Multiple Ways to Waste Your Time
OK. Follow me here… Glukoza is a Russian pop singer and actress whose real name is Natasha Ionova. She’s huuuuge in Russia, as is her animé cartoon character, which adorns ice cream bars, t-shirts and comic books. So there I was surfing on the Web when I came across this OUTRAGEOUS video on a German Web site. The entire video can be seen here (the site is in German – just click on the video button on the left) and is a remarkable 3D rendition of the Third Reich where the Nazis are snarling pigs (Hello Maus?) fighting against Glukoza and her animé friends with Glukoza’s euro-poppy song Scweine (Pigs) as the soundtrack. Seriously, words can’t do this video justice. It’s at once cool, hip, over the top and involves dead Nazis. Here’s the complete YouTube clip:
Again the full video can be seen here.
But that’s not all! The REALLY cool part is that there is a first person shooter game based on the video. It lasts 2 minutes and involves shooting pig dogs, stormtroopers and the SchweineFuhrer. You can play the game here. Again, the site is in German so here are some tips – hit the spacebar to reload your sniper rifle, and do shoot the Uncle Sam poster for a bovine surprise. And shoot the cow too. You’ll understand once you’re there. Let us know how you did!
More info on Glukoza (Russian for Glucose, meaning she’s sweet maybe?) can be obtained via her unofficial English fan site. Those of you who read Russian can also go to the snazzily designed official Russian site.
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Wow, sounds like exactly what I’d like to know. I will eagerly await its publishing. Thanks for the reference.
Oyster, I found this, “Luovutukset – Research on prisoner-of-war deaths, extraditions and deportations from Finland between 1939-55”.
It’s not done until 2008, though.
By the way, found a picture of the field synagogue. The “scholkas shul” was made of cardboard. Looks like from the picture that the guys had a military-issue portable stove there too (you can see the exhaust pipe), so it’s a small miracle that the entire structure didn’t catch fire!
Becca, thank you very much!! Such a long list, that was what I was looking for, thanks again.
Oyster, the Jad Vashem page here asks a question “I found a list of concentration camps at (URL). There are also two Finnish camps listed: Koveri and Kangasjärvi. Do you have any information about those? I had not heard that Finland had concentration camps.”
The answer goes like: “Kangasjärvi and Koveri were camps in East-Karelia Aunus administered by the Finns during the Continuation War. They had within them Finnish people who were against the war [NB: “anti-war”, meaning people who refused to pick up the rifle and head for the front], 170-180 men. Conditions were very bad, people ate rotten horse corpses, snakes and frogs.” Then the answer lists two books written by ex-prisoners.
I searched for more in Finnish sources. A more accurate name for those two camps would be “internment camps”. Those camps were not destruction camps aimed at killing Jews, gays, communists, gypsies, etc. like Auschwitz or Buchenwald. As far as I know, Finland had no such camps. There were other camps too, but they had for example Soviet POWs and were also not destruction camps, as far as I know.
I think your best bet, if you wish to look for more information, would be to try to find and read some translated books on the subject. The amount of information in the WWW is a bit scarce.
For what it’s worth, Finnish Jews fought alongside their fellow Finns in the wars against Soviet Union and had their own field synagogue too, something of a peculiarity at that time. No idea what it might have looked like.
As for the money example, that is a matter of contract. The interest is a matter of contract too, it could even be 0%, if such is agreed. If someone borrows the $100 without paying back, then naturally at some point the other guy is going to be asking it back. All this should happen while the borrower is still alive, though. Trying to ask the borrower’s great-great-grandchildren to pay back the $100 which was borrowed in like 1852 will only result in empty gazes.
If someone is killed, people will seek justice of course. For this we have the authorities, judges and jails, not some shotgun militia going to make things right by killing more, as that would only result in another “setting of things straight with interest” or cycle of revenge.
If all things are always revenged eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth, the ultimate result is a blind population without teeth.
