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Rebekkah Schindel Blog Entry |
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July 19, 2024, 12:00:07 AM July 19, 2024, 12:00:20 AM 7/19/24: r/SketchDaily theme, "Free Draw Friday." This week's characters from my anthro WWII storyline are Rebekkah Schindel, without head covering (top drawing) and with head covering (bottom drawing), and Hanna Schindel. They're the wife and young daughter of Isaak Schindel, who I never posted here but he's in my art blog (1/27/23). Rebekkah is pregnant when her husband is imprisoned for defending them so he doesn't get to meet Hanna until much later. There'll be more about them later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding their design: Rebekkah is a German spaniel and always wears the head kerchief out in public. Hanna is nearsighted and wears really oversized, secondhand spectacles since they're poor; Isaak is a boxer (uh, the dog, not the profession), so Hanna takes after both parents. Her design's a bit iffy but she's kind of an awkward-looking kid so maybe it fits. TUMBLR EDIT: Most of Rebekkah's and Hanna's part of the story has already been outlined in Isaak Schindel's entry; Schindel himself is the primary character of the trio, so their background details are mostly undeveloped. The rest of this entry will be written individually to avoid repetition. Based on Schindel's entry, I gather that Rebekkah, while being skittish and anxious in temperament, is also the brighter and more rational of the two; Schindel refers to her as "the smart one, the one with a head for things" when seeking her advice on a plan of escape from their ghetto before it's liquidated, and she's the one who suggests they pack a go bag and leave via a weak point in the ghetto's perimeter to seek aid from her extended family on the outside. She's prudent, and has a strong family ethic; she and her husband are both overjoyed and excited to learn that she's pregnant, yet she can't help but fret over how they're going to raise a child in such circumstances. She has a strong moral code and cares deeply for her husband, yet understands that drastic times require drastic measures, thus she expresses worry, and resignation, when he starts taking on dubious jobs to get them by as the Nazi net tightens around them; she hates that he has to do anything illegal or dangerous, but by this time, pretty much any job available to him is illegal or dangerous. There's another detail revealed about Rebekkah in Schindel's entry: She and her husband have had a close relationship since they were children. They've known and loved each other pretty much all their lives. So they're pretty well in tune with each other; I imagine they can tell what mood the other is in with simply a glance, and can hold entire conversations without even saying a word. A big reason they stay so long in the ghetto is that they're comfortable with and rely on each other, and aren't sure how to function separately from each other. Isaak and Rebekkah are pretty much all each other has ever known, so when Schindel accidentally kills a ghetto policeman while defending Rebekkah, and is caught and dragged away, his first thought is to tell her to run, while her first thought is to try to help him. Her arm is already injured, though, and she knows she stands no chance--plus she's heavily pregnant--so her second thought is to save their child--and she flees. Rebekkah has some extended family in hiding on the outside, and manages to find them. They take her in and care for her; she's hysterical at first, wailing, "Isaak, my Isaak, those brutes took my poor Isaak, he's gone," and sobbing, heartbroken, believing he must already be dead. She goes into labor not long after and delivers a girl whom she names Hanna; Hanna resembles both of her parents, but more strongly her father, and Rebekkah just cries even harder as she embraces the child--"Isaak should be here, Isaak should be proud of you"--and nothing can console her. Secret contacts, Jew and gentile alike, keep the family updated on what they know. They bring Rebekkah news that both boosts her spirits, and horrifies her even further: Isaak reportedly survived his initial encounter with the SS authorities, and was not killed, but brought to the city's new labor camp. Rebekkah can't tell if this is good news or even worse, given the rumors of how the commandant, Dannecker, treats his prisoners. (He's widely known as "Dannecker der Teufel," the Devil, and the rumor is that he doesn't mind being called this even to his face.) She tries to consider it good news...until more information comes out, that Schindel is indeed still alive, and likely to remain so for the time being, as he's actively collaborating with the enemy. Rebekkah is dumbfounded: "Wh...what?" she asks in disbelief. Isaak killed a man for her! There's no way under Heaven he'd work with such people! The contact offers further explanation; similar to the Jewish ghetto policeman he killed, Schindel has apparently taken a position as Lagerälteste, a sort of prisoner functionary similar to a guard, within the camp--AKA, a kapo. He's now in charge of keeping an eye on his fellow inmates, intimidating them into submission when they get out of line, occasionally beating them with his club when they disobey--he answers directly to camp leadership himself. Dannecker is the only one who could have offered him the job. "You must understand," the contact says, "he surely did this only to preserve himself. One never knows what actions they're capable of until they're in that position. Of course this can't be something he wished to do." Kapos are granted better food and living conditions than their fellows, and most of all, they're protected--in theory--from most of the brutality of the SS guards. Schindel is obviously just doing the same thing he did before ending up imprisoned: looking out for his and his family's welfare, by whatever means are available to him. This does little to allay Rebekkah's dismay, however. She finds herself racked with guilt over the