I’ve had the sad thought about myself that because of my penchant for rules and order, I might have become a gamp guard.:eek:
Ah, yes I did think you were being snarky. Apologies, as you say the perils of written communication!
I chose black triangle. I have blonde hair and blue eyes. My ancestry is German/Danish. I have an absolute hatred of unreasonable/unfair/do-what-we say-because-we-say-it authority. I would have not been able to keep my mouth shut.
I would have either fled Germany in the 30’s, or, if I had stayed, been killed for not keeping my mouth shut, at the least.
I am very curious how many people in this thread or on this messageboard would rebel against a dictum by President Obama to kill far right religionists such as the Westboro Baptist asshole.
It is easy to claim I, or you, would do such or such in some past time, but do any of us really know what we would do in a similar modern situation?
I think I know how I would react, based on how I have reacted to authority in the course of my life.
I am truly curious how far the left-wingers would follow Obama. The left seems to follow him not as a human being, but as an icon.
I don’t think I would have fallen afoul of any problems, personally. I’m white, non-jewish, don’t look slavic or anything of that nature as far as I know. The major danger for me would be getting drafted and sent to a terrible combat position, I think.
I’d be great. Brown hair, green eyes, 75% WASP 25% German, and a yen for keeping my opinions to myself. I’m a bit gimpy in the hip, but certainly not disabled. If I was the right age, I might have joined the Luftwaffe. Hell, I’m such a careerist that I’d probably join the party.
Ummm… that should not be taken as any indication of my heartfelt support for Nazism, but rather as a comment on my general spinelessness in the face of peer pressure.
Twofer here. Jew and (mostly) blind.
Both my kids are blonde and blue-eyed (recessive light-haired genes in both my own and my wife’s families–clearly some mixing with the local populations in the past), so they might have been able to “pass” given the cooperation of a friendly Gentile.
The poll is problematic for me. It implies that being blue-eyed and blond was all one needed for a free ride. The truth is that no one was safe under that regime unless his behavior met with party approval.
From my understanding of history there were people from the various forbidden categories who survived. And there were blond, blue-eyed people who didn’t survive. It was dependent on who they knew, who they associated with and their behavior/survival skills as well as their identifiability.
I guess I’ve already proven to myself that I’m a survivor. But I’m thinking that if the Germans had decided to use me as an incubator for beautiful German/Nordic babies, as was their wont, I may have found myself in a less than ideal situation for survival.
Incidentally a lot of the people due to their skills can probably secure a noncombat position in the Wehrmacht becoming a mechanic or a medic or a staff officer rather then be sent to the front lines against the Bolshevist hordes.
Hoping that a true anecdote will be acceptable here. A late uncle of mine registered as a conscientious objector to service in the UK’s armed forces in World War 2; he was assigned to do farm work in the British Channel Islands, and was caught there by the German invasion of France and adjacent islands in summer 1940. The conditions that obtained in the Channel Islands were probably the least stressful out of any World War 2 German-occupation situations. There was no bombing, with the British not wishing to harm their own people; and any sort of violent resistance was out of the question – enormous German garrison, small and crowded islands with nowhere to hide.
In the latter part of the war, my uncle became friendly with a German soldier. This guy, Karl, was mild-mannered and not an impressive physical specimen: his assignment was, being in charge of the German-language library for the occupying troops. He confided to my uncle that he considered that Hitler was insane, and that the war was as good as lost; but he saw himself as a loyal German with no alternative but to do what his country required him to do. Early in 1944, Karl was posted away from the islands, to do his librarian bit on the French mainland. He and my uncle exchanged addresses, and agreed to get back in touch when the war was over. Karl’s new posting was to the city of Caen – which was heavily fought over, and basically wrecked, in the D-Day campaign a few months later. My uncle never heard from Karl again; which does not conclusively prove anything, but would seem not to look very good for the poor guy – a non-combatant in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Hence ‘mouth shut’ at the end of the first option - of course you still needed to keep quiet, but from a purely physical standing you’d be a lot better off than someone who was disabled or ‘looked Jewish’ and what have you.
My blue/blond FIL, part of the resistance, lived in northern Holland at this time and has told me stories about good people of all types trying to resist the evil however they could without putting whole communities at jeopardy. He had screaming nightmares until he died.
Being blue-eyed and blond-haired as Qin Shi Huangdi mentioned could also enable people to find a niche from which they could sabotage while looking appropriate. Their mouths were closed but it didn’t make them safe.
I find it divisive to use eye and hair color as code for non-other. I’d have been more comfortable with Germanic appearing. A nitpick, I know, but it struck my “defensive bone.”
I’m a blue eyed blonde homosexual. Since I’m not partnered or promiscuous I could probably have taken a beard (slang: a woman who poses as a gay man’s hetero love interest) to avoid the camps, but I would have been subject to blackmail and the best case scenario with my gay friends is that we wouldn’t be able to associate as a matter of mutual safety.
One of my best friends in high school and I had a similar agreement - we agreed that if it ever became absolutely drop dead needful that he gets married we would go ahead and get hitched - he would have his discreet lovers and I would have mine. We probably would have tried to arrange that his love interest was also married and we would have a regular ‘bridge game’ on saturday evenings and that his wife was agreeable with the deal and she and I could hang out and watch TV or something for the evening. Better be thought of as ‘swingers’ swapping 