The festival was called Klaasohm, and for generations Borkum treated it as one of the island's most important traditions. After dark, masked young men dressed in sheepskins, feathers and enormous costumes moved through the streets carrying cow horns. Other men acted as "catchers." Their quarry was women. Those caught could be grabbed, restrained and presented to a Klaasohm, who struck them on the buttocks with the flattened horn while crowds watched. Some women participated willingly and regarded the chase as part of the fun. Others remembered something very different. One woman told German journalists that afterward she was bruised from her tailbone to the back of her knees. Anothers recalled being only 14 or 15 when several young men allegedly tried to drag her into a van as she fought them for roughly ten minutes. Even pregnant women weren't safe. And then there was the silence. Journalists had long found the celebration remarkably difficult to document. Outsiders weren't exactly encouraged, cameras were unwelcome, and an extraordinary local attitude developed around Klaasohm: what happened that night belonged to Borkum. Then hidden cameras changed everything. In 2024, an investigation by NDR's Panorama and STRG_F showed women being held while they were struck. The footage exploded across Germany. Yet the reaction on Borkum revealed just how complicated traditions can become. Some women condemned what had happened. Others actually marched in defense of Klaasohm, blowing cow horns and protesting the national outrage. Within days, organizers abolished the hitting. Klaasohm continued. The cow horns remained. But after generations, women were finally supposed to be able to walk the streets on December 5 without becoming part of the tradition themselve