S05.E11: Dyatkovo

[SusanSunflower]

No, I just meant to acknowledge that not all collaborators could successfully claim they were "under duress" ... some just went along socializing with the enemy/occupiers/Nazi because it was gay, music, dancing, food, and occasionally presents and/or a better job ... simply opportunistic reasons.  Others got involved because "nature took its course" -- did you read Suite Francaise?  Well educated, handsome, german officer from a good family put up in a villa with two a woman and her mother in law (a disapproving woman) while the husband/son was a prisoner of war.  Hardly some bodice ripping romance, the two young people fell into a companionable friendship looked upon with suspicion ... nonpartisan love, lust and prostitution could also be labeled "collaboration" ... part of why the pursuit of "collaborationists" was so frought ... lots of old grudges could motivate people to finger enemies while better connected or wealthy collaborators got off scot free except for "rumors"   The French had a different history than the Germans or the Czech or the Austrians ... Although I never got far into Tony Judt's book "Postwar" (I realized I needed to read up on WWI first), I was shocked (as a naïve American) how many "collaborators" and party members in many countries just resumed their lives, barely bothering to renounce their participation in the occupation government and assisting the Nazis in transportation of "labor" etc. 

[Roseanna]

On ‎19‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 6:23 PM, Captain Asshat said:

P&E had close relatives fight and die at the hands of the Nazis. 

Actually we don't know if any of P&E's relatives died at the hand of Nazis and it's of course different if soldiers who have weapons to defend themselves and who also kill enemies die in the war than unarmed civilians are deliberately murdered (which also the Soviets did, before, during and after the war). 

We do know that Elizabeth's father deserted and was executed by the Soviets (considering the harsh punishment of the Soviet army his deed could have such that in other armies the punishment wouldn't have been so severe). As for Phillip's father, as a guard he didn't have to go to the war at all.

We have already discussed about Elizabeth's odd concept of the war where everyone stick together when his father's fate proves that all didn't. I can only interpret it so that an authoritarian person, feeling in her heart herselves to be negligible in the totalitarian state, looks for compensation by identifying hersef with the state to whom she then sacrifices herself and all others.     

[Roseanna]

23 minutes ago, SusanSunflower said:

No, I just meant to acknowledge that not all collaborators could successfully claim they were "under duress" ... some just went along socializing with the enemy/occupiers/Nazi because it was gay, music, dancing, food, and occasionally presents and/or a better job ... simply opportunistic reasons.  Others got involved because "nature took its course" -- did you read Suite Francaise?  Well educated, handsome, german officer from a good family put up in a villa with two a woman and her mother in law (a disapproving woman) while the husband/son was a prisoner of war.  Hardly some bodice ripping romance, the two young people fell into a companionable friendship looked upon with suspicion ... nonpartisan love, lust and prostitution could also be labeled "collaboration" ... part of why the pursuit of "collaborationists" was so frought ... lots of old grudges could motivate people to finger enemies while better connected or wealthy collaborators got off scot free except for "rumors".   

I don't think it's necessarily opportunistic to have some fun by f.ex. dancing - it's simply to be young. And some people treat others as individuals, not collectively as "enemies".    

I think that your last sentence is the most important. After the war it was quite easy to attack ordinary women who had slept with ordinary German soldiers for love, sex , loneliness or material goods for themselves or their children whereas big businessmen who had made millions by selling to the Germans usually got away.

I once read a study why just women were so despised. Their bodies weren't considered to be their own but to belong to the "nation". Plus, the men who had failed to defend their country revenged this to women.    

[Roseanna]

On ‎17‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 3:58 PM, whiporee said:

There's no way the Center would reveal to its spies they delivered a bio weapon, and there's NO WAY even if they did, Claudia would tell P&E that. 

I think there is a reason and that is, "if all else fails, try honesty". Claudia, just like Gabriel, knows that Phillip have doubts and even Elizabeth has some qualms. Of course telling the truth was a risk for it could alienate Phillip even more. But lying would be even more risk for Phillip probably wouldn't believe it and afterwards wouldn't believe anything. By telling the truth about this matter, so Claudia has probably convinced the Center, P&E will hopefully believe in other matters,   

[Roseanna]

On ‎18‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 0:30 AM, chick binewski said:

Putting her children in the thick of what she and Phillip do also doesn't do her favor; these kids grew up in American with a stylish mother who makes a point of whipping up food at a moment's notice from a fully stocked refrigerator. Why she thinks Paige or Henry will feel any sort of patriotism towards Russia or that she herself will prosper in her home country is a head scratcher.   

