I have a question about the hair cutting scene. When Hannah and Rivka have their hair cut, the "barber" isn't using sissors, but some other kind of object. I have seen this object in other Holocaust/WW2 movies. What is it? Thanks!
God Bless!
i think its like a razor (shaver?), to shave the head,like ones around today, although not electric. cant be sure though
shareNot 100% sure, but they appear to be clippers like the kind used to clip animals, sheep, horses, or even dogs. Would account for the rough hair cut given, and would be readily available. A holocust museum should be able to give a better idea.
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I watched this movie in Social Studies and my teacher said that they were dog clippers. It was just another way to shame them. They aren't allowed to cut their hair or get tattoos and that's just what they did.
shareI dont get ya. They were made to get tattoos incase they had "escaped" and they were an easy way to identify the people. The didnt have names they were just numbers.
share...actually...they got the numbers--not if they escaped..but just to strip their identity..they no longer have their names, meaning that they arent really people, just property..like branding(is that the right word?) a cow.
shareI was taught that Jews are not supposed to get tattoos, according to their religious laws, and the Nazis knew this when they did it; so the idea of them being tattooed is that much more horrific, to me. In addition to the humiliation of being tattooed like cattle on a farm, IF they lived, the tattoo would be a permanent reminder of the horror they lived and of those who had tormented them.
shareThey cut prisoners hair in the camps to control head lice. Lice were responsible for the typhus epidemics which periodically swept through the camps so the Nazis tried to eliminate the source of this disease. If they used dog clippers it was because that was the quickest way to cut the hair, not because it shamed them.
shareI think the shame was icing on the cake.
"I met Jesus today. He tried to sell me a pen with a knife in it." - Paul(my little brother)
You are joking? To control head lice? You seriously think that the nazis were concerned about the few jews that they kept alive contracting typhus, while they were mass murdering the majority of men women and children that passed through the death camps.
sharenetuser247,
Before you are rude to other people, you probably should make sure you have your facts straight.
Jews hair was cut so they didnt get lice. The majority of Jews were first sent to working camps. Here they were treated much better than concentration camps. They got their hair cut so they wouldn't get sick or die from diseases and problems from lice. Here, they wanted to keep them alive because of the obvious reason, working. When they did get typus or something, depending on how bad it was they were sent to concentration camps or death camps.
Typhus respects neither race nor religion. They were protecting themselves.
shareI've read a lot of biographies and autobiographies about survivors. One of the best I've ever read was Rena's Promise, about 2 Polish sisters (Rena and Danka) who survived more than 3 years in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belson. In it Rena explains a lot of things regarding Jewish customs and practices.
The Nazi's were methodical, and "practical" (and I don't mean that in a complimentary way either) and they also liked the element of humilation. They didn't consider their captives to be human, less than sub-human, merely vermin. It wasn't enough to torture and torment; they got off on degradation as well.
For one, they did in fact shave them for lice control. But it was also a way to humiliate them as well; they shaved not just their heads--pubic areas too. for one, they generally made them strip totally naked, and often times brothers would end up shaving sisters, sons shaving mothers, fathers shaving daughters....the young girls would never have been naked in front of a man before, but in front of your brother/father/uncle/cousin....well it would have been humiliating for all involved, not just the shavee.
Second, in orthodoz Judaism, women shave their heads after they are married, keep them shaved (I think the husbands actually assist with the shaving?), and wear wigs. If memory serves this is proof of their utter devotion to their husband and has to do with pride of appearance, and giving up personal vanity. (I guess a bald woman isn't meant to be attractive to another man?)
In regard to the number tattoos, everyone who went through the gates of the camps got a number, whether they were Jewish, Political prisoner, criminal, etc. The number became their identity. Bracelets or tags wouldn't have been practical, given the number of people coming in through the gates daily, not to mention the expense. Tattooing was simple, permanent, and it would have cost pennies to do.
I think Orthodox Judaism, it's sacriledge to tattoo yourself, as you're wrecking what God created in the image of himself, and also because tattoos are usually pictures and that would be like a graven image.
I have read many accounts that state that after being gassed, bodies that featured tattoos were stripped of that skin and it was made into things like lampshades...beacuse Hitler liked that kind of thing. However, I do not know if that has ever been proven to be true or if it's just urban legend, but it wouldn't surprise me.
There was heaps of furniture crafted during that period in history--chairs, sofas, ottomans, pillows/cushions--that is actually stuffed with the shaved hair of those Jewish prisoners. That IS a fact; there are pieces of furniture like that on display in Holocaust museums, as part of the testament to what happened. To say that it's disturbing is an understatement.
The fact that they were cutting their hair was, first and foremost, a way of shaming the Jews. The hair was cut with rough scissors, and not special ones for hair cutting, to make it more painful and add to the shame. The reason they cut their hair, as told to the Jews at the time, was to control the lice. By the men, their sidelocks were all cut off, also excused with the reason to control the lice in the camp, but truthfully it was to put the Jews to shame and to give the Germans one more little feeling of satisfaction.
shareThey are old style clippers, many non western countries still use them today to cut hair. They work like modern electric clippers in that a blade moves back and forward against a stationary plate, but its your hands that give it movement, similar to how scissors work. Hope that helped.
I know this is old, but I just ran across it. They were sheep sheers. The Nazis used sheep sheers on them.
sharethey were using pliers i noticed that to....this movie made me wanna cry
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