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Elias Baswitz Blog Entry |
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October 21, 2022, 3:10:27 AM 10/21/22: r/SketchDaily theme, "Drawtober: Candlelit Coven." Two arts today. Second: This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Elias Baswitz, a partisan/resistance fighter. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. TUMBLR EDIT: Elias Baswitz is a relatively minor character who plays a major role in absentia--via the fallout experienced by Private Godfrey Klemper--but doesn't actually appear in the story until after war's end. Therefore, I know practically nothing about his early or personal life short of his brief interaction with Klemper before Reborn (the second story arc chronologically, but the first in the weird order it's organized in) starts. Baswitz is a German Jewish partisan fighting with an unidentified group out in the country--much of the same territory covered by 2nd Lt. Frieder Dasch's unit, which travels around fighting people like Baswitz (and Soviets, when they end up near the front). He ends up badly wounded when out on his own, and takes shelter in an old abandoned trench. With no way to contact his comrades, he starts to resign himself to dying out there alone. When he hears a noise and looks up to see a Wehrmacht soldier in a greatcoat and Stahlhelm standing above the trench looking down at him, though, he realizes he doesn't want to go out that easily. He raises his gun, but is too weak to aim or shoot. The soldier descends into the trench and disarms him, but then, to his surprise, starts tending to his wound rather than trying to kill him. He even offers his belt for Baswitz to bite on while he does so...well, more like just shoves it in his mouth (Baswitz thinks he's going to be suffocated at first) and orders him to bite, while he uses his knife to dig the bullet out of Baswitz's side and Baswitz tries praying because it hurts so much. The stranger then offers jerky (my autocorrect keeps changing that to "Jerry," how appropriate), making a mooing sound when he hesitates to take it. Baswitz sees the name stitched on his pack, KLEMPER, and says, "So you're Unteroffizier (Sergeant) Klemper?" Klemper hadn't been sure he could speak German until now. When Baswitz asks how he knew why he hesitated to take the Jerry (dammit, autocorrect, JERKY), Klemper says he heard him praying in Yiddish--"You know Yiddish?" Baswitz asks, to which Klemper replies, "I know the sound." (Klemper grew up poor in the countryside and had contact with various minority groups; in addition to knowing the sound of Yiddish, he can speak Polish.) He pushes up his oversized helmet then, and Baswitz reacts with astonishment, because his savior looks like he's barely more than a kid. (He's actually seventeen--but he's been in the army for four years already. So Baswitz's reaction is still justified.) The two get to talking and knowing each other, albeit tentatively. Klemper is quite defensive and ill humored, not taking Baswitz's attempts at mildly insulting jokes and sarcasm very well; Baswitz can tell just from looking at him he's been through a lot. He's weirded out to find out Klemper has the odd habit of sleeping with his eyes open, and this, plus Klemper's frequently spacy attitude (not to mention his poor temper, and the fact that he barely eats), tips him off that he's on drugs--a common practice in the Wehrmacht, but still unnerving, especially in someone so young. Klemper stitches up Baswitz's wound and leaves the trench to steal food for him; when it starts raining, he even shields Baswitz with his coat. By now Baswitz is starting to have all kinds of indecent thoughts but he keeps them to himself, dismayed and embarrassed and not even sure the feelings would be reciprocated. Klemper leaves the trench again the next day (after again sleeping with his eyes open and creeping Baswitz out), but soon returns and cautions Baswitz to keep silent; Baswitz hears Klemper's own men calling for him. Klemper doesn't respond. Baswitz stared at him as he took and let out a breath and dug in his pack. "They were looking for you...?" he whispered. "Why didn't you answer them?" Klemper kept digging around, though it seemed more of a distraction than anything. "I can't be sure they won't kill you," he said finally, quietly. Baswitz sank against the earthen wall, furrowing his brow. "That's kind of the point, isn't it? Otherwise what exactly are you fighting for?" He jerked back further--Klemper abruptly surged toward him, finger jabbing, face twisted. "Not all of us!" he hissed. "Not all! Not all of us shove you on the trains! Not all of us release the gas! You know you sound just the same as the ones you're mocking every time you talk like that. Exactly the same! I'm f**king tired of you thinking I stick people in ovens every day for fun." Baswitz sat still and listened to all this before relaxing again. The corner of his mouth twisted. "Not all, sure, but enough. How defensive you are all of a sudden, I know I touched a nerve and that means I'm not too far off. You do know you're the minority, ja? And it's as I said, what the f**k are you even fighting for if not for der Führer." He gestured at Klemper. "You have no armband but take a close look at your pretty little medal, it's got a swastika on