So today I was doing some research for the show and (although I know that wiki is sometimes very unreliable) I managed to pull up some really cool stuff.
I found pages on Mandel, Alma, The orchestra, Mengele, and even Commandant Kramer; Plus some various pages on the badges. I hope you'll take a look!
Mandel:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Mandel
Orchestra:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_orchestra_of_Auschwitz
Alma:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Rosé
Kramer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Kramer
Mengele: (Some information is graphic and you may not like it, so I'm giving you the head's-up)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mengele
After finding Kramer, I got pretty excited and tried really hard to find Schmidt and Heinz, but I couldn't. If anyone find them it would be great to put 'em up. But for now, I also looked in on some badges and found some really cool stuff. I found two charts which were, unfortunately, in German, But was persistant and managed to pull up a page with an english chart.
German:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Kennzeichen_für_Schutzhäftlinge_in_den_Konzentrationslagern.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/68/German_concentration_camp_chart_of_prisoner_markings.jpg
English page: (The chart's at the bottom)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badges
I know Mr. Jackson wanted us to create our own characters, but I thought it might help to have some idea of your jobs, positions, daily duties, etc.(Sorry Claire, I figured Fania was easy enough to find!) Have fun!
~Erin
4 comments:
Erin, this is fantastic. Thanks for sharing with everyone.
This type of research is very important. I hope a lot of you have done this. The only thing I didn't want was you watching the movie, as that's someone else's interpretation of that historical person.
Great work. Anyone else find anything interesting?
I've been trying to do research for Kramer, although sources are very limited. The best things I've found are the transcripts or recordings or what have you of the trials at Luneberg, which saw the conviction of Kramer and others that had served at Auschwitz and later Bergen-Belsen.
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/camps/bergen-belsen/belsen-trial-03.html
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/WCC/belsen1.htm
Oddly enough, one of the accused was a Johanne Roth, who one of the prisoners knew as Johanna Schmidt. It could be a coincidence, but it's interesting to consider that perhaps Schmidt was not actually executed by the Nazis.
The first link to the German chart didn't work for me (the blog site must not like umlauts) so I fixed it.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/92/Kennzeichen_für_Schutzhäftlinge_in_den_Konzentrationslagern.jpg
As for the second one, here is my rough translation. The title is "Indicators of Those in Protective Custody in Concentration Camps."
The labels across the top say "Political," "Professional Criminals," "Emigrants" (escapees?), "Bible Researchers" (Catholics?), "Homosexuals," "People who Shy from Working for the Reich" (traitors?), and "People who Shy from Working."
Down the left side, the labels read: "Reason-Colors" (I have no clue what this means...), "Badges for Backsliders," "Penal Company" (I think this was how errant Wehrmacht soldiers who de-mined battlefields were categorized), and "Jews."
Underneath the half-yellow, half-black Star it says "Racial Desecrators," which is probably what they called people who were of half-Jewish descent (or perhaps those who had married Jews?).
I don't know what is says under the red dot with the white circle. For once, it doesn't split up into nice neat simple nouns.
Underneath the weird ring, it says "1a prisoner," so that's probably the designation for the maximum-security prisoners.
To the left of the half-red, half-yellow star, it reads: "Example: Political, Jewish, Backslider, Penal Company."
Underneath the rightside-up red triangle, it says "Special-Action Army," which was apparently the designation for the so-called Sonderkommando who manned the gas chambers. The bottom two say "Pole" and "Czech."
Oh hey, that was all already translated. Shame on me for not reading the whole post before jumping in.
Everyone just ignore my post (and the German charts if you want), because it was all translated in the English chart.
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