Gerta Schnirch (2nd version)

Friedrich Schnirch, Jr. (brother)

**Gerta Ester Schnirchová** is a Czech-German-Jewish agent for S.H.I.E.L.D born in pre-war Czechoslovakia, that also happens to cooperate with The Avengers.

Gerta Schnirchová; Gerta uses the Czech version of her name as a signature, even though her official ID displays the German version of it.

## Biography

### Origin

Gerta was born the 12th of June 1925 in Šanov, Zlín Region, into a family of a Jewish farmer Barbora Horovitzová and a widowed German Friedrich Schnirch, Sr. that moved out to an upstate with a son from previous marriage, as the second and the younger child of the Schnirch family. Eight years after the First World War, then only the World War, Czechoslovakia flourished as a state. Everything was on the rise and the same was true for the farmers and their farmsteads. The Schnirch farm suddenly became one of the most prosperous estates with number of hired workers from all over the district. Gerta's father, besides from taking care of their farm, worked also as a town medic and gained thanks to it a certain popularity among the residents of Šanov.

### Childhood

Gerta, as a girl growing up on a farm, had to learn many kinds of practical labor whilst normally going to school. She didn't attend nursery, simply just because there was nowhere near building as such. She even had to walk every day 7 kilometres to get to school to neighborhood town along with her older brother where she made, among many others, a very good friend named Jana Němcová from Hostětín.

Jana and Gerta became friends when they were both just 6 years old and their friendship lasted a very long time. They used to hang out at each other's place everyday, playing. Everything they did, they did together. Homeworks, washings, they even read the same books just so they could talk about them afterwards and discuss the characters. When Gerta bruised her knee, there was a big chance Jana did as well. When Jana fell into the Olšava river, Gerta did too just so Jana doesn't feel bad. They had a beautiful friendship, even after the time the man called Adolf Hitler became enormously popular in the neighborhood country.

Gerta's father, a burgher also seemed to be a stickler for great education. He himself was taught to play the piano in very young age and he demanded the same for little Gerta. Thus Gerta had to attend the music school in Slavičín ever week to learn the piano.

### Teenage Years

As the years passed, the girls started to mature and with that also their interests changed. Even though Czechoslovakia got occupied and had to split, resulting the state reformation into Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, Jana and Gerta had absolutely different concerns. Instead of worrying about their country, Jana and Gerta used to go every single Friday to Štítná nad Vláří to a dance in order to meet or get along with some young boys. It was for the better anyways, it was the only way how to distract oneself from the general situation and an angry, nationalistic father at home.

However, Gerta hadn't had much luck with it. It wasn't even for her looks. Her name was the cause of her not being able to have the chance to get to know anybody a bit better. But as it seemed, name certainly wasn't an issue for Jana's two brothers.

#### Němec brothers

That the girls had grown up, boys picked up on as well. Even the weird-looking child friend of Jana's started glowing up. Stanislav Němec and Karel Němec certainly noticed that she was no longer the Fritz weirdo from Šanov and that, on the contrary, she was getting really pretty.

And at the expense of it, as usual, many quarrels and fights happened. Courting, rejection, begging, denial, wooing... Neither of them ever really succeeded while asking Gerta out. And it wasn't for that she wouldn't like them but she just didn't want to have something going on with her best friend's brother. That's why she decided it's gonna be for the best to just maintain some distance.

But these worries went all gone in the summer of 1939, when Karel was working on the Schnirch farm during the holiday. After days spent helping in the field, driving a tractor together, then walking all the way to Štítná for a dance almost every week and subsequently sharing the dance steps of true Moravian polka, Gerta and Karel got so close, Stanislav just absolutely gave up all the hopes he had and moved on.

Although, Jana wasn't very happy about this. Mainly because she had a feeling that Gerta neglects her for her own brother and that is a state nobody wants to face.

#### Blut und Boden

What once was love can simply turn into loathing. What a fine line between those two. This fact Gerta got to know from what she used to see at home. Seeing her father, once caring and loving, calling her mother names just because of her Jewish blood wasn't really a wonderful experience. And it didn't stop just at her mother, gradually he moved on to abuse both physically and mentally even Gerta after the fact she rejected her germanism. And he could do that, to set Friedrich, Gerta's perfect German brother without a drop of filthy, Czech, Jewish blood, an example.