it." Baswitz did indeed touch a nerve, so Klemper haltingly tells how he ended up here--how his drunken father used to beat him and his mother, so badly once that Klemper, then only ten years old, got out the family rifle and shot him. His mother died a few years later; while Klemper was burying her, his house was burned down, so he went walking until he came across a group of soldiers recruiting people; he lied about his age, and was allowed in. He asks Baswitz how he ended up here and is obviously dismayed by the answer: "I have no family left. They all went on the trains." The two commiserate a little over how things came to be the way they are; but the conversation soon takes a turn. Baswitz stretched his legs. "Well...as pleasant as your company is, I can think of several other ways I'd rather be spending my time, no offense. You?" A blink. Klemper stared at him for a moment, then his eyes drifted. "I...don't know." When Baswitz raised an eyebrow he added, "I don't really know anything else. This is all there's ever been." "There hasn't always been the war." "Nein, I mean...just staying alive. I don't know anything other than this, this is just how it's always been." His eyes went glassy and distant and he looked forward again. Baswitz bit the inside of his cheek; it was like Klemper had suddenly stepped out of the room. Baswitz makes the mistake of touching Klemper's face, both to try to draw his attention back and to sympathize. That...doesn't go over well. Klemper backhands him hard enough to knock him over, yelling, "Schwuchtel!" He goes to the other side of the trench and pulls his pistol, snapping, "Put your hands on me again and I'll put a bullet in your other side." He and Baswitz then get stuck in a sort of standoff, keeping to opposite sides of the trench, Baswitz barely daring to move and Klemper keeping his gun drawn even when he throws more jerky at him to eat. Eventually, however, Baswitz starts swooning, succumbing to weird visions where Klemper calls him more vile names and even shoots him in the head yet he's still alive. Klemper notices this, checks his wound again, then leaves. Baswitz tries to sleep and ends up drowning in a flood of rainwater--only for Klemper to arrive, pull him out, and shove a pill in his mouth. It was another fever dream; Baswitz's wound has gotten infected, and Klemper went to steal penicillin to give him. He slips in and out of consciousness for what feels like weeks but is in fact just two days while Klemper keeps giving him penicillin until the fever breaks. Klemper also stole food, which Baswitz eats gratefully. Klemper hesitates before handing him a bottle of beer. Baswitz remembers Klemper's story about his father's drunkenness, and drinks only a little before setting the bottle aside. Klemper even gives him back his gun, and both apologize to each other, Klemper for calling Baswitz names and hitting him, Baswitz for touching Klemper. When Klemper tentatively asks if anyone else has ever called him names, the conversation again gets quite dark. "I'm..." A long pause. "I'm sorry I called you that word." "It's all right, kid. I've been called worse. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, honest." Klemper sank into his coat a little, arms clasped around his knees. He had an odd expression, as if he wanted to say something yet dreaded the thought of doing so. "Called worse...?" he finally echoed. Baswitz sensed it wasn't quite the question he wished to ask, but answered anyway. "A lot of it from your people, naturally. Any filthy word you can think of for Jew, I've been called it, and then some. I'm used to it." "Anyone's ever called you anything else?" Baswitz peered at him from the corner of his eye. "You mean anyone's ever called me Schwuchtel?" Klemper flinched just slightly. "Sure, kid. You're not the first and you won't be the last." "So..." Klemper furrowed his brow. "You don't argue it?" "When you get as old as I am you pick your battles. No point arguing against the truth." Klemper said nothing to this, just turned to look toward the opposite side of the trench and sank further into his coat. Baswitz kept silent as well, sensing he would keep talking if allowed to do so yet might shut down at the slightest wrong word. "No one picks fights with you over it...?" he finally said, his voice barely audible. "Some do, some don't," Baswitz said with a small shrug. "You learn who's your friend or not," he added. "Who's worth your time, who's not. So, there's that." When Klemper said nothing for a while, just stared across the trench, he pushed himself upright a bit so he didn't slouch as much. "It gets a bit easier as you get older, kid," he murmured, knowing now the reason for the questions; he'd suspected before, but now he was sure. "Someone give you trouble?" he asked when Klemper's head lowered a little. "Someone in your unit?" Klemper shook his head. "Not like that." His stare drifted to the side and lingered; Baswitz followed it, yet saw nothing but the bottle sitting nearby half wrapped in cloth. He was about to offer it to him again when Klemper said quietly, "Rolf." "Rolf? He give you trouble?" Another shake. "He lived the other house over from us." Klemper's eyes glazed over and it was as if he stared through everything rather than at it. "My age. His eyes were green." Then, something Baswitz never