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History time

NOTE: The image is for the Rwandan Genocide, not the Siege of Leningrad by the way.

Author: So I've eluded to two big things for Geruka and Dmitri: the Rwandan Genocide in the 1990s, and the Siege of Leningrad during WW2. If you already know about this? Then awesome! Seriously it's some pretty dark stuff but it's important to be recognized and not to be forgotten. And if you don't, then that's cool too. Keep reading.

So Miggy and Raphael I made up first, along with some other OCs (and they might make an appearance in this book but they're the second of some of the countries, and I dunno how you guys feel about mpreg and/or genderbending; they're also a lot younger than Miguel and Alexei and the rest). And I was like, hey. OCs. Cool.

But then I read something someone made about America for 9/11 and I was like, wow, that's an awful time in history especially for the US, which is where I live. But everyone knows about 9/11. And not everyone knows about the Rwandan Genocide. And I made Geruka up because I was so sickened by the genocide and especially by (and you'll see me explain this) how no one else did anything because it's "just" Africa. So let's start with that.

Trigger warnings for genocide. If that's not obvious.

So the country of Rwanda was home to three native groups of people. The Pygmies, which are the Bushmen and don't really have anything to do with this; the Tutsis, the minority group; and the Hutus, who were the majority.

I'm afraid I still don't really know how this all started but I'll send a Wikipedia link to the Genocide (and another one to the Siege of Leningrad in the appropriate place) if you'd like to read up on the politics. Basically, the government shot down a plane that had the Tutsi president of Rwanda on it, killing everyone on board. Then things like the government, the military, and civilian Hutus decided to kill. They all basically decided to find and complete the "Final Solution" and eradicate Rwanda of all Tutsi population.

WAIT. HOLD UP. Final Solution? Does that sound familiar? It should! That's what Adolf Hitler called the Holocaust and the murder of over one million Jews! History is repeating itself!

The Hutus were mostly all okay with this. Again like Hitler, so many people were for it that if you were against this you were the minority and you too would be targeted. Hutu people mainly used machetes to kill. If a Tutsi man, woman, or little child was found walking down the street, they would be slaughtered in public, right then and there (or gunned down by machine guns but machetes were more common). It was almost impossible to escape. People had identification cards on them, saying their tribal ethnicity (like the Jews! There's a reason why I'm pointing all these similarities out by the way!). If you were a Tutsi, if you looked like a Tutsi, if you married a Tutsi, if you were a Hutu that tried to help a Tutsi: you were immediately killed.

People sent their children into hiding, again like the Holocaust. There was an incident where Tutsi men, women, and of course many children sought refuge in a Catholic Church, where they were promised safety. The priest told Hutu soldiers that they were all hiding there, and the military demolished the church with everyone inside. The own priest took a gun and shot the people who tried to run away.

This lasted for approximately 100 days. Yeah, it was that short. During this time approximately 70% of all Tutsi population and as much as 20% of the entire Rwandan population was murdered.

WAIT, you're saying. This is horrible! These poor people! They're being murdered by their own neighbors! And this is like the Holocaust! Isn't anyone doing anything?!

Ha. Yeah, that's the other thing.

No other country did anything.

Why? Because it's Africa! Africa is poor and black and heathen! So what if they're killing each other? The US, and England, and even France who had strong political ties, couldn't gain any economical gain from helping them. And it is all about money.

The United States' president at the time was Bill Clinton. He refused to send American military in to help the Tutsis. Now he had a reason too--about Somalia? I don't know this really, sorry--and he was afraid that things would get really bad. For the United States.

Not for the millions of people being slaughtered.

France, Belgium, and then Britain because of the UN also played roles in this. France evacuated politicians and French nuns out of the war torn country and if a desperate Tutsi had risked his life to sneak onto that plane, do you know what they did?

Give him a free ride to safety? Hell, go back and get his family?

No, they took him back to Rwanda and left him there. That's what they did.

Eventually the UN set up refugee camps for the survivors as they're supposed to and as they usually do. But kind of too little, too late, you know?

Okay, that's that. If you have any questions for me or Geruka, feel free to ask. I'd say spread this on and do more research; help those people in need; and never let money become more important than people.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide

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So now onto the Siege of Leningrad. Damn guys this is actually physically disturbing and disgusting. But here it is. Here's some more stuff for Dmitri.

Trigger warnings for starvation.

So what do you think of when you think of WW2? Probably the Holocaust. Hitler. Maybe Pearl Harbor. Maybe the Atomic Bomb, or the Japanese Internment Camps.

You probably don't think of the Siege of Leningrad. Leningrad is now known as St. Petersburg (why didn't I name Dmitri Peter? *shrugs*). It was named Leningrad after Lenin. And it was a good-sized city, nothing to do with the war.

The Nazis are (and I don't say were as in past tense because they still very much exist) sick people. During WW2, they wanted to eradicate an groups of people, millions upon millions of lives: Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, disabled people, the elderly. To name only a few. The Nazi Party hated Russia, and Stalin. And they thought they could beat him in his own land.

Russia. We know Russia, guys. General Winter? That's the personification of how cold Russia freaking is. Russia is cold. No one, not even the Nazis, were prepared for how cold it was. But then there was Leningrad. Minding it's own business. Going on with normal life.

The Nazis had a plan with Leningrad. They wanted to see how long it would take human beings to be driven to the depths of their inhumanity. To see how far people would go in circumstances. And I'll get to this but to see how long it would take humans to be driven to cannabalism. For the record, they thought it'd take mere months. And they were wrong. Human spirit and soul is stronger than that.

The Siege of Leningrad lasted close to 900 days. Approximately 1,000,000 civilian lives were lost, mainly due to starvation and also to freezing to death. It was one of the longest, and it was the most destructive, sieges in history.

One little girl writes in her diary about how each of her family died each day of starvation: Mama is dead, Grandma is dead, Auntie is dead, etc. She lived the longest. Later she died of muscle dystrophy (dystrophy is when an organ or a tissue, this being her muscles, literally wastes away). Another little girl watches her mother and grandmother starve to death and passes out from lack of nourishment; and when she's finally found by paramedics she doesn't even remember what happened because she was that weak and malnourished.

At one time approximately 100,00 people were dying a month from severe starvation. People ate cakes made more than 50% out of sawdust, book glue/paste, cats/rats/dogs, grass when it wasn't winter, and some even ate other people. But compared to the circumstances they were living in, a surprisingly small amount of people resorted to murdered cannabalism (as opposed to eating the bodies of those who already died, which happened too). Those who did kill were usually young women, no previous crimes, who were desperate to have their children survive.

So yeah. This was something awful that happened during WW2 as well (not just the Holocaust...). I'd suggest research again. If you have any questions for me or Dmitri again, don't be shy...!

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad