all their mother had, and when they were forcibly institutionalized her health and finances rapidly deteriorated. she passed while they were still in the asylum.

✏️ PENCIL - is there a particular quote / lyric that you associate with them?

"strange, but a very distinctive feeling--as if i am alive only because i remember you." - nikolay punin

📎 PAPERCLIP - a random fact.

kier, kovac's knight slash dear friend slash qpp, cannot cook for shit. he once told kovac that he doesnt know very many recipes, only pancakes, and kovac brain interpreted that as a recipe named Only Pancakes. since then all pancakes are Only Pancakes to kovac and that's what they order whenever the motley goes to a diner. (blueberry pancakes are With Berries, Only Pancakes)

#they dont eat their pancakes with knife and fork #they roll them up and dunk them in syrup. french toast stick style (easier to control the sticky) ((worst texture)) #kovac #ctd #shoah mention #holocaust mention