Maelle, Lucien and Catherine are on borrowing duty, but nothing goes according to plan ! The Borrowers are once again in peril !
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Here is the first part of chapter 13 ! I hope you liked it and I apologize for the wait ! Next one is going to take me some time to make too because I have other things I must work on this month !
So, I have reread the Verso comic that belongs to @cathianemelian about a gazillion times now. And I realized that there were many instances of the reader getting Verso's inner thoughts on the situation and thought, "I wonder what Gustave is thinking at this moment?"
I may have spiraled after that. Good news is, I had a fun afternoon and have something cool to share to the Arietty!AU. Hope it gives a good idea on what Gustave may have been feeling :)
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Gustave stared down the hall. The dog was on the other side of the manor with the eldest Dessendre daughter, which meant that the path was clear for once.
He should go to the atelier. That was where the ring was found, so that was where it would make the most sense to the humans when they discovered it. He should keep moving. He should return the wedding ring like he had originally planned.
But... he thought while glancing down towards the workshop... It’s so far.
He looked back at Verso's door. The human already knew about him. Hell, he had saved Gustave's life a month earlier. If he suddenly found a wedding ring on his desk, would it be so strange to him?
‘...mister “any excuse is valid to spy on that Verso”...’
No, Jerome was wrong. Gustave wasn’t making an excuse just to see the man. Gustave was being... strategic. The bedroom was closer than the atelier, and with the ring being heavier than he had thought, taking a shorter, more direct route made sense.
He’d leave a note. It would be fine.
Decision made, Gustave scurried across the hallway and popped under the door, not allowing himself a chance to second guess his hasty choice.
Not hasty... strategic.
The room was emptier than he thought it would be. Gigantic, even for humans, with only the basic furniture and a couple of rugs. He was surprised to see the lamp on the bedside table was lit, yet the human seemed peacefully asleep.
Did Verso sleep with the light on? The thought made Gustave smile a little. Cute.
Gustave pulled out his hook and threw it towards the table, smiling at the satisfying tink as it caught on the edge. Then he started on the arduous task of climbing up the rope while weighed down by a band of gold bigger than his waist.
As much as he appreciated being alive, trying to get around with only one arm was… tedious, at best. He looked forward for his new prosthetic to be complete.
Once at the top, Gustave took a moment to catch his breath and look upon the slumbering human. He slowly wound up his rope, head cocked as he considered the last time he had been this close to the human. Verso truly looked so soft and peaceful while asleep, just like before. It was hard to connect such a kind face to the stereotypical human behavior from the stories he had grown up with. Humans are vicious, they warned.
And yet…
'Verso…' He muttered, head tilted. Why was this man such an enigma?
Gustave crept closer to the human, pulling off his bag and letting the ring down. He sat down, opening up the ring before pulling out a stick of graphite and paper. He was quick, writing out a short, but concise message. Now, Verso could return the ring when he woke up.
Gustave paused as he finished, brows furrowing as he heard a noise. Something soft, like fabric sliding. He glanced up to find the cause of the sound. The blanket around the human had changed. Dread began to pool in his stomach as he followed the movement, up the colossal arm, and finally the face.
The human was awake.
His eyes were blue, Gustave idly noted. A steely kind, something that could very easily be cold and cruel, if not for the warmth that lit them from within.
Unfortunately, Gustave didn't see that warmth. Light eyes became dark. A small smile twisted into a cruel sneer. He wasn't in the open, but boxed in, both by walls and fleeing Lumerian borrowers. His hands shook, the forgotten graphite slipping through his fingers as he stared up, and up, and up. Losing his hold on Sophie as people screamed, as his home was found, as people died around him, screaming, begging, dragging him to run, run, RUN-
'Bonjour.'
Gustave gasped, blinking away the dual shadows that didn't quite dissipate from the broad face above. Closer now, turning towards him. Easier to reach that way. Why am I still here, he thought desperately as spikes of electricity ran through his extremities, willing him to move, to get away.
'I was wondering where you were.'
The words were innocent enough, but for the panicking borrower, they were twisted into something malicious. Something cruelly playful, like the giant being was toying with him. Memories bled into his vision and, finally, Gustave listened to the panicked voice in his head.
