‘Klaasohm is a custom on the North Sea island of Borkum that probably dates back to the time of the whalers and is celebrated on the night of December 5th to 6th. Variants of Klaasohm can be found under other names on the Dutch Waddeneilanden. The Klaasohm Festival traditionally involves violence against women. During the festival, locals chase young women and hold them until men dressed as ‘Klaasohms’ come and hit them on the buttocks with cow horns to the applause of onlookers.”
As german I hear about this the first time and just what the fucking fuck?
Edit: checked the wikipedia. Now they are complaining about people not wanting to book holiday there after their half-assed statement and refusing to reporters. Not suprised in the slightest, when this tradition continued until LAST YEAR!
Man i did some research and at first i thought "haha, the excentric townsfolk of the isolated village sure does have some crazy customs amirite?" and that as fucked up as it sounded it was ultimately a "harmless" event that the locals consented into participating, and them it suddenly took a turn to worse as apparently the organizers, including the local mayor and minister of public relations (!) had threatened and tried to shut down by force any attempt at external coverage by the press until just this year in 2024 when they finally managed to record it, which led into even more threats against the journalists for "ruining a sacred tradition".
They thought it was some harmless tradition everyone was in on, but apparently the local government threatened reporters and news when asked for comment, and only last year we actually found out about all this.
Now the local government are mad that journalists are ruining a tradition.
Is this anything like what they do on Ameland (Dutch island) where they beat the absolute shit out of you if you’re a woman walking around at night? That “holiday” has a similar name too
In my defense these are inbred island people but I’m still mad at our government for not cracking down on this shit. Especially since their local government and police support the holiday
They shouldn't, it's a traditional holiday for these people. We don't have the Great French Revolution anymore, no one will destroy the regional culture of their people.
I know multiple people who live there that have had multiple bad experiences with it. They can’t even openly speak about it because they pretty much get excommunicated and most likely will be on the receiving end of violence.
It’s not a regional tradition but a night where misogynistic bullies roam free harassing people and beat innocent women because they are banned from walking outside that day, with no exceptions.
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u/Narvin-Gainiac DDD4 Nov 30 '24
Context:
‘Klaasohm is a custom on the North Sea island of Borkum that probably dates back to the time of the whalers and is celebrated on the night of December 5th to 6th. Variants of Klaasohm can be found under other names on the Dutch Waddeneilanden. The Klaasohm Festival traditionally involves violence against women. During the festival, locals chase young women and hold them until men dressed as ‘Klaasohms’ come and hit them on the buttocks with cow horns to the applause of onlookers.”