fic: "After the War, Before the War" (X-Men: First Class)

[kindkit]

Title: After the War, Before the War
Fandom: X-Men: First Class
Characters: Erik
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Holocaust references
Word count: 300
Summary: Erik is a displaced person.
Notes: There's some historical fudging here; see the endnote for an explanation.




From one camp to another, that's liberation. In this camp Erik still has a number, but he's not tortured. There are no crematoria. He's called a displaced person, not a filthy Jew.

At first, memories half drown him. His mother. His father, who Erik learns was gassed the first day. Then they subside, and even his dreams are rare.

He doesn't make friends. When he came here he was hungry, but not skeletal. He has all his teeth and he's taller than other boys his age. So rumours went round. They think he was a sonderkommando or a kapo in a special section. Some kind of collaborator, anyway.

Perhaps they're right.

They talk about Israel, his fellow Jews. Their state, their home, where they will be safe. Where they will be one people again, united.

Erik has decided that he will not go. He's not one of them, not entirely. He's a new creature, and the new are persecuted as monsters or worshipped as gods. Schmidt's words, but yet not wrong. There's no home for Erik. Anyway, he has work to do, once he's strong enough to do it.

On ration tins of condensed milk, Erik sees the words Product Of Ireland. A small island, far from Germany and Poland, and far from Palestine too. He likes islands. He likes the thought of a place with so much milk that people give it away.

Perhaps he'll go there. Not to eat and breed and grow old peaceably like a beast spared from the slaughterhouse; just until he's a man. A boy could kill Schmidt, but it'll take a man to find him. Someone who can travel, negotiate, manipulate, threaten, and bribe.

When he's a grown monster, a young god, he can avenge his mother. Who was human, and is dead.


****


Endnote: Erik is in a DP camp like the ones established in Austria and western Germany, but Auschwitz was actually liberated by the Soviets. I'm presuming, since Erik didn't end up stuck in Eastern Europe, that Erik wasn't still in Auschwitz when the Soviets arrived. It makes sense that Schmidt would've somehow had himself and Erik transferred west as the Soviets advanced.

Also, although Israel was not established as a state until 1948, I'm assuming that post-war Zionists were already using the language of statehood to encourage Jewish immigration.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

I'm so glad to see someone writing about how Erik's concentration camp experience was very different to that of most people, even though his experiences up to that time were no different. The decisions here, not to go to Israel, and just to wait until he is an adult, make a lot of sense in that context - his persecution as a Jew turned into torture as a mutant. I wonder also if it gives him some sense of control - in this fic he is very clear about his future - to hang everything on Schmidt as his mother's murderer, something that he can plausibly do something about.

[st_aurafina]

Best explanation of the accent yet. Also, nice to acknowledge that once he's out of the camp, things are not all rosy and wonderful. It's very scary to see him start the process of forging himself into a weapon.

[starlady]

Well done.

I'm assuming that post-war Zionists were already using the language of statehood to encourage Jewish immigration.

If by "post-war" you mean post-World War I, yeah. From what I've read, there wasn't much need for encouragement after 1945--the British were interning Holocaust survivors on Cyprus to try to keep them from immigrating to Palestine for a while. And people were going despite the guerrilla war.

[kindkit]

Thanks!

Erik's concentration camp experience was very different to that of most people

Yeah. Given that Schmidt was trying to maximize Erik's powers, it makes sense that he would have protected Erik as well as tortured him--made sure he was adequately fed and not subjected to slave labor, and probably ensured that Erik wasn't killed towards the end of the war as the Nazis were trying to dispose of the evidence of what they'd done. As I said to starlady on another post, Erik probably has overwhelming amounts of survivor's guilt as a result. It's not that he suffered less than others, but he suffered differently, less visibly, and in a situation where survivor's guilt is inevitable I think that would compound it.

to hang everything on Schmidt as his mother's murderer

Yes, it gives him control and again it's a way of coping with his guilt and the unbearable knowledge that if it hadn't been for Schmidt, he probably would have died in Auschwitz.

[kindkit]

Best explanation of the accent yet.

Thanks! I still don't know exactly how Erik got to Ireland or how he lived there, except that he almost certainly did it clandestinely. Ireland did accept a very small number of Jewish refugee children, but not until 1947-48, and Erik would probably have been considered too old by then. I think he stowed away on a ship or something and then some humanitarian-minded priests let him into their school as a charity pupil.

