Quick question about a WWII character in my story

[WolfSpirit0909]

As some already know, I'm writing a story that is about werewolves and soldiers which takes place through many wars and conflicts throughout the decades. There will also be a mixed family tree line of those related to this family of soldier wolves.

The first relative or ancestor is the girl who was a prison camp victim during WWII who's a werewolf. Is it too much if I say she was a mix of Romani/Polish/German/Jewish heritage? I was going to say that maybe her father was Romani and her mother had German and Polish Jewish roots and the girl was raised in Poland before the Invasion of Poland occurred.

Is this ok? Or too controversial?

 

[-K2-]

Everyone comes from somewhere...

K2

 

[DannMcGrew]

I don't know that your character's heritage is "too controversial" but it would be pretty unusual. The Roma mostly held themselves apart even when not enduring forced segregation. A Jewish girl (keep in mind she's Jewish if her mother is Jewish) would have been disowned if she married a Roma or other gentile.
All that doesn't preclude your ancestral mix, but it does make it fraught enough to turn a girl into a werewolf maybe.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

All that doesn't preclude your ancestral mix, but it does make it fraught enough to turn a girl into a werewolf maybe.

So what you're saying is that werewolfism is a neurosis? You know, now I realize that Freud has been seriously underused in fantasy.

 

[DannMcGrew]

So what you're saying is that werewolfism is a neurosis? You know, now I realize that Freud has been seriously underused in fantasy.

Well, the Wolf Man was perhaps Freud's most famous case -- not exactly a werewolf though. Who knows exactly what those critters in the trees were.

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Well, the Wolf Man was perhaps Freud's most famous case -- not exactly a werewolf though. Who knows exactly what those critters in the trees were.

Damn, how can I have spaced out on such an obvious reference? I even took a Freud course in college.

 

[WolfSpirit0909]

I don't know that your character's heritage is "too controversial" but it would be pretty unusual. The Roma mostly held themselves apart even when not enduring forced segregation. A Jewish girl (keep in mind she's Jewish if her mother is Jewish) would have been disowned if she married a Roma or other gentile.
All that doesn't preclude your ancestral mix, but it does make it fraught enough to turn a girl into a werewolf maybe.

Perhaps if her father was a German Jew and her mother was Polish, would make a difference in how she's viewed with a Roma man? Or if I reverse it and make her mother a Roma instead?

If it's too complex I can settle for her being just a mix of Jewish German Polish roots only.

Actually the werewolfism would be casted as a spell and would be put on their daughter who was born in the late 1920s

 

[DannMcGrew]

Damn, how can I have spaced out on such an obvious reference? .

Well Freud might ask: Why do you feel the need?

 

[DannMcGrew]

Perhaps if her father was a German Jew and her mother was Polish, would make a difference in how she's viewed with a Roma man? Or if I reverse it and make her mother a Roma instead?

If it's too complex I can settle for her being just a mix of Jewish German Polish roots only.

Actually the werewolfism would be casted as a spell and would be put on their daughter who was born in the late 1920s

Consider what role her ancestry plays and within that what each of those ethnicities means. It seems a little convoluted, but I don't know what you're trying to establish. Certainly the Roma, Jews and Poles were all persecuted by the Germans, but is that germane to the plot? (Just asking-- for real)
I'm also a bit confused because you call her a girl in the camps but now say she was born in 1920s

 

[WolfSpirit0909]

Consider what role her ancestry plays and within that what each of those ethnicities means. It seems a little convoluted, but I don't know what you're trying to establish. Certainly the Roma, Jews and Poles were all persecuted by the Germans, but is that germane to the plot? (Just asking-- for real)
I'm also a bit confused because you call her a girl in the camps but now say she was born in 1920s

I was going to say that there was a pogrom incident in Germany, the Night of Broken Glass where German Jews were being killed or confiscated from their homes, the year right before the Germans invaded Poland. She had an aunt in Germany that was a werewolf that went insane during the German pogrom incident and she was then killed by the Nazis. It would later be revealed that the girl is a werewolf as well when her and her family are taken to the camps when Poland got invaded.

I say girl because she'd be born somewhere between 1925-1929 so that would make her anywhere between 12-14 during the beginning of WWII in 1939

 

[DannMcGrew]

Dachau opened in 1933
Kristallnacht November 1938
First Poles to Auchwitz June 1940
I'm just reciting and trying to get my own time sequence in order
So your weregirl would have been taken sometime after 1940 at about age 15
Have I got that right?
It's just you've got me intrigued now.

I was thinking if there's mystery and curses and such involved then having a Roma connection works well. Does she have to be Jewish? oh yeah Kristallnacht. So her mother ran off with a Roma guy. They'd not be part of greater Jewish community but that wouldn't have mattered to the Nazis. Does it matter to your story?
Or what the hey --- a foolish consistency. I mean we're talkin' werewolfs here not Jewish culture. lol

 

[WolfSpirit0909]

Dachau opened in 1933
Kristallnacht November 1938
First Poles to Auchwitz June 1940
I'm just reciting and trying to get my own time sequence in order
So your weregirl would have been taken sometime after 1940 at about age 15
Have I got that right?
It's just you've got me intrigued now.

Precisely it! After Poland was invaded in 1939.

I was thinking if there's mystery and curses and such involved then having a Roma connection works well. Does she have to be Jewish? oh yeah Kristallnacht. So her mother ran off with a Roma guy. They'd not be part of greater Jewish community but that wouldn't have mattered to the Nazis. Does it matter to your story?
Or what the hey --- a foolish consistency. I mean we're talkin' werewolfs here not Jewish culture. lol

This is what I had in mind. It wouldn't really matter what she is but it matters for the story to stay consistent. In this case, the girls mother married, ran or took off with a Roma guy, Roma guys mother(which is the girls grandmother from her Roma dads side of the family) could of been trained in use of spells and was part of a secret order and put the spell on the girls Jewish german grandmother. For Kristallnacht, the girls grandmother on the her mothers side would of been there on that night and went full lycan mode when the Nazis attacked her home which was midst in the chaos so it was hard to notice her lycan form and her killing Nazis. So in the story, I would connect the girl got the werewolf spell on her somehow. The girls mother would then make sense being Polish/German Jewish. The girls mother had a Jewish German mother and Jewish Polish father and lived in Germany and when she met a Roma guy, they then eventually left Germany and moved to Poland where they raised and gave birth to the werewolf girl.

So perhaps I can say that the girls Jewish German grandmother from her mothers side got the shewolf curse spell which is how it was passed on to the girl, hence how she became a she/werewolf

Is any of this confusing? I hope not

 

[Venusian Broon]

With regards to German/Polish, that is reasonably easy - as I am sure you know, after World War 1, parts of Germany were given to the fledgling nation of modern Poland. So there would have been a mix of nationalities in that region, families and communities were, I guess, cut by the border so I assume there could easily have been influences from both countries. Ethnic Germans would be living in Poland and (probably) vice versa.

As for the Jewish, Roma and (or?) Roma Jewish part, I'd have to ask if you are part of those communities or have an in-depth knowledge of those cultures? Just my own basic knowledge about the holocaust and these cultures, and a cursory look at modern discussions with regards to all of these peoples, suggests that if I, a person whose culture & nationality is neither of those, were to write such a character, I'd find it a minefield. It would require a lot of research, I feel.

 

[WolfSpirit0909]

As for the Jewish, Roma and (or?) Roma Jewish part, I'd have to ask if you are part of those communities or have an in-depth knowledge of those cultures? Just my own basic knowledge about the holocaust and these cultures, and a cursory look at modern discussions with regards to all of these peoples, suggests that if I, a person whose culture & nationality is neither of those, were to write such a character, I'd find it a minefield. It would require a lot of research, I feel.

I have relatives of Italian, Irish, British, Lithuanian, Polish and Jewish descent. Some who have lived in Brazil, Italy, UK and Israel. One side of my family has small knowledge of Greek heritage but that's about it.

I can say that don't know enough about Roma and Jewish heritage, and how they would interact, regardless if I have Jewish relatives, who live very far from me. So I'd say I have little to no in depth knowledge of either backgrounds. Polish is easy for me to research.

Maybe I should just stick with her being Jewish German/Polish roots which would be more common and easier to handle. I just think her having a Romani background as well would add a lot to her understanding of where her powers from the spell have come from.

 

[CTRandall]

now I realize that Freud has been seriously underused in fantasy

Try reading Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. That is more Freudian-fantasy than anyone could ask for in a lifetime (and Deleuze and Guattari probably wouldn't be offended by that statement). God is a lobster!

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Try reading Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. That is more Freudian-fantasy than anyone could ask for in a lifetime (and Deleuze and Guattari probably wouldn't be offended by that statement). God is a lobster!

Ha! "Try" being the operational word here. I did try. I actually read Anti-Oedipus from cover to cover, and it did make a certain amount of sense as a critique of Freudian theory, but I could never make it through A Thousand Plateaus. (That also may be a function of having read Anti-Oedipus in French, but only having A Thousand Plateaus in translation. Translations of such heavy theory always strike me as muddle-headed, and the original is almost always sharper. I'd say I should try again, in French this time... but I probably won't. I read A-O in my twenties. In middle age I just no longer have the patience...)

Oh, and, for your listening pleasure:

 

[tegeus-Cromis]

Oh, and also:

(In the interest of fairness, I should point out the Fibonaccis were an amazing band, and this doesn't fully do them justice. Well, the instrumental part is great, but in the lyrics/vocals they go a bit D&G happy, or perhaps D&G-as-misunderstood-by-an-earnest-grad-student happy, and that's never a good thing.)