An Israeli film-maker who won one of the top prizes at the Berlin film festival has said German officials’ description of the awards ceremony as “antisemitic” has led to death threats and the physical intimidation of family members, causing him to hold off plans to return to Israel....
19 August 1942 | A transport of 997 Jews deported from Drancy arrived at Auschwitz. After the selection 897 of them were immediately murdered in gas chambers.
One of them was Fanny Brauch from Paris.
She was 15 years old.
Just to make this clear to the non-Germans amongst my mutuals: there were not "10s of thousands" on the streets against #fascism in #Germany but 100s of thousands, probably around 1.4 million in total. The largest demonstrations since reunification.
#FolkloreMoment : I've been translating a lot of vampire folklore from northeastern Germany as of late. And they are not at all similar to modern media portrayals of the phenomenon.
For starters, they rarely if ever actually leave their graves. Instead, all their "feasting" is usually done via some sort of sympathetic connection to their victims (usually their relatives).
The reason why someone becomes a vampire after death also varies a lot. But the account I am currently translating ("Der Vampyr im Wendlande"/"The Vampyre in the Wendland Region") has a particularly interesting take on this.
You see, people will become vampires if they have been weaned off their mother's breast twice as infants - that is to say, the first attempt at weaning them off mothers' milk didn't take. They must survive to become adults, but then, once they die, they will become vampires. They are also called "Dubbelsüger" or "Doppelsauger" - "Double Sucker" for this reason.
And then, once they are dead, they will sit up in their graves and attempt to suck their own breasts - presumably because they are so used to sucking breasts during their infancy. And this "sucking" is then somehow transferred to their next of kin, who will become pale, scrawnly, and weak until they finally die.
Quite a difference to the usual Anne Rice-type vampire, isn't it?
(Incidentally, I will publish the full translation of this account on my Patreon page this December.)
27 October 1940 | Dutch Jewish girl, Henderika Leman, was born in Zwolle.
She was deported to Auschwitz from Westerbork in November 1942 with her younger brother Meijer and her mother Annette. They were all murdered in a gas chamber after arrival selection.
Worked out recently that I've paid close to €5000 out of pocket on therapy & mental health services since January 2022.
#TechnikerKrankenkasse refuses to cover even in part, despite there being a massive shortage of therapists, and me having anxiety and major depressive disorder.
In the same time I've paid into TK thousands of euro's in health insurance costs, but the main "benefits" they offer are fucking rebates on gym memberships.
When will #Germany take mental health care seriously?
#FolkloreMoment : Once, a woman said that she would like to marry - but she did not want to bear any children, as she was terribly afraid of the pains of birth.
The couple went to their local priest, who said that he was unable to help them. So he sent them to the pope.
The pope said that he could help her, if she followed his instructions exactly. Then the pope told her that he could help her - if she agreed to follow his instructions exactly.
The woman agreed, and then the pope arranged for her to spend the night in a room with a snake.
The next morning, the woman was dead - but her wish was fulfilled, for now she would never give birth.
Germany’s Antidiscrimination Agency has announced it will no longer maintain a presence on X, the platform owned by billionaire Elon Musk due to “the enormous increase in trans and queer hostility, racism, misogyny, anti-Semitism and other misanthropic content."
"In our opinion, X is no longer an acceptable environment for the profile of a public body.”
37% of the activists arrested in #Germany on #antisemitism charges in the past 130 days have been #Jewish. #Jews make up less than 1% of the total population of Germany. Think about what that means.
Germans learned nothing beyond how to manufacture and promote a semblance of reconciliation in which Jews are a mere transference object through which Germans may be absolved of the crimes of Nazism and the #Nakba. When we no longer function as objects that Germans can transfer their responsibility for genocide onto — when we no longer serve to act as an insurance policy on their responsibility for crimes of ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the commercial war economy of the imperial core — then suddenly Germans become the victims of antisemitism visited upon the German people by the Jews.
A society where that is even fathomable has not actually repented for the #Holocaust. Which is exactly why Germany is the world's #1 champion of the genocide in #Gaza.
In #Germany, the high school curriculum includes a study in current #American propaganda (which can largely be applied to #Canada,too) and it teaches them about American exceptionalism, the denial of slavery’s impacts on current day race relations, and the way Americans are conned into believing they don’t deserve universal healthcare. It is a subject of study.
In #Germany, when you buy a single ticket for local transport, IIRC the rule usually says that you are allowed to change bus/tram/metro during the ticket’s validity period, except that you are not allowed to make a return trip, go back to where you started. What is the rationale for this? @jon
In the olden days, when bread was baked at home, bad luck would seep into the bread when one cursed while baking.
And if the loaf would be placed over the table's edge, sickness would soon enter the house.
A loaf placed upside down would sway, because the poor souls would try to turn it, & if the head of the house cut the bread crookedly, then he had just lied...
An obsession of mine is researching how countries handle threats of #food & #water insecurity.
#Germany for example, has secret locations in which it stores legumes, grains & milk powder.
#Finland has 6 mths of grain & fuel & a min. of 3 months of medicine.
In terms of water security, 9 countries in the #MiddleEast will have extreme lvls of water stress by 2040.
But this will also be dire for #Australia, #USA#China & #India.
Israeli director receives death threats after officials call Berlin film festival ‘antisemitic’ (www.theguardian.com)
An Israeli film-maker who won one of the top prizes at the Berlin film festival has said German officials’ description of the awards ceremony as “antisemitic” has led to death threats and the physical intimidation of family members, causing him to hold off plans to return to Israel....
Putin claims Russia outpaces Germany and is now one of world's five largest economies (www.pravda.com.ua)
Russia has "entered the top five largest economies in the world" and "outpaced Germany in purchasing power parity", despite pessimistic forecasts.