thought that maybe...it would've been better for everyone involved if her husband had indeed died at the start. Isaak Schindel's entry details everything he goes through to make it back home to Rebekkah and his child. He doesn't get the info she does, so he spends his imprisonment agonizing over the uncertainty of whether she's even still alive or not. And despite his "privileged" position in the camp, the other prisoners despise him (he beats and possibly kills one who picks a fight with him, which is why Dannecker offers him the position of Lagerälteste to start with), and Dannecker still occasionally targets him for psychological torment. His luck changes when Dannecker is killed and a new commandant, Reinhardt, takes over; Reinhardt is still a Nazi but his views on how to handle the "Jewish problem" are different from Dannecker's. Instead of viewing them as vermin to be exterminated, he views them as savages who might be redeemed through work, or at the very least, become a serviceable slave labor pool. He treats Schindel almost as a favored pet himself (calling him Herr Schindel, having him run errands, and affectionately placing his cap back on his head when Schindel removes it in his presence as is required), and Schindel is so used to mistreatment that he develops almost a sort of Stockholm syndrome for him. When Reinhardt is seriously wounded before the camp is liberated, Schindel refuses to leave his side until taken away by Allied forces who initially mistake him for an SS member in disguise (Reinhardt tells them to look at the tattoo on his arm and compare it to camp records as proof that he's in fact a prisoner). And Rebekkah has already caught wind of the sorts of things kapos have to do to stay alive for so long...and wonders if she really wants her own husband returning home after all. Kapos find themselves in an awful position following the war, for obvious reasons. Even those who did what they could to resist their SS masters in small ways are hated by their fellow former prisoners, as well as by their own communities; many end up shunned, their very nickname being used as the most offensive insult one Jew can call another. Rebekkah misses her husband...her old husband. The thought of him collaborating with the enemy, even if just to save himself, makes her queasy. While her surviving family members caution her not to judge so harshly, so soon, acquaintances and other freed prisoners aren't so magnanimous; they warn her that Schindel is someone not to be trusted any longer, especially around their child, Hanna. Rebekkah can't believe he'd ever do anything to harm either of them, but him working for the Nazis is bad enough. When he arrives at the small house she's since moved into at the edge of the city, she tells him, in a soft voice and with averted eyes, that she believes it would be for the best if he found his own place, and stayed away. She declines his tearful request to at least be allowed to meet and hug Hanna, saying that she's already told the girl her father died in the camps. (She hasn't told Hanna this, in fact, simply not knowing how to explain.) Schindel doesn't protest; he dejectedly turns away. Rebekkah goes to bed that night weeping, not knowing if she made the right choice. Her heart breaks for her Isaak but how could he help such awful people...? She's already heard rumors, from others who were freed from the camp, of the sort of things he had to do--the other prisoner he likely killed, the way he got friendly with a guard, the repeated times he targeted another prisoner for particularly brutal beatings, apparently unprompted. This isn't the Isaak she knew, though it is. She sinks into a deep depression, unaware that her husband has done the same, going as far as seriously considering taking his own life. A knock comes at Rebekkah's door one day. She opens it a crack, nervously peers out at the tall unfamiliar man standing on her stoop; he respectfully removes his cap when he sees her, and she pulls up her kerchief. "Frau Schindel--? Rebekkah Schindel?" the man asks. She nods--"Ja, may I help you...?" The man introduces himself as Josef Diamant, to which she asks if she knows him. He seems disconcerted, before saying, "Nein, but I knew your husband," and he rolls up his sleeve and shows her his tattooed arm. Rebekkah's eyes immediately fill with tears--"You're a friend of Isaak's?"--to which he says no, they weren't friends, but they knew each other, and he's why he's here. Sensing that he wishes to talk in private, she invites him in and seats him in the kitchen; he spots Hanna peering out at him while Rebekkah fetches some water, smiles at her, Rebekkah has Hanna say hallo then sends her to her room. As she sets down the water the man says, "You know der Teufel...?" Rebekkah pales and says, "Everyone knows der Teufel." "Ja, well..." he says, "I'm the one who killed him." Herr Diamant quietly and briefly explains who he is and why he's there. Schindel was already Lagerälteste when he was brought to the camp--"My old life doesn't matter, I'll skip all that"--and as he had a habit of disobeying the guards, he ended up on the wrong end of Schindel's club more than once. The two of them never shared any particular enmity, however, until Diamant directly stood up to Dannecker. "He had ways of dealing with prisoners, he could drive a person mad without delivering a single blow," Diamant explains, "it was a slow...excruciating process, but effective. He chose me for this. Everyone assumed I was already dead on my feet. But it went on for weeks." He says that Dannecker seemed to be seeking a way to effectively break him, and at last settled on an idea that involved Schindel. "I wish to spare your husband, and myself, so I won't go into detail about what Dannecker put us through," he says, though the way his breath hitches and his eyes grow glassy, Rebekkah can tell it must have been especially bad; "but in a way, it worked. He broke something in us that day. Your husband more than me, because he hadn't even done anything to deserve it, from what I know, he obeyed