Red Genia

[Pannonian]

Roma Ligocka may be the Red Genia described in Schindler's Ark.

A Good Man in a Bad Time

According to Mr. Keneally, who absorbed archives of eyewitness material in a remarkably short time, it began in earnest one summer day in 1942, when Schindler and his latest mistress were riding on horseback in the hills surrounding Cracow. Below them stretched a suburb with a wall around it, the new ghetto. Shouts drifted up the grassy slope, an SS Aktion was in course. Schindler saw Jews being driven out of houses, lined up and sorted with the crazed orderliness that was the signature of the killing machine. On one street, a man resisted, and an SS soldier shot him in the head. Schindler noticed a little girl in a red coat turn around to watch. The SS soldier patted her on the head and coaxed her back into the line. Schindler got off his horse and threw up. He understood now that the SS did not care who witnessed these acts, because the witnesses, even the little girl in the red coat, would die too. Death would erase the Jews, and also the killing.

'I saw myself in Schindler's List'

Scurrying around the streets in search of safety, Ligocka feared that her red coat would make her a target.

"We didn't have anything to eat or wear. It was a cold winter and my grandmother sewed the coat from an old skirt of my mother's," she explained.

The red woollen coat did make her stand out, but it was to be to her benefit.

After her father was taken to a concentration camp, Ligocka and her mother were taken in by a Polish family.

Attracted by the brightness of her clothes, they dyed the little girl's hair blonde and pretended that she was their country cousin. As a result of their kindness she survived World War II.

[PanzerJaeger]

Roma Ligocka may be the Red Genia described in Schindler's Ark.

Not appropriate

L VI

[Pannonian]

quote deleted

L VI

Reply removed

L VI

[PanzerJaeger]

Not appropriate

L VI

Why was that innappropriate? This drug addict is making a lot of money off of her claims. Why shouldn't that be mentioned in a topic about her? Or was this thread simply meant to illicit sympathy with no critical analysis whatsoever?

quote deleted

L VI

Yet somehow this was deemed both appropriate and relevant to the topic?

[Louis VI the Fat]

Why was that innappropriate?

Miss Ligocka may be the girl in the red coat. Maybe not. Maybe she spent a troubled adulthood because of her traumatic early childhood. Maybe she is a profiteering junkie fantasist.

Few doubt, however, she spent her early childhood in the Cracow ghetto. Considering her personal, and the general, circumstances explored in this thread, one wil have to treat the subject with some dignity.

Also, this is the Monastery, not the Backroom. Emphasis is on a less political, less confrontational style.



Critical analysis is fine. For example, Wiki says that the 'girl in red' in the Spielberg movie is apparantly based on an eyewitness account of girl in a pink coat, who was killed, which would indicate miss Ligocka is not this particular girl.

[Pannonian]

Critical analysis is fine. For example, Wiki says that the 'girl in red' in the Spielberg movie is apparantly based on an eyewitness account of girl in a pink coat, who was killed, which would indicate miss Ligocka is not this particular girl.

"Red Genia" appears once more after that incident. During the clearing out of the Krakow ghetto, she is caught up with the others. Dr. Schindel, her uncle and one of the Schindlerjuden (and who probably recounted this incident) notices her because of her bright red coat, but she somehow eludes the SS guards and sidles away, back to the ghetto where she goes back into hiding before being picked up by Schindel. That's the last we see of her in the novel. Further analysis of the novel here.

[Louis VI the Fat]

"Red Genia" appears once more after that incident. During the clearing out of the Krakow ghetto, she is caught up with the others. Dr. Schindel, her uncle and one of the Schindlerjuden (and who probably recounted this incident) notices her because of her bright red coat, but she somehow eludes the SS guards and sidles away, back to the ghetto where she goes back into hiding before being picked up by Schindel. That's the last we see of her in the novel. Further analysis of the novel here.

I've seen the movie, never read the book. In the film, the girl in red dies, in a powerful image of black-and-white with just the red of her coat in colour. The film does not follow the novel in the fate of the girl in red.

(I'm quite sure this is tossed about as a great victory for the deniers. Perhaps she also got a date wrong, mixed up March 12th with March the 14th somewhere, 'which is further proof that blahblahblah')

~~o~~o~~<<oOo>>~~o~~o~~

The colour red in the movie is highly symbolic. The red of the bloodshed, symbolising the fate of those murdered. Quite striking too in an otherwise black-and-white film. In real life, the colour of her coat may have had far reaching consequences, more important than cinematographic and symbolic considerations.

