From the Ashes
Page 34
Ilsa’s face grew hard, then suddenly softened. “No, I guess not,” she said, sounding surprised. “Wow! Hannah said motherhood would change me, but I didn’t think it would be this soon.”
They strolled through flower gardens that had survived three global wars and the rise and fall of empires. Even in the worst of the fighting, the park had been spared. Adolf saw lovers walking hand in hand, and vendors selling food that hadn’t been tasted by German palates in decades. He saw children playing, and for the first time, allowed himself to imagine what it would be like to hold one of his own.
Ilsa was right. It was time for him to retire. Before the stress of the job killed him. Or before some disgruntled citizen suspected he wanted to keep the job forever, and got to him before the stress did.
As if reading his mind, Ilsa said, “Thinking you might finally live your dream of becoming a humble village school master?”
“Maybe. But the school will be a synagogue, and I’ll be teaching people of all ages. But that’s fine with me. I’d love to try it, and find out if I’m any good.”
Ilsa rolled her eyes. “Like you haven’t been doing it for years already?”
“Yeah. But what might it be like without anyone shooting at me?” Adolf grinned. He seemed to be doing that a lot all of a sudden. “What I really need to find out now, though, is where to get a crib, and how to change a diaper, and if we could move into a smaller place for just the three of us.”
“Mmm. I like the sound of that.”
They reached the end of the park. There, now a pile of rubble, was what had once been the white marble mausoleum of Adolf Hitler. It had had stood from 1959 until the mob had pulled it down last year. They hadn’t opened the coffin, so somewhere down there, his bones still lay.
Now the place was a memorial. Paintings, sculptures, banners and poems filled the open area. The most impressive to date was still under construction. On a huge wall of black stone, a man with an armband carefully chiseled a list of names. Newly uncovered records of the extermination camps had provided them. Adolf judged the artist could squeeze one hundred thousand names on the wall. To record them all, he would need four hundred more walls.
Adolf turned back to the vandalized mausoleum.
“Incredible,” he whispered.
“What is?” asked Ilsa.
“Hitler. History. The way everything turned out. I’ve heard people say that the First Führer and I have a lot in common.”
“Bite your tongue.”
“Well, there could be something to it. I’d settle for being half the genius he was—if I could just avoid his fall into darkness. If you consider all he did—“
“Adolf, if you start waxing sentimental over Hitler, I swear I’ll move to Switzerland and raise this baby by myself!” She stalked away at an impressive clip.
“But Ilsa!” Adolf chased after her, to the delight of numerous passersby. “Look at it this way! If it wasn’t for Hitler, the whole world wouldn’t be Jewish today!”
Author’s Note:
This book began more than twenty years ago, when I saw a documentary on Simon Weisenthal, which described Himmler’s plan to create museums of dead races. I immediately saw the possibilities for an alternate history story (at the time I naively believed it would be a short story!)
Soon after that, in another documentary, I learned of how Joseph and Magda Goebbels poisoned their six daughters before killing themselves on the day Hitler died. I knew at once that my protagonist had to be the grandson of Joseph Goebbels: propagandist, fanatic, the kind of man who could murder his own children rather than let them live in a world without Hitler. (Admittedly later, when I learned more about the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers against German civilians, I began to see the Goebbels’ actions differently. When my mother compared their actions to Masada, my perception did a complete turnabout.)
My first problem, however, was how to keep Adolf’s last name Goebbels, after the documentary had clearly stated that all six children were girls. After agonizing with me for some time, my husband suddenly shouted: “If Joseph and Magda didn’t die, they could have had more children!” Yes! Perfect! After all, the youngest was only four when she died in 1945. So I invented Wilhelm Goebbels, who became Adolf’s father.
Then, after about twelve years, several rewrites and the invention of the internet, I learned that Goebbels actually had five daughters and one son. (A member of my writing group thoughtfully sent me several web articles and a whole batch of pictures.)
After uttering a few words which will not be printed here, I sat down to begin the next rewrite. It wasn’t that big a deal, I told myself. Just hit Ctrl F and Ctrl H: Find Wilhelm; replace with Helmut. Except it was a big deal. Bringing a nine year old boy back from the dead so I could turn him into a convenient villain became a very big deal to me. Maybe that child would have grown into the tyrant he is in this novel. But we’ll never know, because he never got the chance to grow into an adult of any kind. In an effort to show respect for this little boy, and his sisters, I learned all I could of the real Helmut Goebbels, and incorporated all five sentences into this novel. So little, and yet it speaks volumes.
Also included are stories people have told me over the years. Within the pages of this fantasy of what might have been, I have incorporated all the reality I could, even the most obscure bits. And if you are one of the people who told me one of those stories, my short “Acknowledgement” section is not nearly enough to express my thanks.
Acknowledgements:
Thanking everyone who helped with this decades-long project would be impossible, but I’ll do my best. First and most important, my husband Tom, who worked with me every step of the way, helped write the battle scenes, and came to know the characters as well as I do. Heartfelt thanks to my mother, Charlotte Fisher, and to all the members of three different writers groups: the Whensday People, the Over the Hill Gang, and that group who met at the Coffee Factory in the late 1990s (sorry I don’t remember the name) who read and critiqued its many drafts. And again, special thanks to the very talented team of George MacDonald and Donji Columbine for making the physical reality of the book possible. But, as in the real story of the Holocaust, the stories contained in these pages came to me from countless sources, I am unable to name. From stories overheard at conventions, to the tales of WWII veterans I met while working as a cocktail waitress in my college days, to the books I read in my middle-school library, to survivors who spoke at my high school, this novel is the result of everything I’ve ever heard or imagined about a piece of human history that has always sounded more like science fiction/ horror than fact.
Sandra Saidak graduated San Francisco State University in 1985 with a B.A. in English. She is a high school English teacher by day, author by night. Her hobbies include reading, dancing, attending science fiction conventions, researching prehistory, and maintaining an active fantasy life (but she warns that this last one could lead to dangerous habits such as writing). Sandra lives in San Jose with her husband Tom, daughters Heather and Melissa, and two cats. Her first novel, “Daughter of the Goddess Lands”, an epic set in the late Neolithic Age, was published in November, 2011 by Uffington Horse Press. From the Ashes is her first Science Fiction novel.
Contents
From the Ashes
Book I
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
Book II
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
Book III
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAP
TER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
Book IV
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
Book V
EPILOGUE
Author’s Note:
Table of Contents
From the Ashes
Book I
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
Book II
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
Book III
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
Book IV
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
Book V
EPILOGUE
Author’s Note: