The rain was coming down in torrents, flooding the streets and deafening the world to millions of taps and splashes. Through the downpour, a figure hiding under an umbrella scurried through allies and along empty streets, heeled boots disrupting puddles and splashing water up almost high enough to reach the hem of a knee-length skirt.
The blond halted as military trucks drove by, waited in the shadows, and then hurried on, heels clacking on pavement and a bright blue wool coat fluttering as the figure sprinted to the next hiding place.
Ahead, an old church loomed, blocky and darkened with the soot and grime of war. Ancient arches of Roman times surrounded the building, and an occasional soldier stepped in and out of the building. They were not young men going to pray in church, though.
This church was now a military artillery storage house.
Gray-blue eyes narrowed as they peered around. The boots took two steps forward.
"Halt!"
The heels clipped sharply to a stop, and the person spun around, blond hair swishing. A light suddenly blasted those gray eyes, making them squint and look away.
A soldier stepped forward and gradually lowered his torch. He smirked as he saw a tiny blond under that umbrella.
"Guten Abend, Mademoiselle. Was machen Sie hier? Qu'est-ce que vous faites ici?" he asked in both German and French, so the stranger would know he was saying "What are you doing here?"
A soft voice replied, "Je me suis perdu." I got lost.
"Lost?" He stepped even closer, and the blond head lowered. "Were you looking for someone? Me, perhaps?" he asked with a charming smile.
"I was trying to get to a different church. I turned the wrong way."
"Oh, little bluebird, this place hasn't been used as a church for a long time. Long before we arrived. Are you not from Metz? Where are you from?"
"Paris. I still get lost."
"I see."
He stepped up uncomfortably close. The heeled boots retreated until they hit a stone wall.
"Please," the tiny voice whispered. "I need to leave."
The soldier slammed his hand out, trapping the tiny blond. "I didn't give you permission," he said sternly. "Be a good girl and share your umbrella with a soldier."
Hesitantly, a small, gloved hand lifted the umbrella. He bent over to step within the shelter.
"What an obedient girl! Seeing you up close, you're a rather cute little bluebird. Show me your papers."
"I left them at home."
"How careless!" he said, nipping the blond's narrow chin, trying to force it to turn up as he leaned in even closer. "You should never go anywhere without identification. Otherwise, how do I know you're not an enemy spy? Are you, my little bluebird?"
The blond head rapidly shook.
"Well, since you're so cute, I'll overlook it ... if you can show me something better than boring paperwork," he said lecherously.
The painted red lips twisted. "Like what?"
"I'll let you pick." He chuckled and placed a hand on the small hip, rubbing up the bodice of the dress. "You can show me your breasts, or you can show me your pussy. Pick the breasts, I'll let you go but have to report that I met a woman of your description while on my patrol. Choose the pussy, and I'll forget you were ever here. Show me nothing, and I'll drag you into Gestapo headquarters and let them sort things out. Which will it be?"
Slowly, the gloved hand slipped down to the edge of the skirt.
"I knew you were a good girl," the soldier said, purring with desire. His hand went down to palm himself as he licked his lips.
The skirt slid up higher, exposing bare thigh. "Tell me, do you know Oberleutnant Eren Jäger?"
"Never heard of him. Why? Is he your boyfriend?"
Those gray eyes shot up, no longer timid, but glaring. Levi's deep voice replied, "Yes!"
He reached up higher on his thigh, yanked out a knife, and in a flash of steel, Levi stabbed the blade through the man's throat. The soldier gasped in shock, but the knife blocked his screams, with only gurgling noises gagging out. Then Levi grabbed the soldier's head and snapped it hard to the side with a gruesome crack of bones. The man crumbled into an awkward pile, landing with a splash in a muddy puddle.
Levi let out a disappointed sigh and shook his head. He leaned over, pulled out the knife, and wiped it clean on the wet uniform. Then he lifted the skirt, revealing harnesses strapped to his thighs that hid scabbards for knives, two on each leg. He slid the knife into its leather sheath and fixed the skirt back down.
He muttered, "Putain de malchance." Fucking bad luck. Then Levi called out, "Eld!"
A man in a long, black coat and wide-brimmed hat keeping off the rain stepped out of the shadows.
Levi snapped, "What the hell! Weren't you even going to help?"
"I knew you had everything under control," he answered.
"There wasn't a patrol scheduled for this time."
"He was running late," Eld explained, looking down at the lifeless body. "He was meant to pass here ten minutes ago. Probably delayed by this storm."
Levi looked around at the curtains of rain, and he shoved the hairs of the blond wig out of the way. "Call everyone back in. We'll have to delay our plans. This is too much rain for the explosives. Tell Lima and Yan to dump this body in the river. It's flooding its banks, so the body should wash far downstream before anyone sees it. Make sure they strip it of weapons and ammunition first. We could use every bullet we can get."
"When the soldier doesn't report in..."
"They'll think he died or ran away. Missing-in-action. The rain should wash the blood away. So long as no one gets caught handling the body, it shouldn't cause us a problem. We'll wait until the storm passes and make our move then."
"Understood, Captain Levi. Wait for me in the car. I'll drive you back. We don't want someone else making the mistake of trying to flirt with you."
"I'd rather draw in the perverts all at once, so I can get rid of every last one of them and protect women from the vilest scum of mankind."
"As noble as that idea is, we still need you to lead."
Levi walked away and growled, hating this disguise. It used to work well, and men respectfully let him go where he wanted. Now, the newer troops coming into Metz were men who had been stuck on the Westwall for months, sex-starved, rowdier, poor discipline, with not enough prostitutes left in Metz to fulfill their needs. He was better off without the disguise.
Levi headed to a car parked on the side of the road and slid inside, stowing away the umbrella. He angrily dusted off rain from the wool coat.
Why were so many men in this world pieces of shit? How could women put up with such barbarity and not castrate every last one of them?
He hated that he had to kill since making the Germans even more paranoid put their group at a greater risk, but he had no sympathy with ridding the world of some man who saw women as mere conquests, weak creatures made by God purely to give them a hole to plunge in their tiny penis. Fuck men like that! Levi hoped there was some special place in the afterlife for people like that.
At least he made sure the soldier wasn't someone Eren knew.
Even if he was, though, someone that perverted deserved a knife through their throat!
He reached into his purse and pulled out a pocket watch. It was nearly one in the morning. Eren was surely worried for him, wondering where he was. Levi had not meant for this mission to take so long, but they had problems getting supplies, they needed transportation due to the storm, and everything went slower with the rain. In the end, he had to abort.
Oruo showed up, giving a set of knocks first so Levi knew it was him. He had learned from a previous experience, if Levi was already in the car and he opened the door without a warning, Levi could have a knife at his throat before his ass hit the seat.
"Do the new shoes work?"
Levi looked down at the petite boots. "They're a little small, but at least they keep my feet dry. Why the hell do these also have heels? Can't a woman walk in the rain and snow without suffering with heels?"
Others returned gradually, spaced out to minimize suspicion. Levi watched, timed, and felt proud that these men had taken his lessons to heart.
They made good soldiers after all!
Finally, they started up the car and headed through the night.
"Were the explosives secured?" asked Levi.
"Flagon is handling them," Eld reported.
"I hope you told him to make sure they're laid out properly to dry. I don't want to find moldy wet explosives in a few days."
"Yes, I told him," Eld said with a small smile.
Levi looked ahead at the rain. "We'll check tomorrow night and make sure the patrols haven't changed their schedules."
Oruo glanced back. "I heard you killed someone again."
"Unavoidable." He glanced down at saw something dark on his skirt. He rubbed it. "I got blood on me. Shit."
"Carly can wash it."
Levi let out a sigh. It was late, he was wet and tired, and all he wanted was to return to Eren's warm arms.
They pulled into a garage a block away from the brothel, owned by someone Carly knew and who allowed her to use this location to store supplies meant to help the French Resistance. Then, one at a time, they left to return to the hideout. Levi stayed last to make sure everything got locked up. Then he pulled out the umbrella and headed out of the garage through a side door.
He saw Eld standing in the rain.
"Problem?" asked Levi.
"I'm escorting you back."
"I told you..."
"Spread out in unequal intervals, I know. The two of us make the pattern unequal. Plus I don't want another horny German bastard to get their throat slit by you."
Levi gave in and lifted the umbrella so Eld could fit under. They walked slowly down the sidewalk toward the bright lights of the brothel.
Levi casually mentioned, "I think the dress is no longer a viable disguise."
"Agreed, plus your female impression voice is horrible. It's ironic," Eld muttered. "Yelena hid her gender from all but just a few of us and dressed like a man because she found it easier to get respect that way, yet you dress up as a woman, and the men still respect you."
Levi grumbled, "Because they know I have a dick. I can see why she would dress up as a man around soldiers; they're assholes, and she wanted to avoid confrontations like tonight. Still, the rest of the Resistance should have respected her regardless of what's in her pants, and it's a shame on us as a collective society that she felt she had to hide her gender just to be taken seriously." Levi added, "There are some who have already said, they would refuse to take her back even if she managed to escape. How she pisses is more important to them than how brilliant her strategies are."
Up ahead, they both could hear music was playing from the brothel, and as someone stumbled out of the doors, drunk and his uniform a mess, they could hear the Germans inside laughing and singing.
Up ahead, they both could hear music was playing from the brothel, and as someone stumbled out of the building drunk, they could hear the Germans inside, laughing and singing.
"I can't wait for all of them to be gone," Eld mumbled. "I want my country back."
"I don't see them lasting another month," Levi said quietly. "Unless it rains like this until December. Maybe God will wipe all of this clear with a flood, and we can start over."
Eld chuckled softly. "If it sweeps away all the Germans..."
"Germans, and the shitty Frenchmen who welcomed them. Even after this war is over, France will still be filled with anti-Semites, racists, and people who hate homosexuals. I say, wash them all out to sea!"
Eld smiled wistfully. "That would be a nice world to live in."
Levi glanced up at the tall blond with his long hair pulled back in a ponytail. "You and your boyfriend can finally live in peace."
"Oh, I doubt that. God would have to get rid of my parents, too."
Levi pouted, hearing the disappointed sadness in Eld's voice. "That must be rough."
Finally, they came to an unassuming door to the side of the brothel. Levi made sure to lock it behind him. The door opened to a hallway with many rooms used for deliveries. One led to the brothel's cellar, one to the kitchen, another went to the laundry, and the door at the end of the hall went straight to the main room.
