KRAMPUS!

So I haven’t posted in a while. Bonfire is freaking crazy right now.. So I’ll just post a bunch of these in a row.. Sorry procrastination is wrong, but I’ll try to fix this as much as possible.

Ok I said I would post German customs, well here it goes! My grandmother, Omi, was a World War 2 love-child. My great grandfather was nick-named Vati (pronounced fuddy). Vati was a German soldier. Not a Nazi, as I was told, but who can be sure. He was caught by the Russians on the Eastern front, but escaped both times. He was married to Mutti and during the time that he could visit her, my grandmother was conceived. She was a love-child of the war. When she was born, my family had to flee. Their home was in the territory now called Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland. After the war, the Germans lost much of their land. Losers don’t get to decide what they get. Mutti was given 24 hours to pack as much as she could carry and leave her home. There was no way for her to contact Vati, due to the fact that he was now a prisoner of war. So she packed up Omi and as much as she could and fled the country. Vati searched, was captured multiple times by the Czech’s and tortured. “You love Hitler. Tell us you’re a Nazi.” He was told this and beaten whether he denied or accepted the accusation.
My Omi was raised by her grandmother in post-war Germany. Troops stationed everywhere and the economy in ruins. She lived on little food and had to work very early in her life. She lived mainly with her own grandmother near the Black Forest and Nuremburg. This part of Germany is a very old and traditional part of Southern Germany. Superstitions and the Grimm stories were born here. Omi’s grandmother used to tell her stories, Omi told my mother stories, and Omi told me stories. Many children my age never heard these stories and superstitions and it still shocks most of my friends that I actually do believe some of them. My family has an Easter tree. It consists of a few branches adorned with ornamental eggs and Easter decorations. Why do we do this? I have no clue, but it’s tradition. I have never met another family that does the Easter tree or even heard about it/recognized the tradition. I don’t trust gypsies. When I was young, the stories always had a gypsy fortune teller or mysterious stranger that would tell of bad fortune. Some were even capable of stealing children and giving them tails or turning unborn babies into goat fetuses. I don’t trust them, because from childhood, I was taught that those people were evil and untrustworthy. It’s racism, but I can’t tell you a traditional tale that has a nice, helpful gypsy.

The story that is my favorite is of Krampus. Krampus is the evil counterpart of Santa. He is basically Satan Clause. The kindly old Saint leaves the task of punishing bad children to a hell-bound counterpart known by many names across the continent — Knecht Ruprecht, Certa, Perchten, Black Peter, Schmutzli, Pelznickel, Klaubauf, and Krampus. Usually seen as a classic devil with horns, cloven hooves and monstrous tongue, but can also be spotted as a sinister gentleman dressed in black or a hairy man-beast. Krampus punishes the naughty children, swatting them with switches and rusty chains before dragging them in baskets to a fiery place below. It’s TERRIFYING!

Sleep Tight!

XOXO

schoenste