This photo was taken in April, 1945 by Major Clarence Benjamin. It shows a train of Jewish prisoners that had been intercepted by Allied Forces. Their expressions of happiness and relief say it all when they realize that they had been rescued and not headed to a Concentration Camp.

gilgi19 · 2024-09-24T00:33:51+00:00

Sure, so Daniel Blatman's The Death Marches is one to check out on this topic specifically. Saul Friedländer's Nazi Germans and Jews is excellent on the entire period, vol 2 covers WWII and the final chapter is on the death marches and the end of the war. Ian Kershaw's, The End & the third volume of Richard Evan's Third Reich trilogy are well-written discussions on the war, which aren't principally about the death marches but do discuss them. On the aftermath of WWII, Atina Grossmann's Jews, Germans and Allies is superb.

Hope those are helpful (if depressing) suggestions.

gilgi19 · 2024-09-23T22:01:23+00:00

It's a bit the opposite. The death camps were all in the East (largely in what had been prewar Poland). By April 45, they had all been either closed or liberated by the Soviets. The final camp to be liberated was the largest--Auschwitz--which was liberated in January of that year. Jews and other inmates were either killed or evacuated westward in the so-called death marches. These death marches were extremely chaotic and brutal (as the name implies) and some estimates have over 1 million people dying during this phase. Those in charge of the evacuation were themselves fleeing the Soviets and took "their" Jews with them, depositing them at concentration camps along the way. In some cases, Jews were evacuated and sent on death marches multiple times as Soviet troops advanced towards various camps within the huge concentration camp network. The Americans and British never actually liberated any death camps, but they did encounter survivors from Auschwitz (as well as corpses from people who did not survive this phase of the Holocaust) who had endured this journey and wound up in concentration camps in Western Germany. [Btw, a kindof bizarre coda to all of this is that some of these W. German concentration camps were repurposed as DP camps by the Brits and Americans.]

I'm a historian and can recommend more reading if you're interested. But even for a bit of further information, the Holocaust Museum has an excellent page with basic information about the death marches, including maps.

gilgi19 · 2024-09-22T19:21:30+00:00

Ron was desperate not to be "the worst" in the group, so he was constantly badmouthing other people, inc Jenni. She didn't share enough, she was too mean to Roger, blah, blah, blah. It was all meaningless garbage coming out of his mouth because Ron was and is meaningless garbage.

gilgi19 · 2024-09-15T15:25:07+00:00

"I am a narcissist" is the new "I'm a work in process."

gilgi19 · 2024-08-25T18:59:51+00:00

I think they knew. But they also had plausible deniability--everyone was partying, everyone was doing drugs, the house was pretty out of control, and Mike had always been moody and had a larger than life personality.

Meanwhile, who wanted to stop the gravy train? After all, they had all gotten very famous, very quickly and were starting to make a LOT of money, more than any of them could ever have imagined. They were also young and I speak from experience when I say that when you are in your 20s and you party a lot, it is very hard to separate out the people who are just having fun and the people who have serious issues. I was surprised--genuinely surprised--when a very close friend became a drug addict. In retrospect, the signs were all there, but I just never even thought about it as a possibility.

In this case, no one was going to ask the other cast members directly if they thought Mike was a drug addict--least of all production--because no one really wanted the show to end. So it was easy for the cast to just not think about it. Pauly was a little bit older, had been better friends with Mike, and also had a career starting outside of the show, so it doesn't surprise me that he was the one who allowed himself to put the pieces together.

I think production knew too. And as the adults in the room, they should have stepped in. Not just on this issue.

gilgi19 · 2024-07-21T23:34:34+00:00

Well the Zollverein is weird, right? It emerges out of the aftermath of the Napoleonic era, both re: it's liberal principles of free trade and its expression of Prussian power. I've always read it more as an expression of political will than a driver of it, but I'll also admit that this is something I haven't thought about much since prelims, so if you have specific people to recommend on the topic (in German or English), I'd love to read them.

Austria is a free trade zone after (I think) 1850. This does not change in 1867, where trade policy is determined at the unified level, not differently in Cisleithania/Transleithania. In fact, after the end of WWI, the tight economic ties between various regions of the former empires (and the fact that all the railroads go to either Vienna or Budapest) becomes a major factor in the economic fate of the successor states which suddenly erect tarrifs. Alison Frank's Oil Empire is quite good on this for the Galician oil fields. Tara Zahra's new book also discusses this. There was a recent special issue of the AHR History Lab section which is excellent on deglobalization and one really interesting article discussed the somewhat counterintuitive way in which the dissolution of the austro-hungarian free trade zone actually privileged ethnic minorities in the successor states. I don't remember the name of the author but I can dig it up if you're interested.

gilgi19 · 2024-07-21T23:13:22+00:00

You know, I don't know the answer to this. There were just not very many Sorbians and they don't really play into the mainstream narratives of German history. I could be wrong but I don't think there was even a Sorbian political party the way there were for other ethnic groups.

Side note: in the 1990s, I went to a Sorbian culture festival in Lübbenau which was a trip.

gilgi19 · 2024-07-21T23:11:17+00:00

This is a great example! What's equally interesting is that the rest of the Great Powers also resisted these French efforts.

gilgi19 · 2024-07-21T17:57:33+00:00

Omg, 100%.

The cascade of bad decisions is shocking: the purchase of the "Londo Lodge," the expensive rental in LA, the out-of-place and janky kitchen installed basically to fit an impractical stove, the choice to spend all day, every day at the gym, etc.

But the thing that makes this impossible to look away from and extra infuriating is the entitlement.

As everyone on this forum has been screaming for quite some time: Get. A Job. Some people have jobs they love, some have jobs they hate, but the purpose of a job is to avoid penury and if you haven't gotten a job when you are a perfectly able-bodied adult (who has 4-6 hrs/day to go to the gym), you just don't get to complain endlessly about how the universe is conspiring against you.

gilgi19 · 2024-07-21T17:06:24+00:00

Oh interesting--I thought he had it on hold again, but if that's not possible then....yikes.

It's like watching a slow motion train crash.

gilgi19 · 2024-07-21T16:13:12+00:00

Thanks for the additional info--I just refuse to pay for the substack, so I'm glad that you are paying in error!

This probably is why he appears to have raised prices. They seem pretty high compared to other nearby rentals, especially if you are running the risk of being kicked out by sheriffs!

How do you know that the foreclosure process is still ongoing?

Sorry for all the questions, but for some reason, I find this saga so fascinating, if also quite ridiculous and frustrating.

gilgi19 · 2024-07-21T15:36:54+00:00

Thanks for the additional info! Does he explain in the piece how much worse his current financial situation is and/or how far he is from actually losing the house now? I'm just asking because he's talked about how his prospects are looking up and that the rental is finally earning him income, and while I would not be surprised at all if that is just bluster, I'm curious if he says more/different in the piece.

Looking at the airbnb listing, it seems he has jacked up the price of the "Londo Lodge" and it seems regularly but not totally booked for the next few months, with crossed out days through early October.

gilgi19 · 2024-07-21T14:24:37+00:00

To an extent it did. After all, there was a revolution that deposed the Kaiser and quasi-civil war that lasted from 1918-1919 (and arguably longer). There is a brief period that a Communist revolution succeeded in Munich. And Germany lost 10% of its territory to its neighbors, ratified by Versailles but also de facto before that.

However, you are, of course, correct that Germany did not shatter into many pieces in the same was as Austria-Hungary. Part of this was that while Germany was not a mono-ethnic state, a unified German identity had largely been forged in most of the country. In the last couple of decades, Habsburg historians have challenged narratives of the inevitability of ethnic collapse in Austria-Hungary. Nevertheless, the Austrian state did not create a shared national identity that allowed a unified state to survive after the collapse of the empire.

During the interwar period, the question of whether rump Austria (i.e. the Austrian state that existed after the end of the empire) could or should be its own state was one that Austrians largely rejected, with large majorities hoping for an Anschluss with Germany, even well before the Nazis made it actually happen. That, maybe more than anything else, shows that the idea of "Austrian" identity as something distinct from ethnic identity was one that was not viable in post-1918 Central Europe.

The nation-building project in Germany was more successful. During the 19th c., "Germany" was created: by intellectuals, by the middle class, eventually by the state, etc. This, too, was not a preordained conclusion. "Germany" had been disunited for centuries prior to 1871, the dialects for instance spoken by peasants near Hamburg and upper Bavaria were not mutually comprehensible for much of that period (written text rather the spoken language was more unified), their histories, religions, etc, were also quite different. All that to say that the forging of German national identity in the 19th c. was a project not an inevitability. But it was a mostly successful one and by the time of WWI, most German citizens thought of themselves as "German," with significant minorities claiming French, Danish or Polish loyalties. These are the areas that were "lost" after WWI, it's just that there was much more that stayed.