RUN!!
Eight steps to the edge of the table. Gustave twisted where he was, vaulting in the opposite direction of the shadowy human, stumbling slightly as he went. If he was quick, he could make it. It's not like the relatively short distance kept stretching out in his vision, like a nightmare of desperately running towards something, only for the goal to stretch away while the runner stayed rooted in place, no matter how hard they tried to move. This may have been a living nightmare, but it was no dream! He was not stuck! He could run!
Six steps. The very air seemed to vibrate in time to the human's voice, but the words were drowned out by the blood rushing through Gustave's ears. He glanced back, his ragged breath's hitching at the sight of a ginormous hand reaching for him at high speeds. He barely managed to slip under the fingers, avoiding the grab. He grabbed at his beating heart, willing the organ to stay where it was, to keep pumping blood, pumping the adrenaline that allowed his aching body to sprint like this. He blinked away the tears blurring his vision. Focus! Get away!
Four steps. Both hands were coming for him now. The fingers caged around him, aiming for his legs in order to trip him. He let out a yelp as he jumped, barely managing to slip though the threading fingers. His foot caught against a digit, and he stumbled forward, but free of the encroaching hold.
One step. Gustave planting his foot against the side of the table and leaped. If I manage to get down, I will be able to hide somewhere. He was already scanning, looking for a suitable space to scurry under. The end table was out of the question, a feeble defence against the might of a human. But if he managed to get behind the curtain, he could break the human’s line of sight long enough to get under the dresser on the other side. Surely, the human wouldn't be able to reach under there, and if he was lucky, he would find a loose board he could use to slip back into the walls, to safety.
The planning was for naught. He had barely started his descent when a shadow covered his minuscule form. He glanced up to see a hand having gone over him, swinging down in order to snatch him out of the air.
There was no way to change his trajectory now that Gustave was in freefall. But that hand could manoeuvre in any way it needed to in order to complete a quick grab. Gustave couldn't avoid this. All he could do was suck in a startled breath as he watched, almost in slow motion, as the fingers closed around him, sealing him away from the world that unfairly outsized him.
For a moment, the world was still.
Then the human moved.
Gustave began to struggle and squirm, his only hand pushing at the fingers that held him inexorably against a broad palm. No! It was odd, struggling against an unmoveable force that had a squishy quality to it. No, no! His head spun as his prison soared though the air, his stomach doing flips at the rapid movement. Nonononono! The human was talking again, muffled through the flesh that held him down. Gustave was flipped to the side, the fingers around him loosening slightly as a new hand cupped under him. It created a small chamber between the fingers, though it did little to alleviate Gustave's growing sense of claustrophobia.
He stared around the fleshy prison, scrambling back as he looked for any weaknesses he could exploit. He couldn't just give up, right? There had to be a way out of this! But it was hard to notice anything in a dark confine, pitch black other than the faint glow of pink and gold slipping through the edges of the fingers. He kicked at a finger, scrambling against any crevice he might be able to tear at, as if he could claw his way out.
'-op kicking.' The human said, and Gustave blinked at the words. Angry? Desperate? He couldn't tell. With a grunt, he kicked once, twice more, in defiance, before trying to dig his hand into a gap between the fingers, praying manically that he could miraculously slip through.
Perhaps it was a bad idea to defy a human's "request" while they literally held your life in their hand. As if in retaliation of his kicks, the hands moved again, tossing Gustave into one palm. As he tried to regain his bearings - which way was up, again? - the space inside the hands rapidly shrunk. Gustave yelped as he was pressed down against the palm, as the human gained an even stronger hold on him. It didn't hurt, per say - it barely even held him down, really - but the casual, almost facile show of strength made his struggles cease.
Gustave laid in the palm, his arm shaking uncontrollably in front of his eyes. He could feel a thrumming under that thick skin, cords of muscles miles long flexing at the slightest movement. Every twitch held enough force to potentially crush the caught borrower. Gustave could even feel the faint thumping of the human’s heartbeat, racing as fast as his own. He blinked away the flowing tears he hadn’t realised he was shedding. He wasn’t getting out of this, was he? He was never going to return to New Lumiere. He would never see his apprentices again, or Sciel, or Lune, or…
Maelle. His poor little sister was going to wake up alone. Never knowing what had become of her foolish brother. His breathing quickened, short and raspy, eyes watering, limbs shaking and-
Oh. A panic attack. It was surprising it took so long for it to start shutting him out from the world. With a wet sob, Gustave curled into a ball, his one hand running through his hair and holding on as the outside world fell away. With no way of fighting back against such unimaginable force, all Gustave could do was wait for the human to make their decision on his fate.
