New Story: My Neighbor's War · 6:42pm Feb 13th, 2020
My Neighbor began as a simple story of a kind old man displaying common decency. He was a fully fleshed out character from the start, but at first I had no designs on writing multiple stories about him. After the warm reception My Neighbor and Mr. Arrow received, however, I scripted out several other short narratives to follow his interactions with the Apples and other EqG cast members.
The third installment of My Neighbor was originally planned to be a story about Mr. Arrow having a chance encounter with Sunset Shimmer. But, in light of the 75th Anniversary of the Holocaust, I decided that another story needed to come first.
My Neighbor’s War is a reminder of why we fight. It’s about the wolf at the door and the necessity of brave people standing against the wolf. It’s also about the cost those brave pay, even if they survive the encounter.
Below, you will find some brief explanations of what inspiration I drew on for specific elements of the story. They will make more sense after reading My Neighbor’s War, but may be read on their own if you desire and don’t mind having a few plot elements spoiled.
Seventy-five years is a long time. Our memories must be longer.
Mr. Arrow’s experience at Dachau is inspired by the real-life liberation of Kaufering by American forces, the 101st Airborne among them. It was eloquently and hauntingly told in the Band of Brothers episode “Why We Fight.” Two scenes which are (to me) perhaps the most distressing are when the American soldiers stumble upon the camp and when the messenger is sent back. In the first, the audience doesn’t actually see the camp – we just see a line of hardened battle veterans standing and staring at something in mute incomprehension. In the second, the man who’s sent back fumbles his words as he tries to report what they’ve found to Major Winters; when Winters tells him to slow down and orders him to state clearly what they’ve found, the man helplessly replies that he has no idea. The fact that these men, even after seeing the horrors of war, still had some innocence left to be destroyed has long lingered in my thoughts.
The story of Joseph “Joey Ox” Mueller referenced in the second chapter is one of the most incredible stories of wartime spycraft I’ve ever heard. Joey Ox was a Bavarian Catholic lawyer who personally confronted Himmler over the persecution of the Jews and was an open and vocal opponent of National Socialism. Pope Pius XII specifically recruited him for his secret war against the Nazis because of his incredible range of contacts, his staunch faith, his open anti-Nazi sentiments, and the fact that the Jewish community knew they could trust him.
Despite his impressive anti-Nazi credentials, Mueller contrived to get hired by the Nazi government. They hired him to find and infiltrate groups which were rescuing Jews and other “enemies” of the Nazis or else were plotting to overthrow the Nazi government. The twist: he was genuinely working with all these groups to rescue people and overthrow the Nazis. This included backing the conspirators of Operation Valkyrie and multiple other assassination attempts on Hitler. This means that the Nazis hired one of the men who tried to depose them (in fact, one of the most powerful men who tried to depose them) and paid him to do it. It’s both hilarious and impressive. You can read about his story, and the broader web of intrigue he was a part of, in Mark Riebling’s gripping and thorough Church of Spies.
World War II is full of incredible stories of covert heroism – ordinary people who faced unspeakable evils and said, “No.” These include the Swiss diplomat Carl Lutz who, with the help of his wife Trudi, saved over 62,000 people from the Holocaust, as well as Irena Sendler – a Pole who saved 2,500 Jews, Nicholas Winton – a British man who saved 669 Jews, and thousands upon thousands of others across Europe, many of whom likely died anonymously and whose names are known only to God. Their legacy inspired the character of Werner Banner.
Incidentally, Werner Banner’s name is taken from Werner Klemperer and John Banner, who played Colonel Klink and Sergeant Shultz in the World War II comedy Hogan’s Heroes. Ironically, the men who played the German leads in the show were both Jews (as were several other cast members, including Robert Clary, who survived Auschwitz). Both Klemperer and Banner were immigrants to America (the former German, the latter Austrian) and served in the US Armed Forces in World War II.
Klemperer agreed to play a German officer during the Nazi regime on the grounds that Klink would be a bumbling fool who never succeeded (and who wasn’t a Nazi so much as a bumbling bureaucrat who happened to work for them). John, who lost a great many friends and family in the Holocaust, enjoyed playing Schultz because Schultz, too, was not a Nazi – simply a likeable, if dimwitted, German soldier who happened to live during that time and was broadly apolitical. Speaking on how Jews like Clary, Banner, and Klemperer handled the filming, Gene Reynolds (director of 36 episodes) remarked, “[The] business of ‘Hogan’s’ did not offend them because they were not making fun of a concentration camp. They were making fun of a prisoner of war camp and there is an enormous difference.” Purportedly, the actors all enjoyed their time on the set immensely, and certainly enjoyed mocking the Nazi regime.
As for why I decided to make Rarity Jewish… well, that’s something of a personal reminder. You see, the real “only gentile in the garment industry” was a relative of mine who worked in New York in the 1920s and whose Jewish friends were always good to his family. The stories I’ve been told of these friends paint a picture of kind, generous, gregarious, and, yes, fashionable people who I came to associate with Rarity early on (as I happened to have re-heard their stories right about when I got into the show).
Why is this a personal reminder to me? Well, because those Jewish friends who were so good to my family would have been barred from many social clubs and even jobs in the 1920s. Because they might have still been barred from them in the 1960s, as happened to a teacher friend of mine on account of her Jewish grandfather. Because there are countries where the Holocaust is denied by the government. Because there are countries where being Jewish can be a death sentence. Because the Jews aren’t the only ones who face such persecution.
Vigilance against tyranny is not an optional endeavor, nor is it one that can be delegated only to “others.” We fail in our watch at our own peril. This is not to say that we should be paranoid and jump at ghosts (indeed, interpreting evil where there is none and inflating small evils beyond their ken often creates the ‘boy who cried wolf’ and makes things worse), but neither can we risk complacency. Freedom is only ever a generation or two away from destruction.
I’d like to think that, if it came down to it, I’d have the courage to be like Mueller or Lutz or Sendler. Even more than that, I’d like to prevent my country placing me in a position where I have to find out.
Something for us all to keep in mind.
In Memoriam, the Seventeen Million
Not Forgotten
I guess you haven't heard of Chiune Sugihara then? Older brother did a history fair project on him. It's a really uplifting but also bittersweet story.
He was definitely not a spy for the Japanese in Lithuania who decided to ignore orders and issue Visas to Japan (there was supposed to be a third country to go do after Japan). He spend 18 to 20 hours a day writing Visas, and when he was ordered to leave it's said that as the train was pulling out he was still writing them and throwing them out the window, although at this point is was just the consulate's stamp and his signature.
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Thank you for teaching me about him. He was an incredible man, and deserves to be remembered.
Your blog posts are always the most informative, and thoughtful things I ever read on this entire website.
You are a treasure, thank you for sharing this.
I look forward to reading this new story when I get a chance.
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You are most kind.