My hand slid from hers one last time as I was dragged away by the other soldiers, while she lay on the ground with a whip swinging down on her back as she screamed, “Hans.” Tears streamed down my face as I was thrown into the back of a jeep and driven away. I was placed in a new camp miles away from Adina, who was still locked in Buchenwald.

The first day I saw her, I was instantly in love. She wasn’t as skinny as the others and didn’t look much older than 19; she had been hiding and only recently had the Nazis found her.  It started out as friendship and quickly escalated as I used to sneak her extra food, medication and anything else she needed when no one else was looking.

It was against the law for us to have any kind of relationship, being pleasant to an inmate risked being sent away. The Nuremberg made it illegal for us to have any sexual relationships or get married. Though this did not stop us from doing so.

The night before I was taken, I snuck into the barrack full of Jewish women. They stared at me in fear as I pleaded for them to stay silent and moved to Adina’s bed.

We married that night with some Jewish women watching. However, the next morning, one of the women must have told the commander because we were separated and never saw each other again.

Years after the war ended I went looking for her with no luck. Instead, I found someone else, her son. She had become pregnant the night we married. For this, they killed her after my son Erich was born, and forced him to be German.

Erich has grown up now and has grandchildren of his own to care for. I wish that Adina could see him and the world now, the world free of the Holocaust.

 

Explanation:

This fictional historical memoir was written in first person perspective about a Hans, a German Nazi working in a concentration camp during the Holocaust who fell in love with Adina, a Jewish woman. He struggled with the consequences of his relationship with a Jew. The Nuremberg Laws and other regulations created for Nazis made it illegal for him to have any relationship with her. He then struggled with seeing his partner being beaten while he was unable to do help. Later he struggled with the loss of his wife after years of not seeing her, only to later be reminded of her death after meeting their son.

Hans, the German Nazi with his son Erich
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