would have expected--a smile slowly came to his face as he stared off into nothing, and Baswitz's heart ached a little on seeing it. "The most beautiful eyes in the world," he murmured. "I kissed him and he liked me," he added, and his smile grew. Baswitz felt his own mouth twitch. It had been a lifetime but he still remembered that feeling. His own smile didn't get a chance to fully form, however, when Klemper's smile faded and then disappeared, his eyes growing glassier. A barely perceptible tremor passed through him. "Papa saw it," he said, and those three words felt like Klemper's fist grinding into his wound again. Klemper then relates how his father first beat him, then dragged him to his room, yelling, "Filthy little Schwuchtel. You want to be a little wife so bad? I'll teach you how much fun it is to be a little wife. Then you'll want to be a man." He had his beer bottle with him, and he used it on Klemper, saying, "Now you'll never forget it. Now you'll be a man." "I never forgot," Klemper adds. (This ends up being the incident where his father then started beating his mother, so he got the rifle and shot him.) Baswitz is stunned and horrified by this story--finally understanding why Klemper kept looking at his own beer bottle, and why he'd truly hesitated to give it to him, he tosses it away. "Kid," he says, "that's not what it's supposed to be like. Not at all. And he never should have done that. No matter what you did." Klemper allows him to put his arm around his shoulders, and they fall asleep. The next morning things get a bit weird again, though; Baswitz notices Klemper taking something himself before giving him his penicillin, and learns that it's Pervitin, which Klemper and the others in his unit have been misinformed is a "supervitamin." Baswitz knows that it's actually methamphetamine, which helps explain Klemper's alternating aggressive and spacy behavior, and pleads with him to take it easy. Klemper ignores this, but spots the beer bottle Baswitz tossed away, and exclaims in an odd childish voice, "You spilled your beer. You want me to fetch you another one? I'll fetch you another one." He starts to leave, so Baswitz grabs his arm--and Klemper again pulls his gun and threatens him. It's only when Baswitz calls Klemper by his rank, Unteroffizier, rather than "kid," that he snaps out of it--he'd literally just regressed back to childhood for a moment. He's rather embarrassed and apologetic about this, and leaves to go fill their canteens with fresh water. Thing is, Klemper disappears for the rest of the day, and Baswitz starts freaking out. His breath was just starting to catch with panic and dread, his eyes growing hot with unspilled tears, when he finally heard a small noise, so small he would never have heard it if he hadn't spent the entire day straining his ears for anything. His head popped up and he suppressed a gasp; something moved over the edge of the trench, then jumped or fell down into it with him. He nearly pulled back, hand clasping his gun, but the shadowy shape stood and he recognized Klemper's Stahlhelm and greatcoat. At least, he hoped that was Klemper; he couldn't see the face at all. Taking a chance, he leaned forward abruptly. "Where were you?" he nearly yelled, his own voice cracking much as Klemper's had before. Klemper--or whoever this was--flinched back. Baswitz gestured wildly. "It's been all day! For water? Where did you go? I've been thinking someone got you! You were lying in a ditch somewhere! I thought maybe you weren't coming back!" His vision blurred and broke apart; feeling utterly foolish, yet still furious, he swept a hand across his eyes to clear them. "I thought you weren't coming back," he echoed himself, voice cracking again. The Wehrmacht soldier said nothing, just stood there. For a moment Baswitz had a creeping feeling of dread that this wasn't Klemper at all, someone else had finally found him, until he moved slightly and something slid down his arm. Baswitz recognized Klemper's pack clearly now, and let out a breath. He took a couple of steps forward, reaching into the pack and pulling something out; Baswitz jerked back a little when something landed in his lap. He blinked a few times in confusion and picked up one of the objects; they were small and flat and rectangular and seemed to be wrapped in paper or foil. In the dim light he couldn't read anything but the word HERSHEY'S. Yep--Klemper not only fetched water, but stole American candy for him, because "I wanted to bring back something nice." (Throughout the story, Klemper often shows affection or respect by giving people small items he's stolen or found. So...kinda like a crow, I guess?) He sits beside Baswitz as he eats, then lets him put his arm around his shoulders again and they sit in silence for a while. After night falls, Klemper kisses him, and Baswitz returns the gesture. This is around where the scene I'm writing ends, I can't share the little bit I have left, mwehehehe. Needless to say, though, Baswitz and Klemper grow quite close, and although they don't have much time left together in the trench--and they know this--they make the most of it. Baswitz is actually the first positive romantic relationship (aside from the kiss for Rolf) Klemper has ever had--I'm not sure if he tells Baswitz the rest, but the experience with his father isn't the