The second door on the left opened to what appeared to be a storage room, with mops and shelves of cleansers. Behind one of the shelves, if one squeezed up close to the wall, there was a hidden entrance in the bricks. Levi easily slid through. Eld had a harder time, needing to remove his hat so he could fit.
This opened to another corridor that went sharply downward until it came to a bomb shelter, with concrete walls, beds and chairs covered with dust clothes, barrels of wine, and crates of preserved food. If there was an air raid, the women of the brothel could find safety here, at least for a few days.
There was a door made of thick steel that led up to the brothel, but hidden behind food crates was a small hatch that had to be crawled through. It was easily overlooked as just an air vent. After a short crawl, the passage opened two meters tall, but narrow enough so only one at a time could pass. It took the person up a few stairs, and the final door opened to Carly's hidden room.
Here, their part of the French Resistance had set up their headquarters. There were tables with radio equipment, bunk beds, couches, and the smell of cigarettes filled the air. Men talked, and those who had been on the mission were busy changing out of their wet clothes.
Levi went straight to his bunk bed and dropped the umbrella. The very first thing he did was take off the heeled boots and angrily kicked them aside. Seriously, the worst part of this disguise were the cursed shoes! He had demanded for something better as the weather turned cold, and while at least those boots weren't open to the elements to where his silk stockings would get drenched at the first puddle, they were even less comfortable since they were a size too small. At least he could wear socks, though.
Then he shrugged off the heavy wool coat and let it fall to the floor with a moist splatter.
"Fucking storm!"
Oruo picked up the coat and hung it to dry. "It's a good thing we're here now. Back at the wine cellar, on days like this, the quicksand got worse. Flagon once woke up to find his cot had completely sank. We never did find the cot again."
A man jogged up. "Captain Levi! Radio comm from the Americans. Their tanks are sinking into the mud. They can't cross the Moselle. They've delayed their attack on the city."
"Fuck!" Levi ripped the wig off and tossed it to the bed. "Their attack was supposed to coincide with one of ours. When are they saying they'll finally move their soggy arses?"
"That's not been determined. In this storm, they can't get air support. They have to wait for the clouds to break."
"They could be sitting there until Christmas. Shit."
"Are we still planning to blow up that church being used as a munitions depot?"
"Yes. We have to reschedule. Is Flagon back?" Levi called out.
"Not yet, Captain."
"He better not blow himself up. Have the trains come in?"
"They're being delayed too."
Levi glanced up. "Like God doesn't want any of us to make a move yet. Well, at least he slowed down the Germans. We'll reschedule for Tuesday. If it's still raining like Noah is about to sail by on a boat, we'll delay again, but we need to hit that munitions depot before the Americans make their move."
Sitting on his bed, Duran scowled. "I still don't like it. That's a historical church, and we're going to blow it up just for a few guns."
Levi replied stoically, "There's a lot more than guns in there. France's history will be worthless if we stay under Nazi oppression. I'm sure our ancestors will forgive us for breaking some of their junk."
"A thousand-year-old building is not junk. Maybe a Jewish faggot like you doesn't get that."
Eyebrows raised, and men in the room whistled softly or shook their heads. Levi was just about to unbutton his dress, but he stopped, sneered, and suddenly stomped up to the slouched man.
"I've just about had it with you, Duran."
The man yelled back, "And I'm sick of following a faggot who sluts himself out to Germans! Do you need the money that badly?"
"I don't do it for money."
"Isn't that what your whore of a mother taught you? I bet you worked right alongside her as a kid. If your mother's pussy was too loose for them, she'd pass the men over to you. A nice tight boy's ass for their rich little peckers."
Levi's lip curled in rage, and Duran caught it right away.
"I bet those old bastards in Paris paid a lot to fill the ass of a little boy. When did you take your first cock? Ten years old? Younger? I wonder just how many times you've had your ass filled with the filth of faggots."
His rage snapped. Levi reached under his skirt and yanked out a knife. Oruo swiftly grabbed his arm, and Eld ran over to grab Levi around the chest. Both of them needed all of their strength to just barely hold Levi's arm from striking.
"Let's all calm down," Eld said, straining against Levi's rage.
Duran looked triumphant at finally finding what made the seemingly implacable captain actually show emotion.
Just then, a door unlocked with a heavy clunk and opened. They all turned with guns drawn, and then relaxed when they saw Flagon enter.
"What the fuck is going on?" Flagon demanded, seeing the standoff.
Levi shook off Oruo's and Eld's holds on him and sheathed his knife. "Mister Former Policeman thinks we shouldn't target the church." His eyes slid back over to Duran, looking murderous. "He also had some choice words about my mother."
Eld walked over to Duran. "I know it used to be a church, but right now it's a munitions depot. Destroying that will help bring victory to our Allies."
Duran argued, "Preserving it will help France as we rebuild. You have to think about the future."
Eld passively shook his head. "There is no future for France if the Nazis win."
Duran shouted at Levi in anger, "The Resistance wasn't like this before you and Yelena arrived. We protected people. We didn't blow up our own cities."
"We did!" Levi snapped. "For four years, that's precisely what the French Resistance did. You simply ignored it when it wasn't your village taking a beating in order to defeat the German occupiers. This is war, Duran. After four years living under a swastika, you should have gotten that through your head."
"Your terrorist tactics are hurting France."
"Do you have a better idea for a mission? Name it, and after we're done destroying the Nazi's munitions depot to save the lives of potentially thousands of our Allies, we'll do whatever charity work you want to do to make the lives of two of three families a little less shitty."
"I'm here for the people of France," Duran yelled. "I don't care about those fat American pigs."
"Those pigs have been working with the Free France Forces and the rest of our Allies, and they have freed nearly all of Western Europe in just a few months. What did you do for four years to help free the people of France?" Levi's eyes narrowed. "How many times, as a police officer, did you work with the Nazis?"
Duran's jaw twitched as his teeth began to grind in rage.
"Yes, I read the file on you," Levi said softly, glaring at him. "You were a collaborator."
Oruo gasped and looked over sharply at Duran. "What?"
Eld rolled his eyes. "Levi..."
Duran screamed in a panic. "I had no choice!"
"You did," Levi said calmly. "You could have chosen to defy them and die. Instead, you turned over all the Jews in your village and let them be dragged away, so they would die instead of you. Those Jews were Frenchmen too, same as me, same as Oruo, or Eld, or the thousands of others who have died at the hands of the Nazis and the police who collaborated with them. Where was your patriotism when it came to them? Do you actually care about all the people of France, or only the Catholics?"
Softly, seething with buried guilt, Duran whispered, "The Nazis would have burned the whole village."
"Oh, I understand," Levi assured. "You sacrificed three Jewish families to save a hundred Christians, and you justify that betrayal of your countrymen by telling yourself it was for the greater good. I get it. I do that every fucking day. Right now, I'm sacrificing one medieval building to save the entire city of Metz, thousands of Allied soldiers, and countless civilians. Yet you've been opposing this mission since we began planning it. You care more for the mossy stones and rotting timber of that old church than you cared for the Jewish neighbors of your own village."
"It's my sin to bear!"
"I seriously doubt you think of it as a sin. I wonder how long you debated about it before giving in to the Nazi orders. An hour? A minute? Maybe you were eager to get rid of the Jewish garbage and ordered their arrest the moment the telegram arrived."
Duran's jaw twitched again.
"That's it, isn't it?" Levi guessed right away. "You didn't think of it as a bad thing until any collaboration with the Nazis was seen as traitorous. That was when you had a change of heart, and not because you ever cared for the Jews. No, you cared for your reputation. What better way to wash clean the label of collaborateur nazi than by serving with the Resistance? But not too much, oh no. Nothing actually dangerous. That's why Yelena enraged you, and why I terrify you. You joined the movement only because you cared about saving your reputation, and now that we're actually fighting, the thought of taking a risk terrifies you. You were a coward when you chose to help the Nazis, and you're still a coward."
Duran leaped to his feet, glaring down at Levi, but the tiny Jew was unmoved.
"There's no shame in wanting to survive," Levi told him. "The shame comes in lying to yourself, saying things like 'I had no choice.' You do. You always do, Duran. It's just that sometimes that choice is between your death, or the deaths of others. I've seen men make the choice to kill others so they might live—I've made it myself, hundreds of times—and I've seen others who choose to resist, to die, so others can live. I'm alive today because of people like that! Priests, farmers, young women..."
Levi paused as he thought back to Sasha staying behind, trying to unlock a few more dungeon cell doors, and still struggling to free them even as bullets riddled her body.
"They are the true heroes of France, the ones who wanted Liberty for all, and paid the price with their own blood! So don't take the coward's path and claim I had no choice. Admit you did, you could have saved them, but you were too scared. Admit, when given that choice, you decided that your life was more important than that of three Jewish families: husbands, wives, sisters, grandmothers, teenagers, infants: you felt they were all less important than you. Admit that your patriotism is actually self-preservation. Trust me, it's not an easy thing to admit. Stop hiding behind all those fucking lies about a greater good and choose to actually help us make a difference in this war. You have that God-given freedom of choice."
Oruo beamed, like he wanted to burst out into applause. Others shook their heads, uncomfortable with the friction between the two. Levi turned away and walked back over to his bunk bed.
A door to the side creaked with a key turning. Again, guns came out, but Carly's head peeked through.
"Pardon me, gentlemen," she said, and the busty woman slipped inside. "Is Levi back?"
Levi turned toward her. "What's wrong?"
"You should go up to the room. Something happened to your sweetheart."
Levi's face went pale. "Is he hurt?"
"Physically, no. Go talk to him."
Levi ignored changing his clothes and raced toward the fake wall.
Duran yelled out bitterly, "I hope you give that Nazi faggot gonorrhea."
Levi halted dead in his tracks. He spun around, marched up to Duran, and stopped right up in front of him. Duran took a step back, but he forced himself not to retreat any more than that. The two glared at each other for a tense moment.
Levi leaned in close to Duran and lowered his voice to a seething hiss. "You will always be a coward."
Suddenly, Levi's fist flew and punched Duran in the gut. As he doubled over in pain, Levi grabbed Duran's shoulders and swung his knee up hard, nailing him in the groin. Duran collapsed to the ground, howling in agony. Levi stepped back, gazing down stolidly.
"The next time you insult Eren, I will slit your throat in your sleep." Then he turned and walked away, leaving through the false wall.
Duran sneered through his pain and he glared at Levi's retreating form. He grumbled, "Eren? Is that the faggot's name?" He discretely tried to rub out the ache in his groin.
Eld walked up to Duran's prone body, towering above him. "We don't need division like this. Levi won't make the call, so I will. Leave."