People started to look down on Gerta. She was embodying exactly the two very things they all hated. Or they were told to hate. Jews and Germans.

They started to stay away from her as far as possible, avoid her by literally walking across the street on the other end, ignoring her or in the worst case shouting at her the most vulgar words one could think of. And maybe it wouldn't be that painful, maybe she wouldn't even care if those were people she has never seen. But these were the people that either grew up with her or she grew up with them, seeing them and greeting them everyday.

Thus Gerta lost most of her friends... except for Jana and Karel.

Karel, that promised he's going to marry her when she's 18 even though she's half-German and half-Jewish. For him, she was a wonderful risk he'd take whatever it takes.

#### Arbeit Macht Frei

Everything culminated that one day all the Jews were supposed to get escorted into concentration camps. Gerta's mother was able to arrange a small scam and let Gerta be send with a transport way later than actually her. A whole year later.

That happened in summer 1941. Gerta's mother hadn't written her ever since she saw her the last time getting on the train in Brno.

### 1942 - 1945

Everything was falling apart. The war seemed to be endless, all resistance suddenly disappeared, Jana had no time now that her mother got sick, Karel being overwhelmed and busy with some work of his he didn't want to talk about, her mother most likely died in Terezín, while her father with half-brother proceeded on cherishing and worshiping that heiling Austrian man in a brown uniform that can't even grow a proper moustache by getting drunk every single day and certainly not minding being abusive in any way and to it all; The fact the extraction date was getting closer and closer wasn't exactly helping either...

Although this time, somebody else from whom it would be least possible stepped in. It was Gerta's father that got high position in Brno, that arranged for Gerta that she didn't have to Terezín, however, she will have to leave Šanov, sell the farmstead and move to Brno with the rest of her family.

Originally, she didn't even wanted to do it. She'd rather go to Terezín, even though she knew most of it that was awaiting for her. Or at least she thought so and she certainly didn't mind working and having only one kind of breakfast every morning but Karel was the one that persuaded her into eventually doing it.

He would rather have her far away with the certainty she lives instead of having her far away without the certainty. But back then, he had no idea what was going to come next. It was safe to say even then that they were never going to see each other again.

#### Brno

It wasn't that bad but she missed them. She missed Jana and Karel. Everything she looked at reminded her of them. It was unbearable for the first few months.

Her father forced her to started to go to Hitlerjugend, even though she was about to turn 18 soon. *It's high time, meine Liebe Gerta*, he would say to that. And she was in no position to refuse because otherwise, her father had in hands the powerful weapon; her true heritage. Just one word of his and the SS Sturmbannführer could be dragging her to Kaunitz-Wohnheim, attaching her to the metal shackles at the wooden wall and pulling the triggers of their Mauser rifles. Simple as that. But Gerta also knew she couldn't afford this. She wanted to live and to get to the day when she sees Jana and Karel again.

But for a while, everything seemed fine. Although, as we all know, nothing lasts forever and then, Němec siblings stopped sending letters, Gerta's father started drinking heavily and her brother got to the point when even he had to leave for front.

At least one positive point it had because behind all of this stood one and only reason and that was; the war was slowly getting to its end.

*Und dann kamen die schlimmsten Albträume*.

#### Barbora

Mugwort. On shadowy waste heaps, by roadsides, in the underbrush, along banks and embankments, in the sultry heat of summer. Clusters on rigid, angular, branched stems on purplish hollow stalks. Lobed lower leaves, four to four-and-a-half inches long, smaller, sessile upper leaves. The undersides white with fine, downy hairs, feltlike. Flowers—small, yellow or yellowish brown. The base of each bloom nestles inside a greenish funnel, and when the blossom drops off, what’s left is a small green bun riddled with pinprick dimples. One heaping teaspoon of the delicate blossoms tipped into a porcelain cup—the water on the stove is already bubbling.

European yew. How much is fifty grams of needles? A handful, not more. It’s poisonous and can be lethal. Fifty grams, no more, preferably less. The fine needles cover the yellowish-brown mugwort blossoms in the bottom of the cup. The steam from the kettle on the stove is rising. The water comes spurting out in a cascading swirl and fills the porcelain cup. The water level rises, and the needles and blossoms twirl in a wild, death-bearing dance. One cup four times a day. For one whole week. And every evening, a mallow root drizzled with twenty drops of lemon juice inserted into one’s body and left inside overnight, until the bleeding begins, until the womb is cleansed. Don’t fear the cramps; don’t fear the nausea.