only time he's gone through such a thing; considering himself unworthy of love or acceptance, nevertheless he desperately seeks it where he can, and this makes him an easy target. He was also victimized by the commanding officer of the unit he belonged to before Dasch's (this one was outright assault), and then by at least one or two other men he thought were interested in him but they were just interested in one thing. Baswitz is the only one who doesn't treat him like he's disposable, and actually respects his feelings, including apologizing for yelling when he was late and for touching his face without his permission. Klemper isn't used to men treating him like an equal (even the one other man who's treated him properly, Lt. Dasch, by necessity has to address him as a subordinate), so Baswitz's attention proves, at least for a little while, that he isn't the complete garbage he believes himself to be, he deserves better. Although the two of them are together for only a couple of weeks, this is one of the most meaningful interactions either of them has, and it leaves a lasting impression on them both. Finally Baswitz's wound heals enough and he gathers enough strength that he can make it on his own, and they both reach the conclusion that their relationship is over. They knew it could never be permanent, though it's still painful. They try to figure out how to proceed--which includes explaining to their respective peers why they were absent for so long--and decide that sticking as close as possible to the truth is the best option. They come up with the cover story that Baswitz, although wounded, managed to coerce Klemper into tending to his injury and held him hostage at gunpoint; Klemper finally escaped him, and both then returned to their people. Klemper says this story isn't believable enough unless Baswitz took a shot at him as he fled, and insists that Baswitz indeed shoot him. While Baswitz is stammering and trying to think of something else he can do, Klemper pulls his pistol and shoots himself in the arm, again freaking him out. They share a final kiss, then Klemper climbs out of the trench and jogs off in the direction where they'd last spotted a Wehrmacht unit passing by; Baswitz climbs out and runs off in the opposite direction. He casts Klemper one last wistful glance before disappearing into the trees, and from the story. Klemper comes across his unit, who are surprised to find him still alive. He tells his story and is brought to a field hospital for treatment...but then the story slowly starts to fall apart. I'm not sure how--I do know that neither Klemper nor Baswitz is to blame, they both stick to it, but somehow the truth comes out, and Klemper is left dealing with the consequences. The first and only positive relationship he's experienced leads to him getting investigated by the Wehrmacht and the Schutzstaffel for potential treason as well as breaking the laws on homosexuality and racial hygiene; being threatened with dischargement, imprisonment, and execution; and finally, getting demoted to Oberschütze (Private First Class) and losing the ability to be promoted again. He's left feeling incredibly bitter about this turn of events...but he never blames Baswitz. Over the rest of Klemper's relatively short life, Baswitz is the one man he never feels any resentment or doubt toward (even his final, "permanent" relationship, with Lt. Ratdog, starts out with much skepticism on his part--he repeatedly insists Ratdog will eventually leave him and not come back, until Ratdog proves himself--and there are further issues with Ratdog's fidelity and Klemper's drug use and trauma); the brief time he spent with Baswitz is the one time he can look back on without any spite or bitterness. At least until Ratdog proves he believes the same, Baswitz's insistence that Klemper means something, he's worthy of love, is the sole lifeline Klemper has to hold on to. And he really, really needs that lifeline, as he comes precariously close to stepping off the ledge more than once. Klemper doesn't survive long past the end of the war. Ironically, it's just shortly AFTER the Third Reich falls, when he and Ratdog are walking through an open space, that he abruptly shoves Ratdog to the ground, saving him from a sniper's bullets--he points out where the shots came from and Ratdog fires back, killing a fellow German soldier. Ratdog is infuriated: "The war's over! I'm not even your enemy! Why are you still fighting?" But he's distracted from his angry fit when Klemper grasps hold of his sleeve and then slumps to the ground--he took the sniper's shot, himself. Ratdog carries him back to his home and removes the bullet; Klemper rallies and the two talk a bit, making cautious but hopeful plans for a life together now that the fighting is done. A happy life, with someone who loves him, isn't something Klemper ever imagined he would have. And...he never does. He dies in his sleep, bleeding out from the other wound he sustained, which both of them managed to overlook through all the blood. He dies happy, he dies loved and not alone, he dies knowing he made a difference and he matters; yet Ratdog is of course inconsolable. He buries Klemper beside the grave of his young son. Some time after he begins a relationship with Didrika, who also lost her lover Boris, though the two never fall in love