Duran stopped moaning and looked up at him in shock. "What?"
"You heard me. Levi is the best leader we have ever had. If you have a problem with him, you have a problem with all of us."
"He would destroy France just to push out the Germans."
Eld's eyes narrowed. "Do you not cut off a limb to save the body from gangrene? When you learn to see Nazis as the poisonous rot they are, when you're willing to work with all of us, then you may come back. I will tell Levi that I was the one who dismissed you."
Duran's teeth gritted. "The Resistance wasn't supposed to be like this."
Oruo scoffed. "What, full of homosexuals and Jews? Who do you think have the most reason to resist?"
"I meant destroying churches, blowing up bridges, burning down shops..."
Flagon snapped, "You wouldn't know what a true freedom fighter is like, collaborator."
"I am not a collaborator!" screamed Duran. "I am loyal to France and to true Frenchman. Levi isn't even really French. He was born in Germany."
Oruo shouted out in his defense, "Metz was also part of the German empire back then. If you say he isn't truly French just because he was born in a city while it was occupied by Germans, then you're saying any of us over twenty-six years old aren't true Frenchmen, and I say that's bullshit!"
A cheer rose up from the older members of the Resistance.
Duran yelled out, "Of course we are French, because our ancestors were French. Levi's ancestors weren't even from Europe."
Oruo scoffed and told him. "My ancestors were Georgian."
Eld added, "And my great-grandfather was Korean. Should I leave the country because my ancestors weren't from Europe?"
Duran looked around at the group growing progressively more angry at him. He burst out in a rage, "Jews don't belong here! They belong in Israel, not leading French forces into battles. We're Christians! We shouldn't accept being led around by a greedy, money-loving, Jewish faggot."
Eld raised an eyebrow. "Do you have a problem with homosexuals?" He leaned in close. "Then you have a problem with me."
Duran's jaw dropped in shock at the confession.
Eld shook his head in disappointment. "It shouldn't matter who someone loves, what god they pray to, or where a person's ancestors came from: we are all Frenchmen, stronger for our diversity. Levi is right: you need to admit you don't really love France, because you'll never accept all of France." He pointed to the door. "Get out. They could use help in Strasbourg. If you really want to help our cause, I recommend going there. If you don't want to fight, head to the coast and help them rebuild."
Duran glared around at all of them. Then with a growl of frustration, he rose to his feet and limped away, still rubbing out the pain of Levi's knee.
Carly puffed on her cigarette and shrugged as she witnessed all this. "One of you should probably tail him, make sure he doesn't get any dumb ideas."
"Oruo."
"On it!" He pulled on a coat and hat as he headed to the exit.
Flagon walked up to Eld and kept his voice quiet. "Was that smart?"
"Do you think I did the wrong thing?"
"No," Flagon said with a regretful sigh. "You're right. I personally don't like him, but Levi is the best thing to come to us. He's what France needs. I just wish he had been around four years ago."
Eld glanced over to the fake wall. "He was trying to protect his wife. He stayed out of the war for as long as he could, but in the end, it's impossible to escape every hatred in this world. Unlike most of the men here, Levi doesn't fight for glory or patriotic reasons."
Flagon frowned as he thought that over. "Then why does Levi fight? For Jews?"
Carly sauntered up to them, smiling knowingly. "He fights for a world where he and his lover can live in peace. Right now, at this moment, that peace is here in Metz, up in that room." She took a drag on her cigarette. "That's how some men are: they'll burn the world to protect the ones they love." She chuckled and placed the cigarette up to her painted red lips. "I wish I had a lover like that. How enviable!"
# # #
# #
#
(This scene from "Bomb Girls" shows women's winter boots and a blond wearing a bright blue coat, like Levi.)
Levi's New Shoes – Levi's outfit involved heels earlier, but with the nights getting close to freezing, a massive storm that hit the area in November 1944, and Levi surely despising the invention of the high heel, he ]upgraded to boots. They still have a heel, but they are stable and warmer. Rubber boots and galoshes were also popular for women in the 1940s.
(The Basilica of Saint-Pierre-Aux-Nonnains, 1944)
"that church being used as a munitions depot" – In my mind, they are talking about the Basilica of Saint-Pierre-aux-Nonnains, the oldest church in France. During the Second World War, it was used to store munitions, and when I double-checked my 1944 map of Metz that the U.S. Air Force used for bombing runs, it's actually NOT marked as a location for the Allies to spare due to "cultural significance." It's a miracle the church survived the war. Plus it explains why the guard at that church back in Chapter 72 Ancient Sanctuary knew "Levinia" so well; Levi has been scouting it out for a while.
Trains Delayed – Due to fighting in the east and a severe storm, trains to Metz with food and ammo were delayed. By November 14th, the city had less than two days' rations left, when finally a train got through in the middle of the night to Metz Station with enough food to last three weeks, but only enough artillery shells for three days of heavy fighting. Despite desperate requests for mines, barbed wire, and a labor force of 12,000 civilians to work on the defenses (AKA, slave labor from the nearby concentration camps) German High Command refused to give Metz more supplies. The plans for the forthcoming Ardennes Offensive ("Battle of the Bulge") loomed too large. Metz would have to defend itself with what they had.
* https://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Lorraine/USA-E-Lorraine-9.html
Oruo as Georgian? Eld as Korean? – For over a decade, people on Tumblr and Reddit have been trying to figure out the nationalities of the characters in Attack on Titan. It didn't help that early translations were riddled with misspellings (Levi/Rivaille being the most famous, but Hange/Hanji is still widely mixed up in the fandom), some names were changed in the anime due to their meaning in other languages (Bertholdt Fubar was changed to Bertholdt Hoover due to what FUBAR means in English) and so-called official English translations of the manga and anime don't even agree which spelling to use (Darius Zackly in the manga, but Dhalis Zachary in the anime, and BOTH are canon?)
The name Eld is British/Saxon in origin but isn't used as a first name. However, there was a brief trend of naming a child after a mother's maiden name (it happened in my family tree a lot, as well as giving maiden names as a child's middle name; my sister got that). So Eld's mother may have been British. I debated if his surname Jinn is of Arabic origin (جن) but I thought it would be even more interesting if it's of Korean origin (진).
Oruo Bozad was a lot harder. I tried to research his name's origin, but not much came up. Then I came across the word Bozad in Georgian. ბოზად means madly from a root word for fool. Considering Oruo comes across a little foolish and madly trying to imitate Levi, I decided, why not! So in my story, his family is from Georgia. (Americans, I do NOT mean the humid state full of peach trees and racists!)
(French policeman and Nazi SS officer working together)
French Police as Nazis Collaborators
In his past, Duran followed orders to round up Jews for deportation. This was sadly a common scene throughout France during the Nazi occupation.
Part of the 1940 Franco-German Armistice was for France to seize all businesses owned by Jews and round up its Jewish citizens as well as foreign Jews who had fled there seeking to escape Germany, and have them deported to concentration camps.
The most notorious of these was the Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup (Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv'), where up to 9,000 French police and Gendarmerie (national guard) dragged 13,152 people from their homes and forced them into the Vélodrome d'Hiver ("winter stadium," nicknamed Vel' d'Hiv'). 4,115 of these were Jewish children.
(Over 13,000 Jews fill Rafle du Vel' d'Hiv'
photographed by Life Magazine)
There was no food in the stadium until some Quakers came to help feed the Jews. There was only a single water fountain for the 13,000 people, and no toilets. Dozens died from such inhumane conditions. Stories of police brutality would come out later in criminal trials. Some Jews realized the grim fate awaiting them and choose to die by suicide instead. Those who tried to flee the stadium were shot by French police.
After five days, they were loaded onto trains and taken to various French internment camps, where they were briefly held before being crammed into box cars with no food or water and sent on a long ride to Auschwitz. Those who survived the passage were murdered in the gas chambers.
Less than 100 of the 13,000 Jews from the Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup survived. None of the 4,115 children survived. Of the 42,000 French Jews sent to Auschwitz, only 811 returned to France at the end of the war.
French Secretary-General René Bousquet had no objections to rounding up Jews, only that it would be "embarrassing" to use French police rather than German soldiers. However, an apparent separation between Nazi Germany and the French State had to exist for the sake of public relations; thus, it had to be the French themselves to make these arrests. (Bousquet would later be charged with Crimes Against Humanity but assassinated before he could stand trial.)
To play up the fictional story given to the public that Jews were being sent east as a wartime labor force—not that they were being mass slaughtered—Nazi Germany had a policy that only people 16 and older were to be rounded up. However, French Prime Minister Pierre Laval truly hated Jews, calling them déchets ("garbage"). Rather than round up only adult Jews, he realized he could get rid of them all in one swoop. So he made a "humanitarian" declaration to keep families together. The French police were ordered to arrest everyone, down to infants only a few months old.
The idea of "don't separate families" sounded good to people who were ignorant of what the "camps" actually were. In reality, this supposedly "humane" policy resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 children who might have survived the Holocaust under (ironically) more lenient Nazi orders.
Laval later showed absolutely no remorse, even when the world learned about the death camps. He told an American diplomat that he was "happy" to get rid of the Jews. Three former SS officers testified in 1980 that French officials like Laval and Bousquet had been enthusiastic about ridding France of Jews. Rather than "just following orders," they went above and beyond what even the Nazis requested.
While it's true that one police officer helped his Jewish neighbors to escape the roundup, the vast majority of French police followed orders, some with sadistic brutality, believing that deporting Jews would make France "more pure" and strong.
Starting immediately after the war with President De Gaulle, the French government refused to admit any guilt for their part in the Holocaust. For decades, politicians repeatedly insisted that the Vichy Regime was not part of the true French State; therefore, France did not need to apologize to the Jews.
In 1995, President Jacques Chirac reversed that position, stating that it was time that France faced its past. Progress was slow, though, until finally, at the 2017 commemoration of the victims of the Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup, President Emmanuel Macron denounced France's role in the French Holocaust and rejected the historical revisionism popular within his government that has denied responsibility for the deaths of so many Jews.
"It is convenient to see the Vichy Regime as born of nothingness, returned to nothingness. Yes, it's convenient, but it is false. We cannot build pride upon a lie. [...] I say it again here. It was indeed France that organized the roundup, the deportation, and thus, for almost all, death."
While French Jews were appreciative of President Macron's words and humility, he was hated by many within his own government. Socialist republican lawmaker (and notorious conspiracy-theory-loving-Jew-hating asshole) Jean-Luc Mélenchon declared, "Never, at any moment, did the French choose murder and anti-Semitic criminality." (How ironic for a man who had the audacity to bring up the oldest antisemitic claim of Jewish deicide — collectively blaming all Jews for murdering Jesus Christ — during a televised discussion, and on a topic that had absolutely nothing to do with Jews!)