The hands around him were moving again. Slow and deliberate. Gustave was nudged and prodded, sliding down. He curled into a tighter ball, nerves wound to an unbearable tension, waiting for the pain to begin.
'-re safe.'
… What? Why was Gustave laying on sheets?
'-sorry. I didn't mean to scare you-'
Gustave recognised that voice.
The panicked borrower took a long moment to calm the racing heart that had settled in his throat. Was that why he was struggling to breath so much? He slowly pushed himself up, sneaking a glance to the side. The human had scooted back, and he could feel their gaze on him. Gustave kept his movements slow and careful, as if any sudden movement would cause the human to pounce. He'd seen cats do something similar when they were hunting. But the human stayed calm, still, simply waiting and watching.
Gustave didn't dare try to bolt, through part of that was due to the adrenaline having finally left him. His whole body ached, not only from lack of sleep and the initial trek through the manor, but from the over exertion from trying to run. There was no more energy for him to dip into for even an attempt. Slowly, he looked up at the oddly patient human.
Instinctual panic gripped his soul at being the sole focus of such a large, dangerous creature. But as he looked, old memories began to fade. Dark eyes lightened. Smug superiority morphed into something cautious, maybe even wistful. This wasn't the human host of Gustave's old home. It was Verso. The very man who had saved his life.
'See? Everything is fine.'
And Gustave had just… panicked at the sight of him.
'I won't hurt you,' Verso said, head tilting slightly, 'You know that, don't you?'
Oh, this was mortifying! Cringing, Gustave lowered his gaze, hoping the man didn't see the embarrassed blush that lit his cheeks.
'Y-yes… I shouldn't have…' Shouldn't have what? Made a bloody fool of himself? Too late for that. 'Please, excuse me.'
Maelle could never find out about this interaction. Not only was she liable to kill him for pulling such a stupid stunt, but because she would never let him live down the fact that he took one look at arguably the kindest human in the manor - his own guardian angel, even - and panicked like a child. I'd never hear the end of it.
‘No, no, it’s okay. I scared you. I must seem so tall to you,’ Verso insisted, then smirked playfully, hand moving to his heart in an almost grand gesture, ‘But unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about it.’
Oh merde, is he teasing me?! Gustave could just imagine how devious Maelle and Verso could be if they were ever to team up.
‘It wasn’t about you...’ Gustave insisted. Even if it was in jest, he didn’t want the man to feel that his mere existence was worthy of such fear. But how to explain such trauma without implicating that Verso’s very species was synonymous to catastrophe? ‘I... It’s complicated...’
‘You don’t know how glad I am to see you alive and well.’ Gustave paused, eyebrows raising at the quiet confession. Verso’s gaze had moved slightly, not quite meeting the bewildered borrower. He could practically see the shroud of melancholy that had entered those soft eyes.
‘Without any news, I sometimes thought... Well... I happened to think about the worst,’ Verso closed his eyes, head shaking slightly as if to rid himself of distressing thoughts, ‘I’m truly relieved.’
In all the time Gustave had thought about the strange man, he had never quite considered how strange a thing his rescue must have been. How would that have looked to the man? To have found such a tiny being, injured and bleeding out? To have rushed to administer aid, to someone the size of your own fingers? Any way to check for life would have been limited and difficult. It would have been incredibly easy to have misjudged and used too much pressure, to have snapped bones, or crush limbs without meaning to. With an unconscious patient, there would have been no way to confirm if the actions being taken to assist were actually causing more damage until it was too late. The very thought frightened Gustave.
Was that why Verso had watched over Gustave that day? Had he feared his own ministrations could have caused harm?
And Gustave had disappeared immediately. With no knowledge of the other borrowers, Verso would have been left to wonder if Gustave had survived the treatment on his own. If he had been able to heal properly. If he was able to keep himself fed while injured. If he could defend against other dangerous beasts that may try to make a snack out of a defenceless man trying to heal.
