Ashes

Chapter One: Nuremburg

I was born and raised in the beautiful German City of Nuremburg. My mother taught at one of the city universities and my father was in training to be a soldier, and we couldn't have been more proud of him. We always thought we were entirely German, every drop of blood in our veins was Christian. Our story didn't quite work out that way.

When I was just the tender age of six my local school introduced a newly devised scheme, devised by those in power to teach us the "correct" ways of living. What Adolf Hitler described to be racial awareness. We were Aryans, and we had to conduct ourselves properly and live our lives as Aryans apparently should have. It was only nineteen thirty three at that point and Mr Hitler had only just been appointed Chancellor and Führer of Germany.

I'd always been brought up to believe that the beliefs of people like Hitler were correct by my Father, who had been an avid supporter of the Nazi Party since the founding of it. My mother did not really have any political preference, and as my father and herself had conceived my sister, Bianka, when she was fifteen, she went along with his beliefs out of gratitude for him supporting her when she was a young mother. They were in love from the first moment they met, and my mother never questioned my father, but despite his beliefs, he always treated her with the utmost respect and truly did his best to support us.

My parents had Bianka on the twenty fourth of February, nineteen twenty, the exact date that the Nazi Party was founded. At fifteen, my parents were not able to look after a baby really, but they muddled through somehow and went on to have me on the Seventh of May, nineteen twenty seven, and they'd matured a lot since they'd had Bianka and were comfortably well off enough to care for two children, who we admittedly handfuls, especially Bianka, who took after our father in temperament and beliefs. She didn't question a single thing and vowed to be exactly like our father when she grew up.

I, however, was more curious about why we had to abide by those rules and I was so curious about what was so bad about believing in a different party. My childhood was very political in a sense, but it didn't affect us drastically until the late thirties.

When we were in class, and my best friend Melina was sat beside me, she began to read about our history and how Jews had affected it, and I commented,

"Why does the Jew look that way? Mr and Mrs Weiss look nothing like that!"

"It is how they are represented as being on the inside," She parroted from the book, reciting the sentence.

"It says they are all evil, but whenever we go to the shop, which we don't often anymore because Father says they can't be trusted, but I sometimes sneak away and they always give me a toffee," I told her, confused.

"You're lucky we are best friends. You are not supposed to say nice things about them, but I won't tell," She whispered to me.

I smiled at her, and waited for the bell to be rung so I could leave school. Father had promised to take Bianka and I out for dinner tonight because Mother had to stay late at the University.

As I skipped out of the class, I made sure that I looked presentable, as Father had instilled in us that it was important for one to keep up their appearance and appear put together and presentable at all times.

I adjusted the hem of my pinafore and straightened my small school tie appropriately before I skipped onto the courtyard of the school, where I saw Father standing, waiting for me.

I felt a rush of excitement coarsing through my veins as I rushed towards my Father, cheeks pink and hair flying behind me.

"Father!" I exclaimed, hugging him tightly.

"There's my darling girl! Did you learn anything new today darling?" He enquired, picking me up and placing me on his shoulders.

"Yes, I did. They gave us new textbooks with the party logo on and told us that we could learn the right information from them," I replied, eager to please him.

"I'm glad they are teaching you properly my darling. Now, let's go pick Bianka up," He said, walking briskly.

I surveyed the scenery of Nuremburg on the way, taking into account all the sights. It seemed so big to me, somewhere to explore, and then I saw the Stahl family, even the children, being rounded up into a truck, with Nazis shouting at them and poking them with their guns.

"Father," I whimpered, frightened.

He took me off his shoulders and carried me so my head was buried in his chest so I couldn't see what was happening.

"It's ok. They just did something bad my darling." He soothed me, stroking my hair and walking faster to get to Bianka's school faster.

When we got there, I'd managed to raise my head, and Bianka was waiting for us, her shirt neatly tucked in, and her usual red and black ribbons donning her smooth brown wavy hair, which appeared just like Father's only obviously longer. Her hair had two small bunches each side but the rest tumbled down to just past her shoulders.

"Bianka, sweetheart, did you have a good day?" Father asked her.

"Yes I did. We learned all the negatives of Marxism," She responded, confident that that would please Father, and it did, because he smiled at her proudly.

"Well done my girl," He said to her, putting me down to give her a small hug before taking my hand again.

"You're rather quiet." Bianka remarked to me, and I bit my lip nervously and tensed up as we walked past the area where those people had been rounded up.

"Officers took some Jews away sweetheart, she got scared because they were shouting," Father informed her.

Bianka tutted.

"Don't worry Lena, they were doing the right thing, " She reassured me with a sigh.

"Ok," I said simply, although I was still curious.

"Now, let's go take dinner somewhere." Father said, taking me in his arms again and carrying me on his shoulders.

He held Bianka's hand and we walked down the street, United.

A/N: Welcome to my Wattpad! This is my first story, and it is about the Holocaust. This is all from Lena's perspective, and I understand it is sensitive and serious as a topic. No hate to anyone's beliefs. We can all believe what we want, but please no negativity as this topic should be respected whether you agree or disagree with what happened. I personally think it was an atrocity and should never have happened,  that's my personal opinion and you neither have to agree or disagree with it :) This is my serious stories Wattpad page, I actually write Harry Potter fanfiction too, but my other page is purely devoted to that. It is PotterheadBonBon 💗
Anyways, love you all my BonBons! Love from PotterheadBonBon 💗 💗