Prologue – The Times Before Hitler
Life Ain't Fair.
An old saying that I'm sure everyone's heard.
And I know that it means more for some than it does for others.
For me, It means a lot.
I'm Bella, I'm Jewish and lucky unlucky for me, I was born in 1925. Slap bang in the middle of the German "Golden Years." It was a good time for Germany. True, I was young. So I couldn't remember much. But my mother tells me things were great for us Germans. Thanks to Gustav Stresemann, hyper inflation was no more and we were out of our economic crisis. We were on good terms with the surrounding countries. And art and architecture was blooming. Everything was great.
The first memory I really had was my father, Charlie, talking about how tight money would be. I didn't really understand why then, but looking back now, I can see it was the Wall Street crash in Germany that caused my fathers dismay. My friends parents were mostly unemployed after that. My family owned a book shop, and even though business was tight, we made it through. My father was an educated man, and would often tutor me when I was young. So I could read fluently by the time I was six.
Another memory which holds me, is one day in 1933 when I was reading the paper. I was seven at this time. But in front of me it stated 6,100,000 unemployed across Germany. I remember asking my father what it meant. He told me not to worry until I was older. He would often tell me this. When he was complaining about the government not being able to keep a chancellor for more than 3 minutes, he told me to go read an not worry about such things. Of course I know what he meant now, but honestly, knowing what was in our cards for the future, I would have been glad for a million Chancellors to come in and out of our government.
My name is Bella Swan. I'm 18. And this is my story.