‘Forgive me about your arm. Monoco is my dog. Had I trained him better, this tragedy would never have happened,’ Verso continued, fingers digging into his arm in what must have been a painful grip. Gustave glanced at the stump, gently holding it as phantom aches began to run along the edge. ‘It must have been hard for you.’
Gustave frowned. Verso had done admirably well, all things considered. If their roles were reversed, Gustave didn’t know if he would have done half as well, treating a man as big as his finger with such a potentially fatal injury. And yet, he blamed himself for it?
‘Yes.’ It had been hard, even with Maelle and the others helping him. But Verso was not to blame for that!
‘But… I’d rather lose an arm than be dead,’ Gustave continued, carefully moving to stand so he didn’t stumble on the odd surface, smiling up at the human, ‘I was very lucky you found me.’ Truly, he was. If Verso hadn’t found him, Gustave would have been left to bleed out inside the dog’s slobbery maw.
‘I don’t really know how it went, but, I’m here today thanks to you.’ Verso was staring now, jaw slack at Gustave’s firm statement. He seemed truly stunned that Gustave didn’t harbor any resentment towards him due to his dog’s actions.
Gustave would not stand by and let the man who saved his life think he had failed him. He held his hand against his heart, imploring for understanding and acceptance of his words.
‘I owe you my life. Thank you.’
For a moment, neither moved, simply regarding the other. Then Verso reached out. Gustave squeaked, stumbling back at the quick movement. Verso froze at the sound.
‘Oh, sorry,’ Verso peeped, wincing as he realised his thoughtless movement had, once again, scared the smaller man, ‘I just wanted to introduce myself.’
The hand moved again, but didn’t approach the borrower. Verso simply turned it, keeping his movements slow and steady so not to spook Gustave again. He smiled, the simple action making his eyes shine with excitement and curiosity. It was endearing, like his very soul was on display.
‘My name is Verso.’
Gustave looked back at the offered hand. He hesitated, considering. Those hands were so large. The same hands that had effortlessly held Gustave down earlier. The same hands that had kept him alive a month earlier.
‘..."-deep down, you know you'll be the first to flee before one"…' Gustave had already proven Jerome right once. Not again.
Get a grip, Gustave scolded himself, taking a short, steadying breath. Hadn’t Gustave been preaching about creating connections with humans? Verso had already done the impossible by proving he meant no harm. After their earlier mutual blunder, didn’t Verso deserve the benefit of the doubt? After all, if Gustave wanted to prove that not all humans were evil, that borrowers could befriend them, shouldn't he be willing to offer his trust?
If Gustave couldn't even offer trust to the man who had saved his life, then there was no way that dream would come to fruition. He reached out and placed his hand upon the offered finger. The digit was so large, he could slot his fingers into the groves of Verso’s fingertips. He smiled up at the beaming human, ignoring how his stomach seemed to flutter at the sight.
Must be the excitement for all the possibilities creating a friendship with a human could bring. After all, why else would he feel so giddy at such simple contact?
Chapter 9 of "Minuscule" ! The long awaited moment is finally here ! Gustave and Verso finally meet in person. What will happen now ? How are they going to react ? This chapter is the biggest to date, I hope you'll like it !
Aaaaaand you have it ! After more than 100 pages (god) they're finally able to talk to each other ! Sorry for the slow burn up until this point, I hope it was worth it !
The story will obviously continue, but I'm gonna take a break : first because this chapter drained me I'm not gonna lie xD (need to do something else a bit, like sleep) and also because I need a little bit of time to properly write the following chapters ! I have ideas, but I must organize them into a cool story that holds together. I hope you will like it.
Because of Giku's Mini Gustave AU on X, I decided to listen to the voices in my head and make a Borrowers/Expedition 33 AU. So yeah, it exists, do what you want with it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
When extremists who actively dismiss empathy to enable the groups abusing power to push towards fascism & authoritarianism start to have to experience the natural consequence of that type of provocation… it's also a healthy society making it clear that the type of revolution necessary to overthrow those sorts of regimes is still possible because at the end of the day… they're just disproportionately loud, feckless sacks of meat who are just as vulnerable to being stopped by simple force as much anyone else.
