It was the autumn of 1938 and I had just turned thirteen, but instead of celebrating with joy and exuberance that year, I was filled with dread and terror. Summer in Berlin is actually the most beautiful time of the year, but by now, the leaves of the old trees we've seen everyday on our walk home, had started to morph into different colors and drift downward onto their new home for the season. It was the evening of November 6, and my sister and I were taking our usual route home. We were skipping and prancing, singing songs that my mother had taught us when we were young. Klara was only a year younger than I, but we were inseparable best friends. We were especially happy on that clear, brisk day because it was my birthday. As we approached the front of our home, we could smell the amazing scent of our mother's cooking.
According to Bullock, Hitler was an opportunistic ...
English: The Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989. The ph...
Klara Hitler, most likely in the 1890sAnd we hurriedly ran inside to be greeted by my father, Henry, in the biggest bear hug he has given me to date. I felt safe when my father hugged me. It was like he was an invincible barrier that no one could possibly take down. It was this feeling and his smile that I felt were his best features. He was also the most optimistic person I knew. "Keep your head up, no matter what," was his motto and he reinforced it in every single one of his children. It was our daily ritual to hug the second I arrived home from school and my sister would run to my mother's side, tugging on her apron, anxious to tell her about the happenings at school. Mother, whose name was Anna, was an old-fashioned person, just like her mother, and her mother before her. She...