A TALE OF BLOOD AND INK

Chapter 1 | Blood and Rain

Dear Hanna,

We hope you will enjoy this little book and that it will be a little help for you to fulfill your dream of becoming a writer one day. Happy birthday!

With love,
Your parents

Now that I have this book and want to write down all my thoughts and the stories forming in my head, I find it incredibly difficult. Every single letter that I put on paper I have thought through a hundred times. And so I sit here now at my little desk, the book open in front of me and my pen in my hand, and I hesitate to write what I am really thinking at the moment. I hope these pages will serve their purpose and bring me closer to my dream of one day being able to publish my own books. That is the goal I have in mind with every word - to become a writer and...

"... and finally share all my feelings and thoughts, my stories with the world." Only moments after these last words had faded away, peals of laughter broke the silence. Shaking his head, the young man looked at the small book in his hands. "Well, what these Jews come up with!"

His superior, who had hitherto paid little attention to his lecture on the first page of this book, finally lifted his eyes from the mountain of suitcases. The last possessions of the Jews from whom snatched away only a short time before.

"What do you have there, Seidler? Let me have a look," he said to the young uniformed man, gesturing him to come closer.

"Yes, Herr Standartenführer," replied the SS Scharführer and presented his discovery to the higher-ranking man almost with pride. A small booklet with a leather cover, over whose pages beautifully curved handwriting stretched. Under the attentive gaze of Bruno Seidler, the Standartenführer began to leaf through it before pausing on a random page. As he read, a small crease formed on his forehead, and the corner of his mouth, in which a cigarette clung, twitched briefly.

"Where did you get that?"

Bruno Seidler pointed somewhat perplexedly at the red suitcase in which he had found the book and seemed a little puzzled by his superior's reaction. "From this suitcase. Is there anything wrong with it?"

Briefly, the man looked at the other contents and then turned to his subordinate with a stern look. "Instead of reading the books of the Jews, you ought to be doing what you are here for, Scharführer Seidler. Get to work!"

A little taken aback, but no less swift, Bruno Seidler stood at attention and saluted. "Jawohl, Herr Standartenführer!"

But when he looked around afterward, he found that he had already disappeared, as had the book.

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October 1941

Where am I? Where will we go? These questions had been buzzing through my head for countless hours, and I found no answer to them, no matter how hard I tried. The roar, the regular jolt that ran through the train and my body, the beastly stench, and the cold had long since become nothing more than a blurry backdrop, pushed further and further into the background by my anxious thoughts. My anxiety was even able to temporarily drown out the growling of my stomach until hunger came over me with dizziness, pain, and nausea.

"Hanna, d-do you think we'll be there soon?" my sister's trembling voice drifted over to me. Next to me, I felt the violent trembling of her delicate, completely frozen body. I tore my gaze away from the small notch in the floor I had been staring at for minutes or hours and turned it anxiously to her delicate outline, softly silhouetted against the darkness. Curls peeked out from under the fabric of her cap, which she had pulled as low as she could on her face to keep warm. Even her closed eyes were half-covered. Wrapped tightly in her coat, only her snub nose, and brittle lips, twitching violently under the steady chatter of her teeth, were visible.