It's always important to remember that the people who openly advocate callously allowing people to die to have what they want are not adhering to the social contract that considers those they disagree with as an equal. They see the "other" as an expendable resource that's a means to an end for their own gain. They're not sharing a society that gives grounds for negotiation, they're trying to ensure that those they disagree with die off from it while they survive, and claim they weren't responsible. (This is why the middle class across party lines had no empathy for a CEO getting shot dead, but why there's a huge attempt to make this different when at it's core it's EXACTLY the same thing).
That's why the cathartic schadenfreude of exploitive healthcare CEOs or gun violence dismissive Right Wing extremists getting to reap the consequences of what they've sown doesn't HAVE to be something that you condone for society — because you don't condone EITHER of those things. You merely understand that there is a natural breaking point where the only way to effectively cease tolerating the type of intolerance when it wields disproportionate power and refuses to have respect or empathy and is more than willing to let you die for its own benefit is to ensure that it has its own intolerance reciprocated upon it.
Peaceful protests are a dress rehearsal for violent revolution. It's society saying, “We are approaching you in the form that the social contract of society tolerates, because what you're doing is no longer acceptable… with the understanding that we can show up exercising our right to bear arms to stop you by force if you make that necessary.”
As a reminder, this happened in a conservative county of Utah where he was intentionally pushing to spark as much divisiveness as possible within the areas where that sort of thing was made clear it was unwelcome, and there were other places where he could have gone instead had he not wanted to continually catalyze provocation and engage in repetitive disingenuous facades of discussion.
And just to underscore more of the context that preceded this happening:
When people who openly, vocally, and actively let others know that their deaths are the cost of doing business for the nice things that they want, and actively ignore and downplay any way in which those harms can be regulated — be it the medical insurance industry, healthcare, gun control, or any of the myriad of ways that the current administration of the United States has been actively widening the divide and hurting the most vulnerable — there is a breaking point where subjecting them to the consequences of what they preach for others is the only justice that remains.
Intolerance of intolerance is being damned to use the tools of your enemy in order to defeat them, and it's why it's ALWAYS important to emphasize that people like this are simply utilizing political extremism as a tool for their own ends, because it's an easy way to create the divisiveness that prevents the group from unifying against it, and democracy is fundamentally impossible without a foundation of equality where one side isn't calling for the other's death while expecting never to be under threat of death in return.
There is an omnipresent double standard to how that violence is regarded when it happens to the "other" and how they expect respect when it happens to "them" instead. They want THEIR intolerance of others to be acceptable and any intolerance turned against them to be decried and seen as persecution (see Zionism utilizing anti-Semitism as a shield to conduct genocide in Palestine with the current administration reinforcing that rather than intervening). This same societal model is utilized politically already:
This is why it's important to point to this as a reminder that this is where things WILL end up… if they have to, but not because those being oppressed WANT that, but because that's what it will eventually create when they actually get the reciprocation of equality that they offer through the intolerance that they preach.
No one wants that — but especially not those in power when they still have a chance to lose.
They want fear & violence to be THEIR tool to use, but never to experience. Reminders are necessary not just for them, but for everyone else so that you don't forget that if there comes a point when those individuals seem untouchable and unstoppable…
They literally never are, and its not wrong to experience catharsis when injustice reaches the point where it's forced to face its own dark reflection.
Take a moment to feel relief, just don't revel in that, because the point is always that violence provides an opportunity for de-escalation and a return to a social contract of equality… but that only happens if the double standard of intolerance has been snuffed out as a result.
That's why it's either the death spiral of democracy slipping into authoritarianism & fascism, or the feedback loop necessary for democratic revolution to extricate itself from under the boot heel of intolerance & oppression.
Either way, hopefully having an informed understanding of the underlying mechanisms of the sociopolitical climate helps to make processing however you're experiencing this news in a helpful way.
Update! Luigi's Attorney Dickey confirms that his "outburst" where he tells the cameras that this is unjust, was because he was never read his miranda rights and was under the impression at that time that he was being denied the right to a fair trial, an attorney, or any legal representation.
