Where Were You? Where are you Now? - The Nasty Girl (1990)

Pfilzing, the town at the center of Michael Verhoeven’s 1990 film The Nasty Girl (Das Schreckliche Mädchen) is a nice Bavarian town. Fictional*, sure, but nice. It’s picturesque, comfortable, and everyone knows everyone else. The kind of town where you can have a nice life as a child, and an adult. All in all a pretty typical town.

Sure, it existed during those troublesome years of 1933 to 1945. But it wasn’t a bad town. The Nazis weren’t really a thing in the town. Yeah, there was that one guy, but he sucked, and the good people of Pfilzing were sure glad when he got his just deserts once the Americans came and freed the town from the nazis. Everyone hates what happened, sure, but once again it was that guy. The people kept their heads down, did what they could, and got through it. All in all a pretty typical town.

The town had two Catholic schools. One for boys, and one for girls. And in that school for girls there was a student named Sonja. Now Sonja, like Pfilzing, is fictional**. But you can’t hold that against her, right? Now, now, I know, you are thinking she’s the titular “nasty girl”, and well, you’d be right. But for now, she’s not nasty at all. Rather she’s a good girl, raised right by her school headmaster father and former religion teacher turned housewife mother. She’s inquisitive, a good writer, and proud of her family, and of her hometown. A pretty typical girl, in a pretty typical town. 

She wrote a great essay, it won a West Germany wide contest! She got a trip to Paris for her troubles. Now, now, don’t hold it against her, going to that very atypical city in…ugh…France. She has a right to enjoy herself, and she reflects well on Pfilzing. And she came back to Pfilzing to live, and study, and get engaged to her former physics teacher. A pretty typical girl in a pretty typical town. 

Unfortunately, the road to being das schreckliche Mädchen is paved with good intentions. Sonja entered the essay contest again the next year, and chose to write about Pfilzing during the Third Reich. Which, okay, it’s not like the town has anything to hide. Remember that guy that got busted for all of the bad stuff? Of course you do, he sucked. Pfilzing doesn’t…doesn’t have anything to hide. No, don’t talk to the town socialist, he’s a crank. And a commie. You don’t want to believe a commie, do you? What are you, from East Germany? Yes, that's still a thing. It's the 80s, you know. This is a period piece. Okay good, just checking you aren't from over there. Yep, Pfilzing is a-okay. A pretty typical town.

Oh, that Sonja, I can’t believe she keeps trying to dig up the past. Everyone told her it was settled. The guy, remember? But it wasn’t enough for her. She just kept digging, and digging. The contest deadline passed, and yet she still is looking for answers that aren’t there. Stop digging up the past, you girl. Do you want to divide the people, and let the commies win? Please, drop it and get married. And you can be a pretty typical wife. In Pfilzing. A pretty typical town.

Oh good, she got married. And had a couple kids. Aw, that’s nice. It’s awful that that brick was smashed through the back window of their wedding car. Those people weren’t nice. Probably out of towners, maybe from Munich. Or Berlin. Or maybe East Germany or Czechoslovakia or America or wherever. Not from Pfilzing. Now she can settle into a happy life and raise her daughters to be good girls. Hopefully ones that don’t ask questions that have already been answered. You know, that guy we all know sucked being punished. A pretty typical town. 

Oh, what’s this? She’s gone to the university to study? To be a teacher, I’m sure. She’d be great at it. Oh…oh? History, you say. Oh no, that girl, what is she doing? She’s digging back into the past. Can’t she leave it alone? There’s nothing to find, not at all. Why does she ignore the bad guy? They’ve told her a thousand times about him. He did it, and the rest of the townsfolk weren’t happy about it. Of course they weren’t. They are good, decent people. Typical people, from Pfilzing. A pretty typical town.

Who let her get access to the newspaper archives? She drug that newspaper out, the one with the story about the two unnamed clergy turning that guy in. Yes, it’s unfortunate what happened to all of them, but that guy sucked. No, a different guy. This guy was Jewish. Yes, it was sad and unfortunate what happened to them. A dark mark on the country. But the guilty have paid, and what do you want, the commies to win? That darn girl. Getting everybody all riled up here in Pfilzing. A pretty typical town. 

Yes, yes, it was most unfortunate all of those angry people harassing Sonja and her family. And I’m sorry they all had to deal with those bombs being thrown in their house. And yes, it was terrible what they nailed to their front door. It was most regrettable. But it couldn’t have been anybody from this town. This is a good town, full of good people. A pretty typical town.