That is the sort of statement either said by a politician who knows LESS about French history than a goddamn AMERICAN (and we are notoriously awful at the history of any country, even our own) or a man who chooses to be ignorant, rewriting France's long and violent history of oppressing Jews: being the worst place for a Jew to live before 1933, the facts of what many French (not Germans) did between 1940-1944, and the modern antisemitism that makes France "the most dangerous place to be a Jew in Europe" today.
The Vel' d'Hiv' stadium burned down in 1959. A monument now stands there, made by sculptor Walter Spitzer, whose family were survivors of Auschwitz. The sculpture includes a sick man, a pregnant woman, and some children. The words on the plaque say:
"La République française en hommage aux victimes des persécutions racistes et antisémites et des crimes contre l'humanité commis sous l'autorité de fait dite 'gouvernement de l'État français' (1940–1944) N'oublions jamais."
"The French Republic pays homage to the victims of racist and antisemitic persecutions and crimes against humanity committed under the de facto authority called the 'Government of the French State' (1940–1944). Let us never forget."
Designed in 1994, before Chirac reversed the government's stance on accountability, the monument's words clearly (even forcefully) differentiate between the French Republic and the "de facto authority," showing the stubbornness of the French State to deny their role in the Holocaust, even as they tried to respect the victims of Holocaust who died due to the willing actions of French police, French military, French politicians, the French citizenry...
No, Vichy France was not some separate entity; it was merely a continuation of France's long history of antisemitism, and rather than claiming France has never in its existence chosen to persecute Jews, it's much more of the norm for the country, both in the past and in the present.
That history of hate hasn't ended.
In 2002 during Passover, five synagogues were attacked in a single week: a synagogue in Le Kremlin-Bicêtre (a Paris suburb) was firebombed; a fire was set to the entryway of a synagogue in Strasbourg; the Or Aviv synagogue in Marseilles burned to the ground (that was after the synagogue had been the target of a gasoline bomb the previous year); and a group of 12-15 masked men rammed two cars into the Lyon synagogue before setting the cars on fire, destroying part of the building.
In 2006, 23-year-old Ilan Halimi was kidnapped by an anti-Semitic gang, tortured for three weeks, set on fire, and later died from his injuries; the French police were heavily criticized because they initially believed that antisemitism was not a factor in the crime. In 2010, a "confirmed anti-Semite" stabbed a Jew in Strasbourg. (We'll see him again.)
In 2012, a gunman shot multiple French Muslim soldiers, then entered a Jewish school in Toulouse, shooting a rabbi and multiple children as young as three; he filmed all of this on a GoPro, set the video to music, sent it to Al Ajzeera news agency, but French President Nicolas Sarkozy requested that the video not be aired.
In 2014, three men broke into an apartment in Creteil where a Jewish couple lived, tied them up, raped the woman, and the attackers told them they did it because they thought, "You Jews, you have money." Also in 2014, two teen girls had planned to attack a synagogue in Lyon with a suicide bomb but were arrested.
In 2015, an extremist with a submachine gun attacked a Hypercacher kosher food supermarket in east Paris, killed four Jews, and took several hostages. That same year, as the government brought in military protection of Jewish neighborhoods due to the increased terrorist attacks, three soldiers patrolling a communal Jewish building in Nice were stabbed. A few months later, Marseille had a slew of anti-Semitic attacks: three Jews outside a synagogue were stabbed by a man shouting anti-Jewish slogans; a Jewish teacher was stabbed by three men who shouted anti-Jewish slogans; and another Jewish teacher was attacked by a teenage boy wielding a machete outside a Jewish school.
In 2016, that prior "confirmed anti-Semite" in Strasbourg attacked again, this time stabbing a 62-year-old Jew wearing a kippah (i.e. yarmulke). In 2017, retired doctor and schoolteacher Sarah Halimi (no relation to Ilan Halimi) was killed in her apartment as the attacker shouted anti-Semitic slurs.
In 2018, 85-year-old Holocaust survivor Mireille Knoll was stabbed eleven times and set on fire in what police immediately declared was an anti-Semitic hate crime (as opposed to past murders where they were reluctant to admit it despite clear evidence).
In 2019, in just a single week, vandals defaced portraits of the late Holocaust survivor and French minister Simone Veil; they cut down a memorial tree planted in memory of Ilan Halimi (the young Jew murdered in 2006); gilets jaunes ("Yellow Vests") scrawled "Juden" (the German word for Jews) on a Parisian bakery and verbally attacked French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, calling him a "dirty Zionist" and to "go back to Tel Aviv." (Just to clarify, the gilets jaunes are not an anti-Semitic movement, no more than American "red hats" are specifically an anti-Semitic group; both just so happen to draw in a disturbingly large amount of bigoted people.) Then nearly 100 graves were desecrated with Nazi symbols at the Quatzenheim Jewish cemetery in the Alsace region.
This rash of hate crimes led to thousands of demonstrators marching in Paris under the slogan "#ÇaSuffit" (That's Enough).