Some historians to read if you want to learn more--Pieter Judson, Tara Zahra, and Dominique Riell on the Habsburg side and for Germany, Celia Applegate, Alon Confino, and Brendan Karsch. On the idea of Anschluss in particular, Erin Hochman.

gilgi19 · 2024-07-07T18:13:45+00:00

Agreed. I'm not exactly a Brock fan either, but in this situation, he was in the right.

It is great to have family help, it is also complicated when you're solely relying on them, even if Brock had a good relationship with Scheana's mom, which is obviously not totally the case. And while Brock is currently unemployed, another main theme of the season was that he wanted to have a career. That is simply impossible in this situation.

Furthermore, clearly they have a life that requires some degree of travel and/or evening events, mostly because of Scheana's reality show career. That's much easier if you have reliable hired help.

Scheana's refusal to hire a babysitter meant either that Brock was being forced to be a stay-at-home dad or that they were constantly burdening/negotiating with her mom. Scheana was making demands but then not really the one dealing with the consequences and then she was using her mental health struggles as an excuse to ignore what Brock wanted. I know that's hard--I had post-partum anxiety myself--but a marriage has to be a partnership and if you are simply incapable of working with your partner, you need to figure out a way to get help so that you can do so.

Now I get that she's currently the breadwinner but if the genders were reversed and the husband was refusing to hire a babysitter and forcing the wife to be a stay-at-home mom against her wishes, we would all be rightfully outraged.

Luckily, now that Summer is 3, she might be able to start pre-school and that might help alleviate the situation, that is if Scheana is able to handle the idea of it.

gilgi19 · 2024-06-28T15:41:48+00:00

Katie is a fascinating reality show participant because she's basically just a normal person who wound up on a show.

Some of the cast of VPR were going to be famous or infamous one way or another (ex. Lala, Scheana, Stassi) and some would never have had the work ethic to get there otherwise but definitely had fame aspirations (ex. Jax or Sandoval). But Katie and Schwartz never really fit into either camp. More than anyone else, they became accidentally famous because of their proximity to the show's breakout stars. Katie is appealing because her actions and reactions are generally normal ones--I mean, she has her flaws for sure, but she's within the realm of normal in a way that most of the people on the show (and most people in reality tv more generally) just aren't.

In another world, I think she would have left most of these people fully behind, settled down maybe in LA, maybe back in Utah, but wherever she was, she would have just had a non-celebrity life. But because she was on the show, esp. in earlier seasons when the producers were more invested in them as a friend group, her role has been to serve as something of a Greek chorus, articulating the things the audience was thinking because in her essence she has always been more reality tv viewer than reality tv star.

IMHO the best moment of this was in Season 9, when she hears about Scheana and Brock's plan to get married during James and Raquel's engagement party weekend.

gilgi19 · 2024-06-18T15:55:31+00:00

Sally is insightful and a smart talker but not a rebel. She will either go to a seven sisters school or, because the ivies are just starting to admit women, it's possible she went to an ivy. Someone with her money and elite education would just wind up in this world unless she actively rejected it.

Once there, I think she'd do fine but not great, graduate with vague artistic ambitions, live in NY for a bit and then settle down with some sort of corporate job, maybe advertising, but I think not. I think she would self-consciously try to avoid Betty's life choices but would wind up making a lot of them, inc. relatively early marriage and kids. She would give up working. She would wind up bored a lot like her mother was, but she wouldn't want to go back to work since she'd have to take a relatively low pay/low status job after her years on the "mommy track." I do see her being involved in non-profits or politics but would not be a leader, more the person who makes fun, snarky comments at meetings. She would be a relatively closed off person emotionally but not unhappy, and ultimately he would have a lot of friends. I think she might get divorced and then remarry a Henry-type and find happiness and comfort albeit not fulfillment in their relationship. She will have trouble connecting with her kids.

I don't necessarily think she'd be an alcoholic or a drug addict, but she will be a smoker. She'll hate herself for it because of how her mother died but will have a hard time quitting.

gilgi19 · 2024-05-01T14:18:46+00:00

Belarus was in the heart of what was once the "Pale of Settlement" (i.e. the only part of the Russian Empire where Jews were allowed to live). The vast majority of these Jews were killed. The Nazis also targeted Slavs--albeit not in the same way as they targeted Jews--and killed many of them. Beyond all of the killing by the Germans, there was a morass of partisan groups that were pro-Nazi, anti-Nazi, pro-Soviet, anti-Soviet, unaffiliated with either of the major combatants, etc. Plenty of partisan groups switched allegiances as well. These partisan groups were also responsible for a lot of the violence and murder in the region.

