Personal Narrative Essay: The Boy Scouts And The Hitler Youth

It feels like yesterday that I was riding my bike away from the Nazis to safety in Munich, Germany. I still remember that afternoon that I left my parents in Berlin, unsure if I would ever see them again. My brother had just died in the war. He was in Ostrow, Russia fighting for our freedom. I still remember his soft, gentle voice and the way the he lulled me to sleep when I was to scared to dream. I must tell you the whole story. I was eleven years old when Hitler came into power. I, wasn’t even a teenager yet. My father, Fritz Steinmeyer, was very much against Hitler. My brother was two years older than me and had been a Boy Scout for two years. When Hitler came, the Boy Scout organization became known as the Hitler Youth. The Hitler Youth brainwashed innocent minds. They taught us to ignore what the elderly and our parents said. The only difference between the Boy Scouts and the Hitler Youth was the uniforms. My dad wouldn’t let me join, but eventually, in 1935, I became a member. By then everyone had to join. It wasn’t an option. The kids who didn’t join had to go to school for six days a week. That’s how they got all of us
I made it and reached the town by next morning. There I was, alone with my bike on the warlot place, not knowing where to go or what to do. I guess, I must have looked pretty pitiful. A woman approached me and asked me where I was coming from. I told her. She said she was a refugee herself from Berlin and offered me a place to stay over night. I had planned to get to Munich somehow because some of my mother’s relatives lived there, and I thought perhaps I could get in touch with my parents (still in Berlin) from there. I didn’t know at that time if my parents were still alive there was no way to get any mail then. Everything had come to a halt, in other words, there was a chaos, no more food stamps, you had to find your own, steal, or