It's very scary to see him start the process of forging himself into a weapon.

It is, but I think it may have been the only way he could cope, psychologically. Poor Erik.

[kindkit]

I'm glad you liked it! You can probably see the traces in it of our conversation about Erik's survivor's guilt.

I did know about the immigration thing; I was trying to explain the references to "Israel" rather than "Palestine" and the specific word "state." To be quite honest it was a major historical screw-up that I didn't catch until the story was posted, and the word count issue made it too difficult to change.

[skywaterblue]

Yep. Zionism actually began as a reaction to the Dreyfus affair, which was pre-WWI. The modern state of Israel views Theodor Herzl as its founder and he was radicalized to create a secular political Zionism (in contrast to, say, a religious-based Zionism centered around the restoration of the Temple - couldn't tell you when that started, possibly has existed since 68 AD) after reporting on the trial for a Franco-Yiddish newspaper.

IRL, Herzl died before the Zionist movement settled on Israel and it is (I believe) not entirely clear that he was 100% in favor of it. Immigration to Palestine started shortly after whenever they did decide, however, because on my Birthright trip we learned that Tel Aviv was founded in 1908. And the reason I remember that is because it meant my hometown, Las Vegas, is actually three years older. Which is weird - Tel Aviv still has a pretty old world European feel and Las Vegas is probably the model modern American sprawling metropolis.

[skywaterblue]

This is a nice short piece that really smooths over the ruffles of Movieverse canon. (I believe the comics answer is that Erik and Magda escaped Auschwitz months before the end and got out on foot.) I enjoyed it.

[starlady]

Weren't they thinking about Madagascar for a while?

I think, but could very well be wrong, that the spiritual Zionism didn't actually start until after the Bar Kokhba revolt and the dissolution of Judaea in the 120s--between the destruction of the Temple in 70 and then, records seem to indicate that Judaea was never really fully pacified, maybe to the point where Roman writ only ran in the towns. Certainly the Romans were keeping an unusually large military presence in the province until Bar Kokhba.

[kindkit]

If I remember rightly, the Madagascar plan originated with Jewish Zionists but was then taken up, creepily enough, by the Nazis before the war made it impossible. Eichmann was a huge supporter--Hannah Arendt describes Eichmann as a Zionist, which is probably one reason Eichmann in Jerusalem (which I think is mostly brilliant) pissed so many people off.

[kindkit]

Thank you!

I think some of the movieverse's ruffles are unsmoothable (I consider XMFC and X1-3 to be separate canons, because they conflict on basic things like when Charles was paralyzed and how old Charles and Erik were when they met) but I do enjoy making things make sense when I can.

[skywaterblue]

Madagascar, Uganda, provinces of Russia, Alaska... I've heard lots of stories and I would not at all be surprised to hear of more. Essentially Herzl met with any old European colonialist who had a relatively empty chunk of land for a while there.

That might be right. This conversation is reminded me I was wanting to read Chabon's newest book.

[skywaterblue]

This new film was essentially a soft reboot. I have to say I somewhat prefer what X3 had to say about Erik and Charles pre-X1, and I'm not terribly wild about the way this one re-writes Erik's camp experience. Pleased as pie about the new Mystique canon so it is a wash.

[kindkit]

I somewhat prefer what X3 had to say about Erik and Charles pre-X1

I do too--it makes more sense for them to have been friends for a long time before the split. In my head they were a couple for about thirty years and ran the school together while Scott and Jean were there.

this one re-writes Erik's camp experience

I'm not sure what you mean, since X1-3 didn't say anything about what happened to Erik in Auschwitz after that moment at the gate. I quite like ("like" really feels inappropriate but you know what I mean) how that was handled in the Magneto: Testament comic, and with a few changes--notably the removal of Magda, since to me movieverse Erik is gay--it's my head canon for X1-3 Erik. But I don't dislike the XMFC version, except in the sense that it overpersonalizes the issue a bit, and I do have problems with the whole "Erik becomes just like Shaw" thing.

[skywaterblue]

Maybe re-write is too strong. Overpersonalizes is my issue. I prefer the version where it we didn't know about Shaw mainly because I don't think the Holocaust needs to be any more awful than it already was.

I also prefer a shades-of-grey Erik, though. Not only is he a more interesting character that way, he can also serve as a didactic tool for talking about a lot of issues that probably need a good fictional hearing-out.