Anyone dies alone

The mug shots of Otto and Elise Hampel

Otto and Elise Hampel were the kind of people everyone could call "normal", if this thing named "normality" exists. Under the Hitler's Reich they were treated as just illiterate workers, Otto as factory worker and Elise as housekeeper, and both lived a life in accordance with the nazis' rules: while he had fought in the World War, she was an active member of the "Women's League", even ending up leading a group of this nazi organization. But as sometimes the changes just need a flame, the Elise's brother's death in the war meant for the couple the beginning of a clandestine struggle against the nazi's propaganda through handwritten leaflets they were spreading all over Berlin. It's touching and moving to read the postcards, they were mispelled and with a rough writing, but with powerful mottos such as "Hitler's war is the worker's death" or "Free Press".

"Hitler's regime will bring us no peace"

Yes, as you could imagine by the upper pictures after more than 2 years of activity they were detained, jailed and finally murdered on April 8, 1943. Until that point they had tried hard to discourage people from collaborating with Hitler's terror regime and, without knowing, they became the history that Hans Fallada wanted to recreate on his "Alone in Berlin", the history of how a poor and uneducated couple could defy the Gestapo itself.

Eu, vos

Segundo Galeano, Mohammad Ali inventou o poema más curto da historia: "Eu, vos".

According to Galeano, Mohammad Ali made up the shortest poem in History: "Me, we".

Nikolas Rose, Terapia y poder.

"El moderno self se considera -en una perspectiva histórica inusual- que debe ser autónomo, libre y que debe convertirse en un actor. Esta idea acerca de cómo se debe ser induce a considerar que se es un ser más completo cuando se es hábil para elegir, para realizar una narrativa propia. Esta noción del yo que es libre para elegir no es una simple y abstracta noción cultural, sino que está imbricada en toda una serie prácticas que atraviesan toda nuestra sociedad. La más notable de estas prácticas es el consumo a través del cual nosotros, seres humanos, definimos el tipo de yo que debemos ser mediante las elecciones que hacemos, a través de los libros que compramos, de los vestidos que vestimos, de los coches que conducimos, etc. Cada uno de estos bienes realiza o materializa a la vez nuestra personalidad en la elección que hacemos y proyecta una especie de luz sobre el tipo de persona que somos. Pero el yo en nuestra sociedad no es simplemente libre para elegir, el yo está obligado a elegir, está obligado a conferir sentido a su vida como si ésta fuese el resultado de una serie de elecciones: casarse o no casarse, tener hijos o no tenerlos, (...). Se considera cada decisión como algo destinado a realizar una cierta dimensión de la personalidad que nos hace inteligibles en relación a nosotros mismos y a los otros, como si fuesen una expresión de ciertos rasgos subyacentes a la personalidad global. Cada uno tiene que asumir su responsabilidad acerca de la felicidad o la infelicidad de su propia existencia. Cada uno tiene que ser actor en el drama de su propia existencia."

"The stigmatized individual tends to hold the same beliefs about identity that we [normals] do; this is a pivotal fact. His deepest feelings about what he is may be his sense of being a 'normal person', a human being like anyone else, a person, therefore, who deserves a fair chance and a fair break"

Goffman, E. (1963). Stigma, Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity.

Francesca Woodman

"I believe in the non-existence of the past,
in the death of the future,
and the infinite possibilities of the present"

J.G., Ballard.

Housewife

-Non o vas crer, Susan, pero houbo un tempo no que quixen ser farmacéutica. O que pasa é que agora non sei se é verdade ou o soñei... Qué cabeza a miña, eh?