Disclaimer: I’m not Nazi or anything, just obsessed with WW II, and I do find the Germans quite intriguing. I’ve got a ton of Jewish friends so don’t get on my back ok? So…umm…have fun reading this!

Maybe it was because she lived in Germany, maybe because several of her family members had fought in it, but Germaine had always been fascinated with the Second World War.

She eagerly absorbed any information she could gather, and seven years of sniffling around for information had paid off generously. Since seven she had been brushing up on it, and now at fourteen she was the historian of her house.

The local museum was Germaine’s favorite spot; she would spend endless hours wandering through its halls, looking upon the artifacts as if upon old friends. The museum was empty most of the time, no one bothered to visit the past, they were too concentrated on the present and future of their businesses. They were foolish, Germaine insisted, they couldn’t ignore the past for long.

Only the occasional tourist or passing historian gave it much notice. Yet the place was of fair size, housing a vast amount of Nazi, Jewish, and a few British paraphernalia.

Germaine had always felt a certain air, a mood, to her beloved museum. A mood that changed with the days, one day it would be calm, tranquil and silent, the next raging and spiteful, or sad, sad and afraid. It was the mood of the artifacts, the mood of the spirits who had once owned the exhibits, Germaine was convinced of this, and outraged that the others did not feel it as well, not even Herr Raufmann, the owner and keeper.

But whichever mood the museum chose, it always pertained a foreboding, even forbidden feel to it, like something threatening to escape and lash out if provoked.

Besides convincing everyone about the museum’s soul, Germaine was set upon educating her seven-year-old brother about World War Two. She had managed to flare up his interest, and on Sunday she persuaded her parents to drop both of them off at the museum while they took care of various shopping.

At two in the afternoon, Germaine and Gunther were looking up at the faded windows of the old building.

“Ah Germaine, thought you weren’t coming today!â€