Paige doesn't need to feel patriotism towards Russia, it's enough if she thinks that the US is acting morally wrong and/or if she feel admiration towards some revolitionary movement in the third world.

As for Elizabeth herself, one can long for ones homeland because of such things as speaking and listening to ones own language, eating again foods ones Mom cooked, walking in the park where one played as a child. 

[Roseanna]

On ‎18‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 0:49 AM, SusanSunflower said:

My next-door-neighbor's WWI (Navy veteran Pacific front) dad always laughed at the outrage of "only following orders"which he said conveniently ignored the dire consequence of refusing to follow those exact same orders ... "If I refused, insubordination they call it, I'd have been lucky not to simply be shot point-blank."   

Do you mean that American practices were more severe than Nazi ones? The researchs tell that nobody was punished for refusing to shoot the Jews. It's another thing that there was strong peer pressure.

In another matters the Nazis were very severe. One could get the death sentence if one picked up something in a bombed house.   

[SusanSunflower]

No, not at all, just that the lowly common sailor's refusal would cost him a great deal (the brig and court martial) and almost certainly do nothing to change anything.  While I'm sure there's a rationale somewhere, Nazi prison guards seem to be most often prosecuted, and yet, they didn't build the camps, order the transport of prisoners/labor/soon-to-be-exterminated, nor did they have any voice wrt the policies that these camps (and policies) were meant to effect ... (note I'm not arguing their "innocence" just again their place as a cog in a machine designed by others in support of genocide).  Evidence that these camps were considerably less secret than we were told only adds to the sense of wide spread collective guilt.  Are the prosecutions then "symbolic"? 

Refusal to follow an order in combat could -- in theory -- result in execution, or at least that's what sailors believed / were told.  A single civilian "kid" surrounded by older authorities would feel -- and be -- fairly powerless to resist effectively.  I don't know how fully communicated "the final solution" was, although the death camps were initiated when the mass machine gun killings proved too distressing for those holding the guns.  I'm not sure that the desirability or "necessity" of such killing was ever discussed, apparently being largely accepted, even with historical precedents.  

I watched "Judgment at Nuremberg" and thought (being a child) that things were -- as it was supposed to be and as I was supposed to think -- fairly and neatly concluded.   So many subsequent horrors, massacres, genocides and attempted genocides. 

This episode largely reduced this woman's guilt down to some foregone conclusion/outcome ... but neither P or E cared much about the "details" before killing her (and her husband).   

[Roseanna]

2 hours ago, SusanSunflower said:

No, not at all, just that the lowly common sailor's refusal would cost him a great deal (the brig and court martial) and almost certainly do nothing to change anything.  While I'm sure there's a rationale somewhere, Nazi prison guards seem to be most often prosecuted, and yet, they didn't build the camps, order the transport of prisoners/labor/soon-to-be-exterminated, nor did they have any voice wrt the policies that these camps (and policies) were meant to effect ... (note I'm not arguing their "innocence" just again their place as a cog in a machine designed by others in support of genocide).  Evidence that these camps were considerably less secret than we were told only adds to the sense of wide spread collective guilt.  Are the prosecutions then "symbolic"? 

Refusal to follow an order in combat could -- in theory -- result in execution, or at least that's what sailors believed / were told.  A single civilian "kid" surrounded by older authorities would feel -- and be -- fairly powerless to resist effectively.  I don't know how fully communicated "the final solution" was, although the death camps were initiated when the mass machine gun killings proved too distressing for those holding the guns.  I'm not sure that the desirability or "necessity" of such killing was ever discussed, apparently being largely accepted, even with historical precedents.  

I watched "Judgment at Nuremberg" and thought (being a child) that things were -- as it was supposed to be and as I was supposed to think -- fairly and neatly concluded.   So many subsequent horrors, massacres, genocides and attempted genocides. 

This episode largely reduced this woman's guilt down to some foregone conclusion/outcome ... but neither P or E cared much about the "details" before killing her (and her husband).   

I don't think combat situations where it's indeed elemental to follow orders in order that all can survive can't be compared with killing unarmed civilians whetn there is no danger. I have read about incidents where some of Waffen SS volunteers from other counties refused to shoot the Jews. They were in no way punished but simply ordered to collect watches and jewelry.

As far as I know, the guards in Nazi concentration camps were prosecuted only if they did some cruelties on their own. But you are right in that many planners of Holocaust weren't prosecuted.  

Regarding Natalie, she wasn't the Great War Criminal and Nazi Collobator Claudia described her - at least if she told the truth. Maybe she made things prettier because of her husband. 