He is angry and terrified in that footage because they have failed to follow basic procedure to inform him that he has any rights at all. This is a major red flag of police corruption. This is UNACCEPTABLE and further means any interrogation they did of him is unlawful, and inadmissible in court.
God I hope this is true because that alone can get this entire case thrown out. I hope the judge laughs the entire prosecution out of the court.
Judge: let me get this straight. You didn't DNA test him because New York sidewalk is too contaminated, didn't fingerprint him because you don't have usable fingerprints at the scene, you have no way of knowing he's even the right guy, no one can identify that it's him in the footage, even fbi facial recognition software can't recognize him as the cctv suspect, AND you interrogated him under duress, and that's the ONLY thing you have on him? The thing that's defacto null and void because none of you can follow even basic procedure?
i dont know if this has been posted before. i'm sure it has. but when i did a search for "jerma dick" and "dick jerma" and "ultraviolet dick jerma" i didnt get any results so i'm just gonna post it anyway
The document from a state fusion center cites high health care costs as a key source of instability in the country.
“The dossier adds that the public ‘may view the ensuing manhunt and subsequent arrest of Mangione as NYPD, and largely policing as a whole, as a tool that is willing to expend massive resources to protect the wealthy, while the average citizen is left to their own means for personal security.’”
He has since begun getting past the defensiveness and actually talking to people on the left to learn their perspective, and is openly admitting that no, if this hadn't happened to him, he wouldn't have considered our side of things, and that's wrong.
Love me some schadenfreude as much as the next guy, but we actually WANT these people to finally blink and go "oh shit wait, maybe I should move LEFT".
Bc the more we have on our side (esp ppl who can say they left MAGA and finally understand how culty it was, how bigotry is wrong, etc), the more resources we have with which to apply pressure and intimidation to these fucking fascists.
Here’s the opposite story, though. With apologies because I don’t have the book in front of me, so I may get some details wrong, but I read this “Irena’s Children“ by Tilar J. Mazzeo.
Irena lived in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation, and dedicated her life to rescuing Jewish children from the Ghetto, and her story is complicated in a lot of ways but - well, this story isn’t actually about Irena, per se.
It’s about a bus driver.
It’s about a day when she’s traveling across town by bus with a very young Jewish child, and partway to their destination the child looks up and asks a question - in Yiddish. and the whole bus goes quiet, because everyone knows what that means. And Irena thinks, okay, we’re going to die here today.
And she’s running through her options - all of them bad - and suddenly the bus stops, and the bus driver announces that there’s been a mechanical failure and the bus needs to return to the depot immediately. Everyone off, please.
And she stands and goes to get off the bus and the driver says - not you two. Sit down. So she sits down as everyone else leaves, because, well, what else is she going to do? the options are all still bad, at this point.
and when the bus is empty the bus driver says,
“Where do you need to go?”
And then he drives them as close to their destination as he can, and lets them off, and drives away. And Irena lives, and the kid lives, and they never cross paths again.
So a janitor got three people killed, and a bus driver saved two lives - not to mention all the other lives indirectly saved because Irena was able to continue her work.
I think about that almost every day now, to be honest.
We can’t all be Irena. I couldn’t be Irena. She was in a unique place with very specific skills and connections that let her do what she did. I am just one mentally ill librarian. I can’t be her. But - I can be the bus driver. Or I could be the janitor. Because it doesn’t matter what your job is. It doesn’t matter who you are. In a world like this, every single one of us has the opportunity to do massive harm or massive good. We can save lives or end them.
And that’s scary. but it’s also very comforting? at least for me. Because at the end of the day it means this: no matter of how small and helpless and unimportant you feel, you’re never powerless in the face of great evil.
He was a slave in a Krups munitions factory in a Nazi concentration camp in Częstochowa, Poland.
He was also a smuggler. If I did not have multiple corroborating witnesses to the sheer ludicrious balls that he had, I would dismiss the stories as exaggeration. But he was a food smuggler–he would buy some kind of sugar from the Polish day workers coming into the factory, make candy out of them, sell the candy back to the workers at a profit, and buy food with the proceeds–which he then proceeded to share with the other slaves, free of charge. Without him, they would have starved to death, but an extra hundred calories a day made a difference enough to keep them alive.
