France. Finally, I made it.
The year is......1950 something....I can't remember. I had just gotten out of Germany and now am in a small French town.
The last world war had torn my life apart. My parents thought that my blue eyes would save me from harm, but they were wrong. My family had a Chocolate store in Düsseldorf we had it for generations, until the Nazi invasion. They came to the shop and burned it to the ground. My mother and father, dead. My brother was captured. And I ran, and ran as far as I could.
A kind Catholic family hid me in The Netherlands for sometime with another Jewish family the were hiding. I hid with them for a few years until the war was over. I had gotten word that my brother was taken to a POW camp but was able to get out due to some kind prisoners. Even still I never saw him again.
For years I lived as a vagabond traveling here and there trying to make money. I would stay in a place for a while then get run out of town by the residence for being Germen.
"Bonsure? Madame? (hello madam)" I said as I tapped on a window with a help wanted sign in the front. A lady a bit older than I opened the door and greeted me with a smile.
"Êtes-vous ici pour l'aide? (Are you here for the help?)" She said back, I only knew little French and was still learning.
"S'il vous plaît parlez-vous allemand ou anglais?" (Do you speak Germen or English?") I asked. She replied with a "Oui (yes)" and led me inside to her shop. A Chocolate shop.
"Oh my, Schokolade! (Chocolate) My family used to own a Chocolate store in Germany........until the....." I looked to the floor, tears in my eyes.
"I understand, do you know how to make Chocolate my dear?" She asked. I nodded vigorously.
"Ja! I can make German Chocolate!"
"Then let's put you to work then." She said with a smile. She led me to the kitchen and I began to make the sweets from memory. I late learned that the lady's name was Vianne and her little girl Anouk. They let me stay with them. Sometimes I would get strange looks form the people who would come to the store when they would hear my Germen accent.
Days flew by and before I knew it I had been with them for a year.
"(y/n)?" Vianne said.
"Ja?" I said back.
"Do you like it here?"
"Ja, I do, I am a bit lonely though, but not for you and your little girl." I said.
"I understand, you wish you had a gentleman friend yes?" She gave me a smirk and I nodded.
"It would be nice to be in love, but I think no man from here would like a German girl."
"Nonsense, a pretty talented woman like you, what man wouldn't want to have you as wife?"
I blushed a bit as she said this, I do want to get married someday, meet a kind gentleman. But I know that I'll probably have to go some place else if I don't want to be shamed for being German.
One day I was making some Germen Chocolate bon bons when the front door to the shop opened, Vianne said that a man was coming by to fix the door so I figured this must be him. Without thinking I greeted him in Germen.