Oyster:
Have you read Joe Sacco’s work? (Palestine specifically, but also any of his other works of
comics journalism, e.g. Safe Area Gorazde, which my [Jewish, kippah-wearing, Visible Observant Jew On Campus/Faculty] husband taught twice last year in an intro to lit class alongside Lynda Barry’s One Hundred Demons…) Just wondering if you object to particular elements of the book or are reacting to the title/what you’re heard about it, rather than first-hand reading of it…
Also, I see no need to pick on our friend the Finnster for being European: that’s just a gratuitous dig. Or for linking Spiegelman’s work with Sacco’s: Spiegelman likes Sacco & his work (look at Sacco’s artist bio: Artie commissioned him “to cover the Bosnian War Crime Trials in the Hague, Netherlands”). Sacco is very up front in Palestine about what he’s covering and what’s omitted, where it’s coming from, etc: he knows that calling his work “Palestine” is not a value-free or uncontroversial choice; he dramatizes various opposing views in incidents that are included in the work, and doesn’t let himself off scot-free. I’d be happy to talk about it at greater length elsewhere/elsewhen…
Finnish:
Sure, there are lots of good comics to recommend!
But if you’re thinking about specifically historical/memoir-based ones, and/or Jewish-related ones, allow me to recommend:
–anything by the late great Will Eisner z”l (I taught To the Heart of the Storm in a Modern Jewish Literature class last year, and recommended that they read The Dreamer…I also had the honor & pleasure of meeting him in 2001 in New Haven: he was a real mensch, and even sent us a copy of the Yiddish translation, in yidishe oysyes (Hebrew characters), of A Contract With God…)
–as well as:
1) Jewish, but based more loosely in historical fact (as opposed to setting):
The Golem’s Mighty Swing, by James Sturm; Yossel, by Joe Kubert [what he imagines would have happened if his family hadn’t succeeded in coming to the US and he’d been caught up in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising]
2) ditto, more loosely still/fantasy:
any of the Jewish-themed works of Joann Sfar, e.g. The Rabbi’s Cat, Le Petit Monde du Golem…even his Little Vampire is Jewish
3) Not Jewish, but history:
Louis Riel, by Chester Brown
4) Not Jewish, but memoir/based in autobiography:
Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi
Blankets, by Craig Thompson
One Hundred Demons, by Lynda Barry
Stuck Rubber Baby, by Howard Cruse
[you can email me at miriyab [at] yahoo [dot] com for more…]
Hi Finn, two things:
I’m trying to find out more information on the World War II concentration camps of Kangasjarvi and Koveri in Finland. I think there’s more information out in the Finnish portions of the World-Wide-Web. Could you help me learn more about them?
Second: Let’s consider that justice doesn’t have an expiration limit. If one borrows $100 from someone else, and never pays it back, what happens to that debt? It usually is requested back plus interest to the wronged party. If one kills another, does the injustice of that act fade away, or does it need to be set right, with interest, no matter how much time has passed?
Oyster, why yes, I’ve read also comic book(s?) about life in Hiroshima and the bombing. I forgot the author but upon googling it had to be Keiji Nakazawa. I can also recommend those.
I don’t know if “Tintin in the Land of the Soviets” by Hergé qualifies, although it was very much political it’s also quite fictional. Also recommended. It’s old, but fascinating. Tintin uncovers the plots of evil communists and sees how they manipulate things. This comic book I actually have.
Also some Corto Maltese comics are accurate in their historical settings, even if the stories are more fictional. Had to google up the author of this one too, it’s Hugo Pratt (of course). There was one comic about the Sino-Japanese war which, for some reason, I remembered best reading.
I may have read other books too, but unfortunately cannot remember more details from the top of my head, as most were obtained by loaning them from a library and I don’t own them myself, and it was years ago etc.
That was also a reason why I asked if other people might know some comics to recommend… because I’ve forgotten some which I have read and am ignorant of probably many good ones which I have yet to read.