Despite only representing 1% of the population in France, Jews are targeted by 40% of racially or religiously motivated violent acts. A startling 95% of French Jews see antisemitism as either a fairly or very big problem. Many French Jews have fled the country as they no longer feel that France is a safe place to live, and say they feel "under siege" within their own homeland.
This spike in "new antisemitism" in France shows just how, back in the 1940s, some of its citizens would be more than willing to round up an entire group of people for mass murder. You can't say "that wasn't France" when it's STILL the way some French people feel and act.
And do NOT get me started on France's problem with antiziganism (hostility or racism towards Romani people) like the government-sanctioned hate crimes following their release from concentration camps from 1945 to this day. First you declare them to be illegal just like Nazis did with Jews, Slavs, Africans, and the Roma, then you enact laws that allow the government to burn their homes, ban their children from attending schools, police ignoring when they are attacked by French citizens, and mass deportations that the French government claims are "decent and humane." (Sounds familiar? René Bousquet and Pierre Laval would have 100% approved of this plan!) Such actions against the Romani people were so atrocious in the eyes of the rest of the world, even the EU chastised France; not like a scolding is going to erase centuries of xenophobia. Romani camps are still regularly burned by orders of the French government filled with people who have the audacity to say France has never chosen xenophobic criminality, as they attack a whole ethnic group. It's like an abusive boyfriend saying "I'd never hurt you babe" while setting his girlfriend's hair on fire. Unlike Jews, where the Allies bent over backwards to help the millions who were displaced, built monuments, and even gave them a whole frigging country to be a homeland, no one did a damn thing to help displaced and traumatized Romani families; if anything, their persecution in France is now WORSE than it was before the Second World War, making France one of the most dangerous places in Europe to be Romani, and that is in addition to being the most dangerous European country to be Jewish. So fuck the politicians who tell us their government has never been racist, you goddamn lying political shit-stained douchenozzle, UGHHH IT MAKES ME SO UPSET, SORRY!
... okay, breathe, Rhov, it's the Holocaust, it's upsetting, not all people are hateful, the world can be beautiful, people can be altruistic, and most are empathetic, so just breathe!
... anyway ...
This is why having the government take accountability for its past actions, rather than claiming "that wasn't France" or "we had no choice," is so important for the victims of hate to begin the long road to healing, and for France itself—its government, its military, its police, its people—to humbly admit it has a serious problem with racism and antisemitism. This isn't some ephemeral past government that faded into history books; it's the mindset of people RIGHT NOW!
As we look at history, rather than trying to cover up the shameful acts of our ancestors — or even deny it ever happened and remove the events from history books like what is currently happening in some USA states, and that is a whooooole other rant! — we need to take accountability.
All of us do.
It did happen. Maybe you didn't do it, but the past still affects people now.
You can be proud of your nation, its freedoms, its progress, but the past must be addressed without Gaussian blur and rosy filters. The truth is often heartbreaking, humbling, even humiliating, but such darkness can highlight the present. The darker the past, the brighter the future, and that is something to be proud of: our progress!
We need to take to heart the words: "We cannot build pride upon a lie." We build pride by growing more compassionate.
And the first step is to humbly say "I'm sorry."
.
(This has been my Ted Talk, hahaha! Ugh, it was so emotional to research all this.)
———
References:
https://www.france24.com/en/20180919-depth-french-police-collaboration-with-nazis-revealed
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/france
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/german-jewish-refugees-1933-1939
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vel%27_d%27Hiv_Roundup
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Bousquet
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Laval
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/theophile-larue?parent=en%2F11768
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/17/france-macron-denounces-state-role-holocaust-atrocity-paris-1942
https://nypost.com/2020/02/17/france-is-failing-to-fight-its-rising-tide-of-anti-semitism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust_in_France
https://www.timesofisrael.com/french-left-wing-head-slams-macron-for-admitting-french-guilt-in-holocaust
https://www.jns.org/opinion/the-anti-semitism-of-jean-luc-melenchon/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_deicide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_France
https://www.jta.org/2002/04/01/lifestyle/weekend-of-anti-semitism-in-france
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Lyon_synagogue_attack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Ilan_Halimi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toulouse_and_Montauban_shootings#19_March:_Ozar_Hatorah_school_in_Toulouse
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercacher_kosher_supermarket_siege
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Nice_stabbing
https://www.dna.fr/edition-de-strasbourg/2016/08/19/agression-antisemite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Sarah_Halimi
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Mireille_Knoll
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/11/french-holocaust-survivor-simone-veil-memorial-vandalisedhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/11/french-holocaust-survivor-simone-veil-memorial-vandalised
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8402409/france-nazi-past-juden-graffiti-jewish-bakery-paris
https://www.timesofisrael.com/tree-commemorating-murdered-french-jew-chopped-down-amid-anti-semitic-spate
https://abcnews.go.com/International/100-graves-defaced-swastikas-french-jewish-cemetery/story?id=67488506
https://www.estrepublicain.fr/actualite/2019/02/19/ca-suffit-la-france-mobilisee-contre-l-antisemitisme
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_antisemitism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Romani_sentiment
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/romani-holocaust-survivors-1945
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-10798440
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25419423
http://www.errc.org/news/why-are-romani-children-denied-access-to-education-in-france
https://theconversation.com/why-are-roma-people-being-attacked-in-france-115030
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_Roma_migrants_from_France
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/genocide-of-european-roma-gypsies-1939-1945
https://positivepsychology.com/why-is-compassion-important/