Destiny (Germany, 1944)

History

That's when my eldest stepsister, Cynthia, rushed in and dragged me to the backdoor, and ushered me in. She shushed me, and asked me to follow her when I started protesting.

She ran up the stairs with me in tow, and locked me up in the attic. I was nervous and didn't know what was going on, so I tried looking through the ventilator. I could barely see some eight to ten men outside the house, speaking and shouting at my father. They were dragging my mother by the hair. I tried shouting and banging on the ventilator, but no one heard me over the chaos. Then I banged on the door as well, but to no avail. I watched the men throw my mother in the back of one of their jeeps after tying her hands together. Then they sped off.

I kept watching the jeeps until they disappeared from my field of vision. That night, I cried, cried my heart out, on my mattress in one corner of the kitchen, as my sisters didn't want me to sleep outside alone, unprotected after the day's events. I cried that night, and I never cried again.

A lot happened after that. I never had much problem with the society, as I was not counted as a Jew, but a German, because of my father. But people did look down upon me for being tainted by Jew blood in my veins, but I didn't mind as long as they let me live and work peacefully. In the following years many events occurred. Two of my three stepsisters got married and moved to cities. Cynthia moved to Dortmund, and the other married sister, Dianne, moved to Berlin. Later, Cynthia started a big grocery store, as she wanted to do something on her own. She wanted someone reliable as a helping hand, for which she asked me, and so, I shifted to Dortmund as well, and started working with her. I lived with her for a few months, and then rented a small apartment for myself, with the profit that I received.

Today, I worked in peace till the evening at the store, with nothing out of the ordinary around me. Cynthia had caught flu, because of which, she had to stay indoors to recuperate from her illness.

As dusk approached, I could hear a lot of shouts at short intervals, which got closer with time.