Natalie showed something that the Russians even today refuse to see: that the past wasn't black and white but grey. Natalie was both an offer and the guilty one, 

[Roseanna]

There has been claimed that Phillip has now and has had options. But there are no options "an sich", there are only options that are possible for a certain person, and others who are not, depending on what kind of person he or she is.

F.ex. if Elizabeth were different, her need to believe and dedicate herself for a greater cause would make her a missionary. If Paige were different. shw would concentrate in her boyfriend or her studier or whatever else, but not her parents.

The most important thing in Philip's life is his love for Elizabeth but he is also patriotic once his contry is need. His life would be worthless without both.   

[sistermagpie]

10 hours ago, Roseanna said:

There has been claimed that Phillip has now and has had options. But there are no options "an sich", there are only options that are possible for a certain person, and others who are not, depending on what kind of person he or she is.

So true. Sometimes I think there's a tendency to assume these characters can reason the eay the "real" Philip and Elizabeth would. But they both had very strong formative experiences.  A lot of things that would be a choice to one person are not choices to someone else. A big part of the show is often this family learning to accept who they all are even when they're very different.  

Also with P& E I think some of the things people see as bad things about Elizabeth are things Philip loves about her and relies on. 

[dubbel zout]

3 minutes ago, sistermagpie said:

Also with P& E I think some of the things people see as bad things about Elizabeth are things Philip loves about her and relies on.

Those things are certainly part of what make her such an effective agent.

[SusanSunflower]

Philip's "love" for Elizabeth is the result of 16+ years of partnering, the first years of which must have been very difficult (Elizabeth being a rape survivor and all).  He didn't choose Elizabeth as his partner, so it's a bit like an arranged marriage in which the two parties eventually (Elizabeth only recently, it seems) develop genuine affection beyond "appreciation" and spousal duty.   

In calculating fashion Elizabeth uses her seductress charms on Phillip ... to sooth the savage beast, but I think she only began to see him as separate individual man because of his "unfathomable" concern and 'over-involvement" wrt Martha.  Such involvement would be both unthinkable and utterly foreign, even repugnant, to Elizabeth.  

Matthew may well reconsider his "love" for Elizabeth.  I've never been particularly impressed by this "love"  and have felt that, as Elizabeth "manages" Phillip, Phillip "manages" Elizabeth ... there's work to do and no time to waste being "moodly" about domestic issues. Not very romantic.  Yes, when Elizabeth was shot and when she's been endangered, Phillip has come through like a champ, but he's also invested all those years in this partnership ... 

Obviously YMMV, and but imho, neither individual is remotely "romantic" towards the other, although I think Phillip believes that he has "won" Elizabeth's affections after years of patience (except of course we know she keeps undermining him to Claudia/Gabriel) 

[sistermagpie]

I think they love each other as much as any other couple might, arranged marriage or not, though of course that doesn't mean this is what everybody would want as love or romance for themselves. I know there are many who see Elizabeth manipulating Philip through sex but that especially just seems like a non issue to me.  

To me it seems like while Philip might have loved her before the show started that love has gotten much stronger and true since the relationship has gone both ways. They do manage each other at times, but that seems normal both as partners and a a parents. It's through loving each other that each one has started to understand things about themselves that before they just buried and repressed.  They still have the same flaws that can work against it all too, of course, but to me it seems like the love they have for each other is the driving force of the show. It's why the pilot starts with it. It changes them and changes everything. 

[SusanSunflower]

Have you watched Mystic River? specifically the final scenes with Laura Linney and Sean Penn? ... (it's a masterful and sociologically important scene ) ... He's her man and she is his woman ... yes, for many, without options, there's no particular morality involved in this sort of blood-allegiance. 

It's deeply ingrained ... children are deeply schooled ... after Columbine, I posted a comment of concern about the kids who "knew something" in advance .. (there are kids who "knew something" found after the fact in most school shootings) ... I was told, emphatically, by several commenters that "if my child" ratted out a friend, there would be hell to pay ... 

The idea (fact) that this was a (high body count) suicide   -- would you want your child's friend to betray the secret to intercept your child's suicide -- nope ... code of silence, took precedent. 

I don't call that (malignant) "code of honor"  love ... and this circles back to the issue of culpability wrt war crimes. 

[Roseanna]

7 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

I think they love each other as much as any other couple might, arranged marriage or not, though of course that doesn't mean this is what everybody would want as love or romance for themselves. 

I see P&E love very strong, much stronger than most couples. They share almost any aspects of life and are almost honest with another as two people can realistically be.

As for romance - what an American attitude!