Oh, that Sonja, she keeps stirring up trouble. Taking the town to court. Everyone knows she’s just a reprehensible, nasty girl. I’m glad the family’s lawyer refused to represent her. Serves her right trying to drag those heroic clergymen through the mud, and trying to get at the past, which of course doesn’t hide anything. Bah! She probably just wants to take a peek at the beautiful archives. You know, with the cavernous hall that looks like a rear projection from an old movie. Yeah, it gives the whole place a surreal feel, that contrasts with the secrets that aren’t there about Pfilzing. A pretty typical town.

Okay, so she won her court cases, but you have to believe the town officials in that the records have been loaned out. Or lost. Whatever the story is, it’s obviously the right one! Oh, dang, did that nasty girl pull a trick and get those records. It doesn’t matter what they say. Pfilzing is…is a nice town. A good town. A pretty typical town. 

You see, there’s no doubt that eight camps around Pfilzing is a lot. But eight is just a number. It could have nine, or twenty-seven, or more. Now that would have been a lot, a real tragedy. But eight is just a number. Yep, just a number. And yes, the clergy shouldn’t have turned in that one man to the authorities. We know that now, given what happened to all of them. Most unfortunate. But that guy was a crook. Yes, he was no saint. That nasty girl. So nasty. And probably a commie. She hung out with the socialist, you hear? Yeah, both of them got beat up. No one knows who. Probably from out of town, some bad apples drawn here by that nasty girl. It’s a pity her husband left her and went back to Munich. He could set her straight. And things could get back to normal and the past could be left in the past where it belongs. Because this town deserves to look towards the future and not the nasty past. Pfilzing is…is pretty good. A pretty typical town.

Okay, wow, she wrote the book. And Pfilzing wasn’t a good town. It was a town complicit in a terrible, most unfortunate time. And it’s right to feel bad about it, and to understand that it wasn’t just the one guy. It was a whole lot of guys, including so many who were still part of Pfilzing after the war. It was not a good town. Pfilzing, that is. It was a bad town. A pretty typical town.

But that is all over, isn’t it? Pfilzing is once again a great town, and all thanks to the work of Sonja, and the book she wrote that is garnering all of that attention. The past is the past, and everyone is sorry for the unfortunate things that happened in and around Pfilzing. The town is sorry for anyone who was hurt by those unfortunate actions. But it’s all okay now! We’ll celebrate Sonja, no longer a nasty girl, and give her a bust to stand amongst the dead luminaries of the past, a sign that Pfilzing is a good town that finds its way and moves forward. Sonja did good work, and the town can move on. Ever forward. A pretty typical town.

Oh, mein Gott! She just smashed that bust the town paid so handsomely for her. Yes, everyone knows you're still alive, Sonja. They were grateful for the work you did, and wanted to all move on, but no. You, you, nasty, ungrateful girl. You are going to write about the Jews of Pfilzing next? But the town has moved on from all of the unfortunate past! Why bring them up again, it just causes more pain. Damn commies, trying to destroy order. How can you divide the people, you nasty girl, how can you? This is a good town…a good good good town…nasty girl. You nasty girl. This is a good…it’s a good town. I…I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s Pfilzing. It’s a town, and was a town. In 1933, 1945, 1990, and 2024. It’s a pretty typical town.

Yes, Pfilzing is not a blameless town. Bad things happened in this town, and the great crime of the Holocaust was perpetrated within the town and directly outside of it. So many of the people did nothing, they just put their head down and ignored what was plain in front of them. And of course, many weren’t just existing within the Nazi system, they were enthusiastic, putting their last full measure of devotion to the cause, even after it began to become clear it was lost. It was a disgusting thing, what the town did to their neighbors. Their classmates. Their friends. All people, one and the same. All part of Pfilzing’s history. A pretty typical town.

I see you cast your eyes smugly toward the pretty typical town of Pfilzing. And with good reason. But don’t forget: Our towns have their own pasts, full of petty indignities and cruel horrors. Some occurred long ago, maybe even before your country was a country. Some occurred last week. Some are occurring right now, in small towns no bigger than Pflizing and in the large cities, and the capitals of our governments. Both at home, and all across the globe. Times of cruelty and pain and horrible, damnable actions by people possessed by the worst angels of their nature are upon us. Times that will be tut-tutted as unfortunate in the decades to come. Times that will hit all of us in one way or another. All of us, in our pretty typical towns. So let’s get up, and look towards the nasty girls. They are the ones who are standing athwart the tide of hate and destruction and whatever the fuck else is hitting us now, next month, and after January 20. They need our help. We need their help. Let’s all help each other together. We don’t have to concede to aiding and abetting of “unfortunate times”, but we do have to survive them. And once we do, let's make a typical town something else entirely.

* It’s based upon historian Anna Rosmus’ hometown of Passau.

** Based upon historian Anna Rosmus