The colour is coincidental, it was not a real coat, but was made for the girl from a leftover skirt. A triviality, a coincidence. But with far-reaching consequences.
At first, it endagered the girl, sticking out like a sore thumb. An easily identifiable victim. Two other consequences however, more favourable:

"Red Genia," as she is called, is the young girl in red whom Schindler, from his horse, sees amid the confusion during the liquidation of the Kraków ghetto in March of 1943. Schindler does not know who she is, but it is learned that she is staying with the Dresners after the Polish couple living in the countryside find it too risky to look after her; her parents had been rounded up by the SS and taken away. "Redcap," as she is called by the Dresner boys, is a first cousin of Mrs. Dresner. She is schooled by her Polish caretakers to pretend not to be Jewish but Polish. Schindler wonders why the SS men do not execute her immediately but steer her back in line when she breaks free. He later realizes that this means that they recognize that she—like all witnesses—is to be executed.

The red drew the attention of Schindler, forced his eyes focused on the girl. This close attention paid is what made him understand. What made him realise the true nature of the events. The red coat may have been responsible for his saving 1100 Jews.


Secondly, the red made the little girl look cute, irresistable. It played a part in the decision of the Polish farmers to take her in. How could they abandon a sweet little girl like that to her fate?


Peculiar, how a seemingly trivial thing like the colour of one's coat can decide over life and death.

[Pannonian]

Secondly, the red made the little girl look cute, irresistable. It played a part in the decision of the Polish farmers to take her in. How could they abandon a sweet little girl like that to her fate?


Peculiar, how a seemingly trivial thing like the colour of one's coat can decide over life and death.[/LEFT]

There's an incident which IIRC is partially dramatised in the film. The bit I remember is Poldek Pfefferberg clicking his heels in front of Amon Goeth. Leading up to that, Pfefferberg had seen an SS man, possibly Goeth himself, setting dogs on a woman and her 2-3 year old child. The SS man took the child and splattered it against a wall, before shooting the mother. If Ligocka were Red Genia, she would have been a similar age at the time of the Aktion described.

Taking off his surgical coat, Dr Schindel rushed to the square and saw her almost at once, sitting on the grass, affecting composure within the wall of guards. Dr Schindel knew how faked the performance was, having had to get up often enough to hush her night screams.

....

She maintained her part-stumbling, part-ceremonial bluffer's pace all the way to Pankiewicz's corner and round it, keeping to the blind side of the street. Dr Schindel repressed the urge to applaud. Though the performance deserved an audience, it would by its nature be destroyed by one.

[PanzerJaeger]

Not fit for the Monastery. It touches on a heavily politicised, controversial subject matter. See post below.

LVI

[Louis VI the Fat]

Indeed it belongs to the Backroom.

There is a fine line between critical assesment and politicised revisionist history. The former is, understandably perhaps, often well steered clear of for fear of being labelled the latter. The latter more often than not assumes the guise of the former. It is a fine line, and I intent in the Monastery to err on the safe side: the line is all too easily crossed on the internet, with its tendency for the brief statement over careful analysis.
Your post above can be read as a chilling, cold-hearted, gravely insulting statement. It can also be read as a 'Norman Finkelstein'-esque critique. I'll apply the principle of charity.

The post will, however, be removed. I'm leaving it up for brief while to give the opportunity to move it to the Backroom, should you wish the explore the subject there.

[Megas Methuselah]

Delete it.

[PanzerJaeger]

Wow. I have not seen a thread so heavily edited in quite some time. Although I stand by my comments, this was obviously not the proper venue in which to make them. Regardless of your personal feelings towards me, Pannonian, I do apologize for derailing the thread to such an extent. Please carry on.

[Louis VI the Fat]

To me, history is most fun when it stirs contemporary passions. I'll always prefer a fine tussle over current opinions of the Confederacy over a detailed account of a single battle in 1863.
Critical assesment too is always encouraged.

However, some subjects are simply too political. There is a Backroom on this forum for that, for those who enjoy gritty politics. One needs to become a member, the Backroom is a bit shielded of. The Monastery is more public, the casual visitor can wander in. This will have to be taken into account.

The line between what's political, and what's history is thin, and unfortunately to no small degree entirely subjective. A heated debate over the division of the Ottoman Empire after WWI belongs in the Monastery. The subject 'The creation of the state of Israel' is depending on the tone and focus easily Backroom material. 'The Armenian Genocide' I could well see myself move to the Backroom too. Even if all three subjects are related and about historical events.
The Yugoslav wars in the 1990s are too recent for the Monastery. 'There's no business like Shoah business' is Backroom. Too recent, too political. Golhagen versus Browning is Monastery. The communist orgah can argue the historical necessity of the Wall, the fascist can criticise the claims of the anti-fascists. But emphasis will have to be on history, and there has to be a dignified tone when living relatives are involved (for example, compare what would be appropriate for those disputing the claims of 9-11 survivors).

A critical assesment, preferably by a reputable source, of the memoirs of living persons such as Roma Ligocka is fine.



These are my principles. If you don't like them, I've got others.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Wow. I have not seen a thread so heavily edited in quite some time. Although I stand by my comments, this was obviously not the proper venue in which to make them. Regardless of your personal feelings towards me, Pannonian, I do apologize for derailing the thread to such an extent. Please carry on.

Thankyou, PJ, for your considerate words.