Wednesday, February 12, 2003

I’m getting ready to help

I’m getting ready to help a small organization preserve the history of partisans who fought axis forces in WWII in Europe.  This organization concentrates on the small, mainly unheralded group of Jews who escaped ghettoization and the holocaust to bear arms against their oppressors.  They’re inspiring stories, told by very old people who often have thick accents.  I’ll be relying on videotaped interviews, some with transcripts.  But I’m being told not to trust the transcripts.  In one, the word “partisans” was transcribed as “protestants” every time.  I can understand some basic confusion about technical terms, but this is the “Jewish Partisan” project.  Somebody just wasn’t paying enough attention to the details.  If anyone is curious, “partisan” means someone who likes to get high and drink malt liquor, and “protestant” means pretty much the opposite.  I guess they could have called them “Jewish Parmesians.” To grate over your pasta.