Meanwhile...van Helsing grows concerned about Mina's frequent sleeping or lethargy during the day
Mina seems refreshed waking up at night
Van Helsing and Mina are at Borgo Pass
Mina when hypnotic: "darkness and the swirling of water"
Mina waking up:
This is the way."
"How know you it?" I ask.
"Of course I know it," she answer, and with a pause, add: "Have not my Jonathan travelled it and wrote of his travel?"
"And I am afraid, afraid, afraid!—I am afraid of all things—even to think but I must go on my way. The stake we play for is life and death, or more than these, and we must not flinch."
Jonathan worries for Mina ("I fear to think of her, off on the wolds near that horrid place.")
"Oh, if only Morris and Seward were with us. We must only hope! If I write no more Good-bye, Mina! God bless and keep you."
The Auschwitz memorial regularly remembers people murdered in the NS extermination camp. The other day they featured the picture of a child - with a pin of Basque club Real Sociedad on the collar of his jacket. How did this Czech boy come to be a fan of the Spanish team?
by Dirk Segbers
The subject of football and social media inevitably makes us think of those poses of certain players that have become so common: an insta story about a short trip on the private jet, a selfie with NBA stars during summer break, several missteps concerning precious metals in meals.
But every once in a while those social media platforms bring to light stories that would have otherwise probably stayed hidden forever. Stories that show how football was international even a 100 years ago, moving people from all social backgrounds and religions alike. Stories that remind us that we must never stop remembering.
The Auschwitz Memorial uses its social media presence to regularly remember the victims of the Nazi extermination camp by publishing photos and short bios. A few days ago some fans of Spanish first tier club Real Sociedad San Sebastián caught their breath looking a the picture of Jiri Popper, born on 21 July 1923. This Czech boy, who was first deported to Theresienstadt and then from there to Auschwitz in 1943, sported on his collar, clearly visible, a pin with a club crest: that of the long-established Basque club.
But how did the club crest end up on the clothes of a Jewish boy from Czechia? The social networks ran over with theories until the club itself entered the discussion and published an explanation that sounds very plausible, leading back to one of DFB's founding members, which competed in the final for the first German championship in 1903 against VfB Leipzig.
The Deutscher Fußball-Club Prag (Prague German FC) was founded in the Bohemian capital by German Jews at the end of the 19th century. During the 1920s the team, long considered one of the best of the continent, went on a journey of Europe playing several friendlies, among them one on Christmas Day 1923 in San Sebastián against Real Sociedad. DFC won 3:1, losing another match on the next day 0:3. Then in 1924 Real Sociedad toured Central Europe. On the return visit the match between the Basque club and the Praguers ended 11:1 for DFC.
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The officials at Real Sociedad assume there was an exchange of memorabilia at one of those games, which somehow ended up with the parents of Jiri Popper. On the day when the photo was taken the boy proudly wore the pin of a football club he could have only known from stories but which apparently meant so much to him that he wanted to save the crest for posterity on the photo.
Jiri Popper did not survive Auschwitz. But on his 97th birthday we receive his inextinguishable message that our fates are sometimes much more closely related than it may seem.