There is a scene in a novel of Fyodor Abaramov about a kolkhoz onhore of Anghora river: a man is late and a woman is naturally worried (more so as it's Stalin's time). So when he finally comes, she hurries out barefooted and without a scarf. His reponse is to push her further: "Are you grazy! Do you want to get the breat disease?"  After that is told: "This purely masculine way of expressing care and love was felt by Anfisa as more sincere as and precious than any caress."

[Roseanna]

5 hours ago, SusanSunflower said:

Have you watched Mystic River? specifically the final scenes with Laura Linney and Sean Penn? ... (it's a masterful and sociologically important scene ) ... He's her man and she is his woman ... yes, for many, without options, there's no particular morality involved in this sort of blood-allegiance. 

It's deeply ingrained ... children are deeply schooled ... after Columbine, I posted a comment of concern about the kids who "knew something" in advance .. (there are kids who "knew something" found after the fact in most school shootings) ... I was told, emphatically, by several commenters that "if my child" ratted out a friend, there would be hell to pay ... 

The idea (fact) that this was a (high body count) suicide   -- would you want your child's friend to betray the secret to intercept your child's suicide -- nope ... code of silence, took precedent. 

I don't call that (malignant) "code of honor"  love ... and this circles back to the issue of culpability wrt war crimes. 

I haven't seen Mystic River, but I agree with you that sometimes breaking even most holy vows and allegiances shows that one follows a much higher ideal. Just as Oleg did when he told Stan that the kassa feaver was going to be stealed by a Soviet agent. 

Only, if Philip met so hard situation that he would abandon Elizabeth and his country, I find it childish to imagine that he would just live happily in the USA, even with his children. I anticipate that he would suffer a mental breakdown.    

[sistermagpie]

18 hours ago, SusanSunflower said:

I don't call that (malignant) "code of honor"  love ... and this circles back to the issue of culpability wrt war crimes. 

I have seen it but don't remember it at all. From the description I'm not sure I understand how this particularly relates to P&E's relationship as depicted within the timeline of the show. Their affection for each other seems very much its own thing apart from whatever code of honor they have. I especially don't know how to logically understand Elizabeth behaving one way towards Philip for many years and then suddenly behaving in this new way. Even to the point of suggesting they leave the US here.

13 hours ago, Roseanna said:

I see P&E love very strong, much stronger than most couples. They share almost any aspects of life and are almost honest with another as two people can realistically be.

 

I agree. It seems like there's just so many scenes on the show specifically about how they care about each other, enjoy each other's company, want to help the other, admire things about the other, don't want to hurt the other, find acceptance in each other, etc. Whether they ever think of things they do as romantic I don't know--it doesn't seem like that's a word either would much care about. (Though I would say the secret wedding would fit most standard definitions of that, even if that wasn't the reason they did it.)

13 hours ago, Roseanna said:

Only, if Philip met so hard situation that he would abandon Elizabeth and his country, I find it childish to imagine that he would just live happily in the USA, even with his children. I anticipate that he would suffer a mental breakdown.    

That's the way it's always seemed to me too. In some ways it's very consistent starting in the pilot. Elizabeth actually gives up when she thinks Philip's betraying her; Philip kills Timoshev when he finds out what he did. Neither one might have guessed they would respond that way in the moment until it happened.

[Roseanna]

On ‎18‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 6:48 AM, sistermagpie said:

I didn't see any evidence that she was much tormented by guilt. When Philip and Elizabeth showed up she was ready to lie. 

We met her once, so we can't possibly know whether she ever was tormented by guilt. Maybe not:  

In any case, I don't blame her for lying. That's what almost anybody would have done when meeting two armed revengers. It's not like she were in the trial where she perhaps could, after meeting the relatives of her offers, have broken down.    

On ‎18‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 5:56 PM, fib said:

 I really dont think that E is as bad as this lady - E  is fighting for a cause she believes in.  She is a warrior.  In war, sometimes innocent people die, but it seems Elizabeth does try to limit the collateral damage, despite the body count piling up of late. (RIP, Hans) Anna, on the other hand, slaughtered war prisoners to save her herself. Yes, she was a child.  Yes, she was in a terrible position.  But what she did, ultimately, was awful.  

YMMV.  But to me, Anna is worse.  Especially as E is coming to realize that the Center may not be on the up and up, and she is beginnning to take measures to stop her continued involvement. Ultimately, soldiers are supposed to refuse orders that are immoral or not in keeping with the rules of war.  And while spying is outside that, I think Elizabeth is moving in that direction. 

Also the terrorists think they are warriors who are fighting for the cause they believe in. 

Even during the war only those, who have as their leader a person responsible for their actions, have as designated and distinguished mark on the way,  carry their weapons publicly and observe in their military operations the laws and customs of war, are recognized as soldiers and therefore they must to be taken as prisoners if they surrender. Spies, saboteurs and assassins behind the frontiers have no rights whatsover.   