What could have gone wrong? Why hadn’t she succeeded in evicting this goblin? Was it the missing lemon? But where now, five years into the war, could she find a lemon? She had managed to acquire the European yew and mugwort; she had managed to procure a mallow root through a woman who dealt on the black market, but a lemon, there simply was none to be had. Lemons were beyond the reach of even the black-market profiteer.

Gerta was desperate. She was terrified. She was at her wits’ end, dying of fear. Never, not even during the air raids of the previous few nights, had she been as terrified as she was these days. These weeks. Weeks upon weeks,while her womb remained occupied, as new life already pulsed through the openings of her pores, shifting, turning over, swimming, making sure she knew it was there.

Later on, she regretted the blows. The blows to her stomach that had only made her feel sicker and seemed to have had no effect whatsoever on the life by now deeply rooted inside her. They only hurt. She gave in. The goblin growing inside her had won. Her name was *Barbora*.

#### Bombing

That morning, Gerta was catching up on the sleep she’d missed out on during the night when her father had been drunkenly raging again. The apartment was steeped in darkness; not even a glimmer of light came through the blacked-out windows. Suddenly the first bomb dropped outside. Gerta had managed to survive the bombing without any further consequences, even though the residents of the house across the street weren't so lucky. That was the first time Gerta had experienced the cold and intrusive smell of war personally.

#### The End of the War

It's April. A beautiful april full of spring sounds, smells and flowers. Everything was blooming, even the small four-months old dwarf Barbora. Only Gerta's face didn't seem to change. How long is it since she genuinely laughed at something? Two... three years? That was still at the time she was with Karel. But that was now totally gone. Any happy prospects of future were now paradoxly just a past.

#### Brno Death March

*Every ethnic German has to come to Mendelsplatz today with their personal belongings and a suitcase with a maximum limit of up to 50 kilos,* was resonating through every city wireless.

Sadly, Gerta was now one of them. During the war, she was **the Jew**, now after the war she was **the German**, while never hurting a soul. But she had to go there, otherwise they'd find her and probably do even lot worse; make her life and Barbora's a literal living hell.

At around 6 pm on 29 May 1945, police and assistance troops started to gather all recipients of food coupons marked with a "D" (for Germans) and at around 10 pm on 30 May the first groups of Germans were forced to march 55 kilometres (34 mi) south towards the Austrian border. In the middle of the night the group reached the town of Rajhrad about 15 kilometres (9 mi) from Brno, where most of those expelled spent the rest of the night in the orphanage. The next morning the group reached the small town of Pohořelice, 15 kilometres (9 mi) further south. Next to the town was an abandoned concentration camp in which the Germans of Brno, along with Gerta and her small daughter were interned.

And it was there where Dr. Šebek, Dr. Ivanov and Ing. Turgenev (trio of one Czech and two Russian scientists) were looking for subjects for their next experiment. Zbrojovka let them select 8 people and so they did.

Gerta was one of them, for her perfect Czech and denial of her German lineage.

### Golem's origin

#### Before the Experiments

Top secret!

The three scientist were assigned on working on a type of drugs that would enhance one's senses and physical abilities. Although, during the studies they found a flaw in German Zyklon B gas and with only few reactive matters, they were able to create a new substance with the ability to modify and mutate person's DNA and cells.

Šebek, Ivanov and Turgenev didn't really care about the fact that Gerta was taking care of a literal baby. They just sent her away to an orphanage and didn't pursue it further in any way (aka character arc space created for later purposes).

That also connected with the fact they started the experiments with brain washing. Gerta could ascend as much as possible, but it still didn't matter. They won anyways.

#### Experiments

Eight soulless bodies was walking through the institution, heading for the final lab room. Seven men, one woman. They didn't know where they were going yet they seemed they didn't even care.

*Schmidt, Wild, Fischer, Wagner, Strauss, Schnirchová, Schäfer und Bundshuh. Schmidt, Wild, Fischer...*

*What? Как это возможно? How did that happen? Co se stalo? Выживший? Jak jenom jeden? Who is it? Schnirchová?*

The substance that was included in the acid that was inserted into the bodies turned out to be lethal to individiuals with Y chromozome. The only one experiment survivor was Gerta.