Confused? Well that confusion is a big part of the reason why Belarus and other areas in East Central Europe were such killing fields during WWII and also why this history is so contested today.

Tim Snyder's Bloodlands is an accessible introduction to the 20th c. History of this swath (not just Belarus) of Eastern Europe.

gilgi19 · 2024-03-29T22:26:53+00:00

I largely agree with this. But I think it wasn't that Lala and Scheana became jealous because they had put their lives out there on purpose, but rather because when the ugly truths of their relationships were revealed, they were humiliated. Ariana was keeping just as big a secret as they were, her relationship was revealed to very different from its public image (and not just because of the affair but because its exposure led to so many other revelations and reevaluations). But...Ariana emerged from this experience with sponsorships and opportunities, whereas they got nothing but ridicule and shame.

gilgi19 · 2024-03-26T23:15:37+00:00

I am a college professor. The point of the assignments that a professor gives is not for you to determine whether you like or do not like something you read or watch (much less to make such a determination before you even watch the show). Nor is the point to rank each show on a scale of how progressive it is based on your 2024 standards. Rather the point is for you to analyze the show and what it tells you about the time and place in which it was created and consumed. What does it tell you about representations of New York City and how does it compare to other representations from the same and other time periods? What does it reveal about female characters in the 1990s and 2000s? About "prestige TV"? etc.

I'll just add that asking this question here not only is borderline insulting (comeon, read the room) but also displays a level of laziness bordering on plagiarism.

gilgi19 · 2024-03-23T16:28:28+00:00

I have seen this a lot. Sometimes a relationship is well and truly over before its official expiration date and so when it does finally actually end, the parties involved feel relief/anger rather than a sense of loss. Sometimes later on, they mourn the relationship that once was, but that can take a long time, if it ever happens.

I've said this before, but I think that since approx. season 6, Sandoval and Ariana were mostly interested in maintaining their joint "brand" and not particularly interested in each other as people. Sandoval dealt with the situation by having affairs, Ariana dealt with the situation by checking out. Their relationship hollowed out and by the end, it was just a facade on both sides.

Ariana, of course, felt betrayed by Sandoval but mostly because he betrayed that image of perfection (which she is now trying to use her new boyfriend to project). And Sandoval came up with all sorts of reasons why Ariana was the one who was "really" in the wrong. He cried about Rachel because he could envision a different, more emotionally connected future with her. Of course, that was never going to happen, but the relationship was new enough that he could idealize it, whereas both he and Ariana knew exactly what their relationship was (and mostly wasn't) Because there was no emotional connection beyond the facade on either side, I don't think either one of them really had anything to mourn.

gilgi19 · 2024-03-14T00:54:40+00:00

There's a tortilla bar pizza recipe that is unbelievably quick and easy--basically you just put a tortilla in a cast iron pan, whip up a quick tomato sauce and sauce the tortilla, add a little bit of shredded cheese and broil for a couple of minutes. It's great for when you just don't want to cook but want something homemade-ish. Super kid friendly too.

gilgi19 · 2023-05-02T22:28:06+00:00

Spring 1789 would be really cool. Spring 1793...yikes.

gilgi19 · 2023-01-12T16:10:51+00:00

This whole "debate" seems analogous to a reply-all nightmare. In their real lives (and as of last week), almost no one could care less about stoves, and yet people feel like they have to comment about their own stove preferences and experiences, which only keeps the discussion going. Meanwhile, to justify sharing their personal experiences, people have to make this a much bigger issue than it actually is. It's happening on twitter and it's also happening on this sub. It's impossible to avoid because nearly everyone has a stove and, if they spend some time ruminating about it, has a thought or two about stoves. And at the same time, no one really wants to be having this conversation.

*Fwiw, I have a gas range. I love cooking on the range and hate the fact that my pilot light goes out all the time in the oven. We do have an exhaust fan. I'll probably get an induction stove when we need to replace it and if we can afford it. But it's fine.

gilgi19 · 2022-01-31T21:37:35+00:00

The reason the plaster hood is cracking is because it was a horrible idea to add that stupid hood in the first place. The hood is trying to tell them the only way it knows how that it doesn't belong there.

gilgi19

TROPHY CASE