Dannecker faithfully. I won't judge. Just to say that Dannecker had no reason to involve him the way he did. That was the cruelty of it, you know." They all parted ways after the incident, yet at roll call not long after, Schindel knocked Diamant down unexpectedly; "I've never been beaten so hard in my life," Diamant murmurs, "and the whole time, he was screaming at me to fight back, get up and fight back. I didn't fight back. I just let him, until the guards came to separate us." He takes a breath, rubs an eye. "I don't believe your husband was yelling at me. I believe he was yelling at himself. That he wished he'd fought back." Diamant takes a drink of water, draws himself together. "I came here to tell you," he says, "I don't blame your husband for a thing. Nothing he did in there, nothing he did to me. I can't speak for anyone else, I imagine different people feel differently, but as for what happened to me, I blame no one but der Teufel. Your husband would never have done what he did without his word. I was there and I saw. He had no desire to obey. It broke something in him. What happened to us wasn't his fault. I need you to know this. I have lots of anger in my heart still, but none of it for him." "Why do you tell me this...?" asks Rebekkah. "Because I know that you doubt," Diamant replies, "and I need you to know for certain. Your husband made some bad decisions, but he's a decent man." He pushes his chair back, stands. "I suspect I'm the only one who can tell you this. And now that I've told you, it's time for me to go." He bobs his head, declines her invitation to stay longer--"I don't wish to intrude into your private life any more than I already have"--and departs. Hanna comes trotting back out and clambers into Rebekkah's lap and Rebekkah puts her arms around her, left with her roiling thoughts. She takes a couple of days to sort these thoughts out, let her feelings settle. And realizes just how keenly she hurts to have her Isaak back. She can feel the ache deep in her heart. She saw the grief in his eyes when he came to her, and now Diamant has had his say; she figures if there are still shadows in her husband's life to deal with, it's best if they deal with them together. If Diamant can forgive, she should be able to as well. She decides to reach out to him. She wants her husband back. There's one problem...she has no idea where he is. They've had no contact since she suggested that he stay someplace else, and he has no surviving family of his own to turn to, so he wouldn't be staying with them. She gingerly asks around, though of course her own acquaintances don't know, and they again urge her to just let him be. Increasingly disconsolate, she leaves Hanna in a relative's care and starts asking strangers she passes in the city--specifically, poor-looking people like herself--if they know her husband, and describes him as she has no photo. This goes nowhere for a while, but when she expands her search area, she finally gets a response. A groundskeeper in a park listens to her description and says, "Wait, does he have a scar, like so?--right across his nose--?" Rebekkah excitedly says yes, that's him, has he seen him? The groundskeeper claims he spotted Schindel several times in the park, and he suspects he may have been sleeping there at night. Rebekkah has to swallow her grief and guilt that she may have forced him into such a situation, and asks if he still stays there. The groundskeeper shakes his head; "Haven't seen him in a while now," he admits, but, "Last time I saw him, I wished him guten Tag, and he said he hoped so, somebody'd offered him a job. Said he wasn't gonna be sleeping in any park anymore." He doesn't know what sort of job this was or where Schindel ended up, but he hasn't been back since. Slightly buoyed but still frustrated in her search, Rebekkah returns to the city proper, and peruses the shops and businesses, many newly reopened from the war. Schindel was never particularly skilled in any endeavor he undertook; he was easily able to find menial jobs simply because he was so willing to do whatever anyone needed done, no matter how unpleasant. She can't exactly go asking around about illegal work, but then again, times are different, Jews are allowed to work legally again. Surely he'd be trying to go straight...? She thus turns her attention to any place with a "HELP WANTED" sign. As she's growing discouraged she steps into a print shop and asks for what feels like the hundredth time that day if there's an Isaak Schindel around. "Herr Schindel's busy setting type, who do I tell him is asking?" says the shop owner; "R--Rebekkah, Rebekkah Schindel," Rebekkah replies, her heart jumping. "Schindel...? Any relation?" he asks, to which she replies that she's his wife, and he leaves to fetch him. A moment later Schindel appears, wiping his hands on a rag, his eyes wide and blinking in surprise--"Rebekkah...?" he says, as if he'd never expected to see her again. "Isaak," Rebekkah says, wanting nothing more than to throw her arms around him, but refrains, fidgeting instead; he holds out his hand and she grasps it briefly. "Your hands," she exclaims, when her fingers come back stained; to which he blushes and stammers, "Ah--it's just ink--sorry," but she brushes it off. "You know typesetting...?" she asks curiously; this is the last sort of job she'd expected to find him in. "Now I do," he says with a shrug, "sort of. Why...why are you here?" Concern washes over his face. "Is everything all right?--Hanna--?" Rebekkah quickly reassures him that Hanna's fine, though he still seems confused; unable to hold it back anymore, she murmurs, "I miss you." He blinks and his eyes grow glassy; "I miss you, too," he says, and he doesn't sound angry or upset at all. Rebekkah takes a breath and presses on: "I...I wondered if, maybe, you'd like to come by tonight for supper," she says, "and...maybe you could stay, if you like." Schindel's answer is HERE. [Rebekkah Schindel 2024 [Friday, July 19, 2024, 12:00:07 AM]] [Rebekkah Schindel 2024 2 [Friday, July 19, 2024, 12:00:20 AM]] |