Thanks to it, Gerta received altered cells to be able to decay and merge with the darkness/shadows. Although, her mental abilities weren't that great as scientists were assuming they would. They trained her, they helped her to grow, they tried to make out of her a lethal weapon that would lately help Russia and all the other socialist states to win the war against USA that was hanging in the air as a potential threat. But she was weak. There was no point in doing it. She would only hinder.

And thus they decided to simply freeze her in time box, since she couldn't die by force nor by any disease they knew, and burry her living body in the nearest graveyard.

#### The Icicle Melts

In the 2020, a group of teenagers trying to make money for their trip to Paris decides to go to local cemetery and practice grave robbing. Unfortunately for them, fortunately for other people, they find a frozen female body in a timebox; Gerta Schnirch. They hesitantly report it (yet the report receives one of the partisans and tries to, eventually succesfully, connect with the Resistance) and The National Museum brings her back to life and conducts research on her. Right afterwards, she is taken in by S.H.I.E.L.D. for a trial time and receives proper training this time, giving her chance to come to understand her powers better. There she receives her alias based on her Czech-Jewish origin; Golem.

**Altered version of this paragraph for "Marvel: Redemption" server:** In the 2030s, a group of teenagers trying to make money for their trip to Paris decides to go to local cemetery and practice grave robbing. Unfortunately for them, fortunately for other people, they find a frozen female body in a timebox; Gerta Schnirch. They hesitantly report it yet the report receives one of the partisan-cooperating officers and tries to, eventually succesfully, connect with the Resistance net. All in secrecy, the Resistance manages to revive her. They wuickly understand how useful and beneficial she would for them, however they hit an issue; she can't fight. Right afterwards, she is taken in by S.H.I.E.L.D. for a trial time, as the Czechoslovakian resistance connect with them and Gerta receives proper training this time, giving her chance to come to understand her powers better. There she receives her alias based on her Czech-Jewish origin; Golem.

Gerta gets the chance to learn how to speak English and thanks to her bilingualism, she is able to come to terms with a new language quite quickly.

On the other hand, hand to hand combat, shooting and knife throwing is what's more difficult for her. Eventually, she learns to throw knives, bayonets and to use tomahawk, however, shooting is a cursed activity for her. She's never learned how to aim.

After three years spent with training at S.H.I.E.L.D., Gerta also got the chance to cooperate with the Avengers and train with them. Among these experts with similar powers as her, she is mastering and learning how to properly control hers.

## Personality

She comes across as a very quiet person but not because she's shy. She doesn't fear to say what she's thinking when she is asked, however not without it. She also doesn't expect much from people so she is constantly 'disappointed but not surprised' type of a person. She is very sardonic, sarcastic and cynical. One of her main attributes is that she isn't a really outcoming person so she hardly speaks about her feelings, however hates when somebody tries to influence her. She is an absolute die-hard pessimist.

The past trauma in her life played a large part in shaping her final personality. She lived her entire, short life in fear. And now that everything should finally be alright, she suffers from anxiety and constant worry that everything might go back into the way it all were 80 years ago, even though she's lost most of her memory that is coming back only a little by little.

Even though she remembers only little, she tries to forget and not to think and recall those times, thus she sometimes seems ignorant and heartless. She tells herself that it's better not to feel than to live in constant pain.

### Myers-Briggs

INFP - **A Mediator** **(INFP)** is someone who possesses the Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Prospecting personality traits. These rare personality types tend to be quiet, open-minded, and imaginative, and they apply a caring and creative approach to everything they do.

### Character Strengths

She is very well-read and has pretty big knowledge when it comes to literature and history. She can also really well reason. Due to her previous life events, she has come to the point she doesn’t fear death.

### Character Weaknesses

She can get really angry and just rage quit at some fatal point. However she is not naive, she can be hot-headed and pretty careless.

## Powers & Abilities

### Powers

Zyklon B+ affected Gerta in a strange way. She is now able to control shadows.

#### Umbrakinesis

Gerta can create, shape and manipulate darkness and shadows. By itself, darkness is mostly used to cloud everything into total darkness, but by accessing a dimension of dark energy it can be channeled to a variety of effects, both as an absence of light and a solid substance: Gerta can also control and manipulate the beings that exist there, create and dispel shields and areas of total darkness, create constructs and weapons, teleport one's self through massive distances via shadows, etc.

