Chapter 0
This story was inspired by researching the life of my late granduncle Kurt Born, Doctor of Law and former President of the Railway Directorate, Breslau, in Silesia.
The story in this book describes events after the Second World War. Yes, the American forces occupied the part of Germany in which these events take place but their conduct was completely different to anything related in my account. Be constantly aware, dear Reader, that what follows is a story born of my imagination.
When I started writing I had a story line, not as notes and spider charts on paper, but in my head. However, I soon found that the characters in my story were rebelling against it. They seemed to have taken on a free will of their own and decided to act as they felt they should. The first time the characters mutinied, I was as puzzled as they probably were about what I had in mind for them. So I let them go ahead and from chapter to chapter looked forward to what was going to happen.
If you wish to investigate further, dear Reader – maybe in Wikipedia or other encyclopaedias – you’ll find, for example, that the Morgenthau plan existed in reality. But did it have the impact I describe? I would not know as I was only five years old at the time and remember that the food we had was dreck – bloody awful – and there was not much of it. So what is real and what is imagination?
First, a word of caution. When you read the story, accept it for what it is: a fairy tale set in a time that is past and gone. Who knows, though, perhaps some people are left who remember that time, even if their memories now seem no more real than fleeting thoughts, snippets of dreams.
Once upon a time…