with each other and the partnership is more to share their grief and stave off the loneliness than anything else. A stranger passes not far from Ratdog's woodland cottage one day and spots the grave with its cross topped by a Stahlhelm; curious, he draws close to investigate. Upon tipping up the helmet he spots an Iron Cross hanging there as well, and then sees the name carved on the wooden cross: G KLEMPER. Stunned, he sits and stares at the grave for a while; before he leaves, wiping at his eyes, he places a pebble on the ground before it. The next few times he visits he does the same, until one day when he stands up there's a man pointing a rifle at his head. He demands to know why he's there and why he keeps dropping rocks on the grave. The stranger replies that this is a custom when visiting a loved one's grave--he knew Klemper once--and even though Klemper wasn't Jewish, still, it seemed like a suitable thing to do. The man with the rifle stares at him for a moment before slowly lowering the gun and saying, "Your name is Elias...?" "Elias Baswitz," the visitor confirms, confused--"Do I know you?" "Nein," Ratdog replies, "but Godfrey talked about you." After a few tentative words Ratdog invites Baswitz back to his house and they talk for a while, not just getting to know each other but getting to know Klemper better as well. "Every time an army unit passed by, I'd hide but look to see if he was with them," Baswitz says, "but he never was. I never saw him again after that. I thought I would go looking for him after the war...I thought for sure he would outlive me." The two part ways, Ratdog granting Baswitz permission to visit Klemper's grave when he wishes, though as he leaves again, Baswitz can't help but feel somehow that it's not enough. He and Ratdog will remember Klemper, but he feels like more people should. Baswitz manages to locate Zierenwald (name tentative and from a West European town name generator!--apparently it loosely translates to "Ornamental Forest"?), a small town/village that Klemper visited with his unit back when he was still an Unteroffizier. They'd arrived just as another unit was preparing to burn the village to the ground, ostensibly to flush out partisans, in reality because they were just jerks who liked looting and burning places (including Klemper's own home). Klemper confronted the sergeant in charge of the other unit and although he slightly outranked him, Klemper still managed to threaten his unit into backing down, and managed to hold them off until Dasch and some others arrived. They searched the village and of course found no partisans. The other unit was verbally reprimanded and sent on their way; Klemper was later awarded the Iron Cross for his actions. Baswitz asks to speak with the village leaders about constructing a memorial for Klemper; they point out that they've placed his name over a wishing well in the square, and haven't forgotten him. When Baswitz suggests something more memorable--a statue--they're excited by the idea, and start brainstorming how to gather funds to purchase a small plot of land and commission a sculptor. Baswitz donates a sizable sum he's already saved and gathered himself, while the villagers scrape together the rest. They hire a sculptor, but there's an issue--he needs a good likeness of Klemper to work from, and none are known to still exist. Help comes from a very unexpected source: Otto Himmel, an ex-Schutzstaffel officer. He actually played a pivotal role in keeping Klemper from being discharged from the army or executed; now, hearing about the need for a photo of Klemper, he asks if a drawing would do. It turns out Klemper and Ratdog once visited the headquarters of a Nazi medical project that Himmel's son, Kolten, was involved in; Klemper paused outside Kolten's cell, then gave him a small glass figurine he'd stolen. (Klemper obviously had a habit of making off with various things that weren't his.) After he left, Kolten, who has the temperament and mental age of a child but possesses an eidetic memory, drew a picture of Klemper standing outside his cell. Himmel diligently collects his son's artwork, and offers the drawing in place of a photograph. The sculptor is amazed by the realism and says it'll do perfectly. Some time after, on a sunny spring day, the little parcel of land the village purchased is dedicated as a park in Klemper's name, and before the small crowd that's gathered, the statue, named "The Hero Of Zierenwald," is unveiled. The villagers murmur appreciatively and clap. "My drawing, Papa," Kolten says, and Himmel smiles proudly at him. "It looks just like him," Dasch murmurs; "he'd hate it," and chuckles softly while wiping his eyes. Ratdog and Baswitz remain mostly silent until the crowd disperses, then draw close to look the statue over. Eventually Ratdog bids Baswitz goodbye and he's left on his own, with only a few straggling village children laughing and running around in the distance. Klemper had been a child soldier, so Baswitz feels it's suitable that he watches over the children now. He looks at the inscription on the statue's base, beneath the title--"A brilliant spark which faded too soon"--and rubs the blur away from his eyes. Klemper had always wanted his life to mean something; Baswitz made sure it did. [Elias Baswitz 2022 [Friday, October 21, 2022, 3:10:27 AM]] |