#### Umbraportation

Gerta can teleport via shadows/darkness, merging into shadows/darkness and appearing anywhere else from the same element. Although, her powers are limited by space. She cannot teleport for a very long distance and in a short interval.

Gerta is physically immortal in her shadow form, however, the form can last only up to 30 seconds, after that, she has to as if recharge when she's able to do another jump into the shadows.

### Abilities

After three years of constant training at S.H.I.E.L.D., Gerta got skilled in several fight techniques.

#### Knife throwing

Gerta's main ability is knife throwing. She is able to hit a target within a reach of 60 metres.

#### Tomahawk

Tomahawk, as the combat axe, is Gerta's most used weapon in a fight. The lightness of the weapon gives her the time she needs while moving across the shadows.

#### Stealth

An integral part of her training, which is associated with her powers. Gerta's rather smaller stature provides her of being able to move and stir in the most silent way possible. She couldn't even work without it.

### Weaknesses

#### UV Radiation

Weak spot of Gerta's abilities is strong UV radiation. It's also one of the very few ways she can be killed in her shadow form if the radiation is strong enough. She also finds more difficult to fight on a sunny day.

In Summer, the Sun can even cause her serious health issues.

#### Trauma

Even though she tries to displace all her negative incomplete memories and flashbacks, it always can be triggered in any smart way and thus manifested a memory restutition.

#### Firearm Aim Accuracy

Gerta is a bad marksman even if the life depended on it. She couldn't aim since the very first day she held a gun in her hand and tried to avoid it if possible.

#### Pain

Even though Gerta is technically immortal in her shadow form, whenever a knife goes through her cells or a bullet, she feels it as if she was able to die and that could even absolutely cause her to freeze out from the fight.

## Equipment

II; 1940 VZ24 MAUSER BAYONET

Gerta's main equipment is:

### Weapons

***I; 1922 DAGGER WITH ENGRAVED CZECHOSLOVAKIAN SYMBOLS**, inherited after her late mother's lineage. Firstly owned by her partysan grandfather that later on died in Auschwitz.*

Gerta's grandfather was a part of Czechoslovakian legion in Russia and a big patriot.

III; AXE TOMAHAWK

***II; 1940 VZ24 MAUSER BAYONET,** Gerta received from the scientist duo Šebek and Novák. Nowadays she owns two pairs, upgraded and modified for her own needs.*
***III; AXE TOMAHAWK**, received from S.H.I.E.L.D. in her training.*

### Suit

***IV; NANO SUIT***, Gerta's combat suit consist from a special fusion of many chemical compounds and materials that also contain nano particles that allow her to safely move and teleportate via shadows by repeatedly dissolving and getting back together.

## Extras

As conservative as Gerta is, she also has her favourite things that wouldn't exchange for anything in the world. She has a bad habit of emotionally attaching to material objects with connections to people she knew or knows and wants to make sure of keeping them in her life.

> "The saddest part of life is when the person that gave you most memories becomes a memory."
>
> Květa Němcová

Gerta's brown shirt

### Mother's blouse

Barbora Horovitzová bought Gerta once she graduated from primary school and got to start comprehensive secondary school (eu. Gymnasium in Slavičín) a shirt, very similar to one she owned herself and Gerta once mentioned she liked it. Gerta has had this blouse on when she was on her way to Prague, to catch the train to Ghetto Terezín, when Šebek and Novák found her and when she froze. It's the only piece of clothing that endured the generations in ice, even though it had to be restored on Gerta's request.

### Karel's necklace

Karel's chain

> "What?"
> "...nothing."
> "Why are you looking at me like that?"
> "Karel, I can't take it, I'm Jewish."
> "So what? If that's the issue then look at it as if I were lending it to you. And when we see each other again, you can give it back to me, okay?"
>
> Karel Němec gives Gerta Schnirch his necklace before her departure

Right before Gerta's departure to Prague, Jana and Karel were able to say their goodbyes to her in person and Karel decided to give Gerta a chain necklace with cross of his he wouldn't take off just so she has something to remember him by when they're away from each other. Ever since Gerta's woken up in the new time, she hasn't removed it.

Gerta remembers origins of these things only vaguely.