Chapter one
The story begins

The date was March 11th, 1932 and it was 4:30pm precisely when Matys Fuchs and Adolf Hitler began screaming at the top of their lungs at one another. It wasn't exactly face-to-face but close enough. Herr Hitler's voice was aided by the use of an electric microphone while Matys Fuchs, as a newborn baby, had only his lusty lungpower to put into that shouting match.

Thanks to the doctor who had hauled him out of the womb having a hand like a bloody shovel, he really let out a series of long, loud screams of protest when he was slapped into life. The nurses quickly cleaned him up and, once he had settled comfortably in his mother's warm arms, he surrendered the ether, without further protest, to the very loud and certainly verbose, Herr Hitler. That semi-educated man was addressing a vast gathering of people in the park that was directly across the way from the hospital.

The hospital staff had all of the windows wide open even though it was crispy cold. They desperately needed to hear this pathetic creature of a man who was proposing to guide this country of supposedly Aryan descendants to the top of the world. In just over one more year, he would begin to put his ludicrous ideas and despotic plans into operation.

Then Hitler would be appointed the Reich Chancellor of Germany. His infantile dictatorship of the entire country would begin practically immediately from that point onward. He gave himself the title of The Fuehrer, (The Leader), of all Germany. He was The State. There was no other.

The nuclear family Matys had been born into consisted of his somewhat elderly Father, (who had himself, as a child, been forced to leave his native country of Poland as the direct result of a pogrom), his German born Mother and two older siblings. His brother aged ten and his sister aged eight.

His Father had been taught his trade in Germany and now earned his living as a self-employed bespoke tailor. There was always a constant line of men beating a path to his workshop to purchase one of his custom-made suits that were particularly well designed and precisely tailored. He had established an excellent reputation for the skill of his craftsmanship for well over forty years.

Being an orthodox Jew, he had planned for both of his sons to attend the Hebrew School. His older brother already was a student while Matys had been immediately registered to begin his attendance once he had past his sixth birthday.

One of his fondest, earliest memories was being promised a chicken of his very own once he got better. He must have had an illness at the time. When he did recover, he was given his 'chicken' It was really a small game hen but he relished it.

Another memory was of the mandatory lecture all three children got every week on the night when there was spinach on the menu. They were all told how healthy spinach was for them and were instructed to clean their plates of it. Matys always did as he was told. When his parents saw his empty plate, they would tell him what a very good boy he was. The fact that he loved the taste of spinach never seemed to occur to either of them at that time.

He did not seem to remember many other things from those early phases of his childhood but that was not unusual for most small infants. Life for their family unit went on quite normally and passed by without any incident. At least for him, the youngest child, it must have appeared that way.

He does remember the day of his sixth birthday though. It was the day that Adolf Hitler annexed Austria. There was a lot of talk amongst the men on this. His birthday celebration was a grand affair. There was a table filled with his favorite foods, including spinach patties, (his Mother had figured out his taste preferences by then), and the room was decorated with lots of colored paper. It was a very solemn, as well as a happy affair, with many neighbors in attendance. The men were all dressed in their best 'synagogue' clothing.

Before they ate, there was a private ceremony of sorts that acknowledged the fact that he had now arrived at the age of six years and would begin his studies in the Hebrew School within just a matter of a month or two. He has completely forgotten what the ceremony actually was but believes that, at one point, he was obliged to say a few words in Hebrew. Obviously taught to him by rote.

However, his Hebrew School attendance was not to be realized. He fell ill and it was a lengthy illness. It took five or six months for him to recover, most of that time having been in bed. It was then that the catastrophe happened.

Adolph Hitler signed an edict that caused all Polish Jews living in Germany to be sent back to their own country. It was termed as 'An Administrative Emergency in Poland'. In spite of the fact that Matys's Mother, brother, sister and himself were all German citizens, all having been born in that country, they went with Father on that frightful train journey to Zbaszyn in Poland. It was in the late autumn of 1938.

It was the very first time that Happenstance actually stepped into Matys's life.