But that’s not the story.
The story is what happened in Spring of 1945.
My grandfather could hear the guns of the Russian Army off in the distance, and he and the other captives in the camp figured that they would be liberated any day now.
And then a truck packed full with preteen Jewish children who had just been captured comes into the work camp instead of the extermination camp up the road. Because the Nazis were so fixated on their hatred of Jews that they diverted war resources to hunting us down even as they were losing.
So it’s pandemonium. They’re unloading the truck of the kids, the guards are yelling at the driver, the kids are milling about not knowing what’s going on…
And my grandfather sees one boy who looked a little older, a little more mature, and figured that this one he can save. It’s just a few days until the Russians arrive, after all.
So he tells the boy to come with him.
And the rest… got loaded back onto the truck and off they went to the gas chambers.
But it wasn’t a couple of days.
It was six weeks.
Stalin personally ordered the Army to slow their advance and told the Polish Resistance to rise up, and that the Russians would support them with food and weapons.
So they rose up… and were slaughtered. Because they got nothing from the Russians. Stalin knew that anyone who would be resisting the Nazis would be resisting him next, and it was an elegant way to weaken Poland before he took it.
Meanwhile, my grandfather is hiding a fourteen year old boy in a NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMP.
The risks they took to hide him… they would hold him up over empty shoes sewn to long pants at the evening roll call so that he would look taller. They smuggled food to him… If they had been caught… I have nightmares of what would have been done to them.
Finally, one night, they are all locked in their barracks as the Nazis evacuated the camp and the Russians were coming in, with the Nazis using the camp for cover for their escape.
And in the chaos…
My grandfather lost track of the boy.
Twenty-two years later, he tells this story to my father when my father is 12, and has demanded to know something, be told something concrete.
So he doesn’t know what happened to the boy. Did he live? Did he die? Did he find his mother and sisters?
He doesn’t know.
Six months later, my grandmother is planning my father’s bar mitzvah. Not as a religious obligation, but as a 200 foot tall flaming middle finger to the Third Reich. You are gone, and WE ARE STILL HERE.
So she plugs into what my father called the “Camp Network”–the trombonist in the band was on a death march with an uncle, the florist was in a work camp with a friend, etc. And she’s asking, “I need a photographer, who is good?”
“You want Joe Brown, up in Queens,” she’s told.
So she invites him down to talk terms at their house in Brooklyn, which is quite a haul in NYC.
And the first question one Holocaust survivor asks another is, “Where were you?” Because maybe you know someone, maybe you can tell what happened.
“I was in Częstochowa,” he says.
“You were in Częstochowa? My husband Teddy was in Częstochowa!”
“I didn’t know a Teddy Baum.”
“Oh, everyone knew Teddy.”
“I didn’t know a Teddy Baum!”
“When he gets home, you’ll see. Everyone there knew Teddy.” Because he was smuggling in the food that kept them all alive.
So the thing is, you live in the US for 20 years, you forget that your name was not “Teddy Baum” but “Tuvyas Bumps.”
And when my grandfather got home from work…
…sitting there at his kitchen table…
…was the boy he had saved.
…
(I’m not crying…)
That’s the first story.
The second story is that of my grandfather’s brother.
It is short.
He collaborated with the Nazis to save his own skin. He let my grandfather’s first wife and son starve to death in the ghetto and informed on people who tried to escape or resist. My grandfather said that “Good people went up the chimney and he stayed behind.”
Two brothers.
One saved over a hundred lives.
The other betrayed his own flesh and blood to save his own skin.
Your choices define you.
Whoever destroys a single life is considered by Scripture to have destroyed the whole world, and whoever saves a single life is considered by Scripture to have saved the whole world.– Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5
id: a tweet from pop tingz. "max announces the release of the 'luigi mangione: the ceo killer' documentary on february 17th."
hey! just a reminder this alleged "ceo killer" hasn't been convicted of anything, hasn't even gone to trial, was taken into custody without being dna tested or fingerprinted (what fingerprints they did find near the scene were entirely circumstantial), didn't have any contact with legal rep before his extradition hearing, and wasn't identified as a facial match by the fbi's top notch ai software. just don't watch this doc, it's bound to be full of bullshit just like tmz.
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