As for provoking such outburst, I guess I tickled a nerve or something, hope you feel better and more relaxed now.
Allow me to answer your rant.
Yes, centuries of persecution happened. But to feel guilty about it? The people who were guilty of it are long dead. The people who were persecuted are long dead.
No, I don’t feel guilty about the Holocaust, I don’t feel guilty about the Crusades conducted by European nations, I don’t feel guilty about the Inquisition, I don’t feel guilty about the Iron Curtain, neither do I feel guilty about other events which took place in the past which I had nothing to do with. Lack of feeling guilty does not of course mean the acceptance of such things or the readiness to think such things were OK and should be business as usual for centuries to come.
To forget such events is wrong. If you forget them, they might repeat. To remember them you need to study history, to keep the memory alive, to learn what happened, be the source in comic books or 1000-page brick-like books.
Morals and justice don’t have an expiration limit, they should be always present. Remembering and learning and being informed are different from trying to re-use the events of the past to place blame or guilt over and over again. If you go by that road there is no place you can stop, as someone has surely broken against someone in the past and vice versa, and their forefathers have done so to each other, and it becomes a web of such things and continues up to the point where the first proto-slime swimming along in the primordial ooze got its dinner stolen by the other proto-slime. And just to be clear: no, I most definitely do not associate the Holocaust to fighting amoebas. If you think so, try reading this post again and think harder.
As for that one person who complained about the length of my comments, accept my apologies in advance for lack of conciseness.
Of course it doesn’t cause any guilt in you. And it causes no guilt in anyone in Germany, and it causes no guilt in anyone in all of Europe. In fact, I’d reckon that due to this amazing lack of any guilt in all of Europe, perhaps we Jews have been exaggerating all of this centuries-of-persecution business. For, if it were true, wouldn’t someone feel guilty?
But for the Palestinians? Whoa! I’m gonna feel guilty-in-absentia! I’m gonna skewer those
JewsIsraelis at every opportunity. Because I am an enlightened European. So enlightened because I sought forgiveness from Jesus, and he gave me a get-out-of-historical-context-free card, and he took the lead weights of hundreds of years of Jewish blood off of my chest. That’s why I’m so light! Now, in my new-found seat of moral superiority, I shall stick it to the one people who challenge my moral superiority. Those damned Jews. Who do they think they are, bringing up their victimhood from hundreds of years ago? Don’t you know? If enough time passes, justice doesn’t matter?! Woo-hoo! Europe is guilt-free! Morals and justice have an expiration-limit!Sorry Finn, you just happened to be the dude to provoke that. 🙂 But due tell me, have you read any other political/historical-fiction comic books aside from Maus and (not Roman nor British) Palestine?
Oyster, what? They’re just comics, without going into politics or your perceived linkings, I found the stories in them fascinating. I thought other people might like to read them too. If they don’t know about them, they won’t read them, so it was only logical to mention them.
And unfortunate events which happened like 60 years ago in another country, events in which neither me nor my country took part in, don’t really cause “guilt” in me.
With a warm fin extended,
Finny-Finn-Finn
Finny-Finn-Finn: great way to link the Holocaust with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Don’t you Europeans have something better to do than to try to absolve your guilt with putting a magnifying glass on Israel?
alexbmn – it’s not about the music. It’s about the undeniably great video and the super fun video game! And finally, the dead Nazis of course.
Maus comics are really super. If you’re not yet familiar with it, do read them both. It’s wonderful stuff, such a strong storyline.
Although with a different story and environment altogether, I also liked Joe Sacco’s “Palestine” comic very much for similar reasons – the strong storyline with small “mini-stories” within.
The stories which they tell, things which pull you in and you just can’t put them down… comic books which you have to read through almost in one sitting. Anyone with more suggestions?
oh I cannot believe crappy Russian POPsa is now even on Jewilicious.