Are you imagining I don't already know that? It's stuck with me since my first day, when I was first told. Since a few days after that, when I worked up the nerve to ask if at least England was safe. The least I can do is find out what really happened, so my head will stop making up details on its own.
[Natasha doesn't bother apologizing, but on the other side of the tablet, she shifts in place. She understands, to a point—his desire to know far outweighs any desire to protect himself. She's felt the same in the past, even if it was never about anything on this scale. If he wants facts and nothing else, she can give him that. No coddling, she reminds herself, and her tone turns businesslike.]
What do you want to know? Everything I can tell you?
[She's not sure how much detail he wants, so she eases in.]
Hitler rose to power in Germany in the thirties. In Germany, for years, there was rising antisemitism and increasing government sanctioned discrimination. The Nuremberg Laws were passed around 1935. At their most basic, they made it illegal for Jews to marry non-Jews, prevented them from being considered German citizens, and stripped them of their civil rights. Non-Jews stopped associated with most German Jews, stopped going to Jewish business, started distancing themselves. It became a steady escalation—by the time the war started, Jews were being sent to concentration camps and killed or massively displaced. It started in Germany, then spread to German occupied territories.
Most of Western Europe. Some countries were neutral—Switzerland, Spain, Sweden, Ireland, a few others. The Soviet Union pushed the Nazis back eventually, as well.
What we call the Holocaust, now—that started in 1941. The camps began as prisons for political opponents, and weren't heavily used until the late thirties.
[There's a slight pause, and then:]
The camps you're thinking of, where people were killed on a massive scale... those were largely implemented at the beginning of the war.
[But he starts off with a few pointed questions, not shying away from the worst of it and sharply encouraging her not to, either. He'd meant what he'd said earlier. He's done imagining what the worst of the worst might be. He wants to know the truth.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cw: Holocaust talk
no subject
There isn't a solid number. Around six million Jews. More, counting the other people that were sent to the camps.
no subject
Tortured, and then killed with poison gas.
no subject
Yes.
no subject
[Still calm, still collected. His voice is just a little more tight, but that's all.]
no subject
no subject
Are you imagining I don't already know that? It's stuck with me since my first day, when I was first told. Since a few days after that, when I worked up the nerve to ask if at least England was safe. The least I can do is find out what really happened, so my head will stop making up details on its own.
Don't fucking patronize me, yeah?
no subject
What do you want to know? Everything I can tell you?
no subject
[He's just as businesslike. The subject matter deserves gravitas, but he's not willing to show emotion to her right now.]
no subject
[She doesn't want to repeat what he already knows when there's no need.]
no subject
no subject
Hitler rose to power in Germany in the thirties. In Germany, for years, there was rising antisemitism and increasing government sanctioned discrimination. The Nuremberg Laws were passed around 1935. At their most basic, they made it illegal for Jews to marry non-Jews, prevented them from being considered German citizens, and stripped them of their civil rights. Non-Jews stopped associated with most German Jews, stopped going to Jewish business, started distancing themselves. It became a steady escalation—by the time the war started, Jews were being sent to concentration camps and killed or massively displaced. It started in Germany, then spread to German occupied territories.
no subject
[He doesn't know where else.]
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
[He stiffens up on his end.]
no subject
[There's a slight pause, and then:]
The camps you're thinking of, where people were killed on a massive scale... those were largely implemented at the beginning of the war.
no subject
Yeah.
Anything else you think I'd want to know?
no subject
[He's in charge of this conversation, as far as she's concerned.]
no subject
no subject
no subject
[But he starts off with a few pointed questions, not shying away from the worst of it and sharply encouraging her not to, either. He'd meant what he'd said earlier. He's done imagining what the worst of the worst might be. He wants to know the truth.]
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)