Hello. My name is Zauberreich der Liebe, but my friends call me Jim. I was born in 1930 by a man who worked very hard to create me, and even some of my friends. His name is Max Brod and he is Jewish. That fact has never had much meaning to me, that he is Jewish. But that day, that vile day, distorted my mind. The day that I watched my friends, one by one, get thrown in the flames. It got me to think just how grateful I am to be alive. My story might have never been read if I hadn’t escaped the Nazi’s vicious hands. This is my journey. This is how I managed to flee the Nazi book burning.
It was 1933 on the tenth day of May. I had only been alive for three years, but had all ready been read by five different people. I felt accomplished at my young age. My friends, Prétextes and Der ewige Spießer, or as I always called them, Bob and Sam, and I were being collected together with other books. The three of us discussed what could possibly be going on; nothing like this had ever happened before. Bob traveled from France unlike Sam and I, who were born in Germany. Sam, he was always coming up with the craziest ideas. He thought it was the end for us all. Little did I know, his idea was not that outlandish.
Someone, a human, approached us all. I felt warm and my eyes started to water. I could not tell who the person was. Suddenly, out of the corner of my eyes I saw a red, orange blur. Flames. This is not right. What is going on? More and more people began to crowd around us. As my eyes cleared I saw it, the symbol. They are Nazis. Looking around at Bob, Sam, and all the other books, I realized we all had something in common. We all had Jewish creators. This was danger zone. A tall, lean Nazi bent over to pick up a book. To this day, the image of him tossing the poor book into the fire still haunts me. I watched as friends, family, neighbors, and other innocent books were thrown into the raging fire, including Bob and Sam. They were the two books who meant the most to me.
Then I felt it, the single hand of a Nazi reaching for me. I was not going to let it happen. There was not anything I could do to help the other books, but I needed to show those Nazis that what they were doing was not okay. Just as his sickening hands were about to let go, causing me to plummet into the inferno, I quickly jerked. I had given that Nazi the world’s largest, most painful paper cut. Instead of flying forward into the fire, I fell straight down onto the ground. When the Nazi was yelling obscenities from the pain of the paper cut, I managed to slip away. I was never caught or burned. I was the one who lived.
On May 10th, 1933, over 25,000 books were burned in Germany by the Nazis as an "action against the Un-German Spirit". Two of who were my best friends. Today I live on, living the life they deserve to have had. Those who died were burned simply for containing Jewish culture and beliefs. I no longer go by Jim. The events that happened that day have made me who I am and I am proud to be Zauberreich der Liebe, the book who lived.