In E&P's case, only the first condition is clear - they have a leader whose orders they follow. But that order would be unlawful even during the war: as Natalie wasn't caught on the spot of the crime, she should have brought to the military court. 

As it's the time of peace, Natalie should have been taken to the court that alone has a right to decide if she is guilty and if she is, condemn her.

Shooting Natalie was simply a murder, not to speak of her husband.

On ‎20‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 12:36 AM, Umbelina said:

The husband wasn't a Nazi, or a collaborator.  He's dead too.

A raped teenager forced to drink, and quite drunk, right after watching her family die, and being forced to dig a hole and bury them?  While heavily armed soldiers surround her and will kill her, no doubt after a bit more gang rape and who knows what other torture, if she does not?

Any decent court would acquit her.

Those people were dead anyway, I seriously doubt they were worried who would shoot them.  If she didn't the soldiers would have.

 

On ‎20‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 11:09 PM, Umbelina said:

You could very well be right @Erin9!  Honestly I thought the episode was mediocre and pretty boring/predictable (again!) and didn't watch a second time.  I would suppose she did if she got VD treatment from the Germans.  Still, that may have just been so they could continue to rape her. 

With what we know today about PTSD, Stockholm syndrome, and the little we know about her ongoing situation, it's difficult for me to judge her without that information, and given Elizabeth's biases, completely impossible for Elizabeth to judge her.  A psychic break is completely within the realm of possibility after watching her entire family killed and burying them, and then forced to kill herself after being gang raped.

I can say with a fair degree of confidence that any one of those 3 things might have broken me, especially as a teenager.

She should have been returned for trial IMO, let a court decide, not some fanatic killing machine from the KGB.  As for her husband being murdered?  That's cold blooded murder period.  There are no excuses for that.  At all.

I agree with Umbelina.   

Natalie, if anybody, was under duress. She hardly was in such a mental state that she could make a choice. 

However, there are elements in Natalie's story that don't seem plausible. She told that she was so drunk that she could hardly stand. How could she then shoot? What use she was in the execution team? Was she rather their mascot whose shots amused them as she more only wounded than killed than a mass murderer she was presented by the Soviets?

[sistermagpie]

2 hours ago, Roseanna said:

We met her once, so we can't possibly know whether she ever was tormented by guilt. Maybe not:  

 

True, we don't know about her whole life. But I don't think there's anything in this episode that showed her acting out of guilty torment. (Nothing about what we know about her life either, actually, that implies that.) There's nothing about her actions that implies relief that she's going to be punished for the actions she feels so guilty about. She lies and then justifies her actions to them. She's acting to save her life, just as she did during the war according to the story.

Not that I blame her for those things--I might have behaved exactly the same way. It's just that assuming she was tormented by guilt is, imo, no more supported by the text than assuming she got pleasure out of cleverly surviving and living the good life for so long. The episode isn't making a case that she didn't really get away with anything because of her private torment. The only case it's really making like that is to say that she was a young girl under duress during the war and when she's not under duress she's been a perfectly nice person, which is a different thing.

[Roseanna]

13 hours ago, sistermagpie said:

True, we don't know about her whole life. But I don't think there's anything in this episode that showed her acting out of guilty torment. (Nothing about what we know about her life either, actually, that implies that.) There's nothing about her actions that implies relief that she's going to be punished for the actions she feels so guilty about. She lies and then justifies her actions to them. She's acting to save her life, just as she did during the war according to the story.

Not that I blame her for those things--I might have behaved exactly the same way. It's just that assuming she was tormented by guilt is, imo, no more supported by the text than assuming she got pleasure out of cleverly surviving and living the good life for so long. The episode isn't making a case that she didn't really get away with anything because of her private torment. The only case it's really making like that is to say that she was a young girl under duress during the war and when she's not under duress she's been a perfectly nice person, which is a different thing.

Actually, we don't know whether anything she told was told was true because it's evident that she didn't speak mainly to P&E but her husband whose good opinion she wanted to keep. But supposing that she had been an ordinary girl of 16 years who had no reason to revenge on her neighbours, I think that her story was basically true.

I believe that during the war she simply ceased to feel anything. And after the war her only way to continue a life was to block the memories away which was made easier when she moved to the US, married and changed her name. In her mind, she was no more the same person who had been seen her family killed, been raped and killed others. 

Basically, she has done just the same as Elizabeth has done and continue to do. Elizabeth's anger towards her wasn't only due to that she was a traitor - she saw on her herself, although she hardly acknowledged that.