I, Isaac Jan Himmelman, was born a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in Krakov. The year was 1909. My father was a doctor as was his father, who also taught at the university. I had a liberal, middle-class upbringing and was the second of 3 children. I was an imaginative, curious, and bookish child. Early on I displayed an interest in the magical and occult which dismayed my practical mother and father. Nevertheless, they were very protective of me. It’s just that they weren’t religious. They had no faith. Temple was someplace they went a few times a year because that’s what people did.

My world exploded in the August of 1914 as the Russians marched through Poland towards the iron-rich Silesian mines. They advanced along the left bank of the Vistula as far as Krakov. Hindenburg’s counter-offensive managed to drive the Russians back half way through Poland and left a ravaged mine-filled country side behind him. Father was tending to wounded men when the ambulance ran over mine.

The rich, Galacian soil was bombed to a sterile, broken landscape. The air poisoned with mustard gas and the waters of the Vistula and Oder fouled by rotting corpses. The fires raged, eating forested hill and valley heavy with the wheat harvest. The war moved east and the destruction spread.

After the war, we recovered as well as could be expected. My mother remarried a good man with two children of his own. A Zionist sympathizer, it was he that encouraged my budding faith. He did not feel secure with our new Polish masters and the surging nationalism of the 20’s. Were blamed for the famine and depression of the aftermath of the war. As if it were the Jews who had committed such horrendous acts as the wholesale slaughter of millions of souls. If God was punishing us, it wasn’t the Jews fault. In the 30’s he began to deposit some of the family’s money in a Swiss account for safekeeping.

In 1934, I graduated from the University in Krakov. Though we were Jews, my grandfather still had some standing in the University due to his powerful intellect and deep compassion. That same year I married Sophie Prieke, my dearest. We met at the university. She was one of the first women to attend. I studied medieval literature and mythology. She was a brilliant chemist; chided more than once challenging a fellow (male) student opinions, however narrow. I loved her dearly.

As many of you know, my world was about to erupt in autumnal flames once again. This time they took my entire family. Wife, daughter, mother, and brothers burned in the ovens at Auswitz. My beautiful sister was taken from her husband by Polish guards. They shot her at four months pregnancy; they no longer wanted her.

Why I was spared, I’ll never know.

After the war, I was a wreck of a man. I raged against God for my sufferings. How could he have allowed us, his chosen people to be destroyed? As much as I loved him in my youth, I hated him now. Why were none of my prayers answered? Where was he when my wife was gassed, then cremated with little Lise at her breast? Where was he when those Polish guards decided my sister had outlived her uses to them?

For three years I wandered; one of millions displaced by the war. I survived by scrounging the heaps of rubble for else of value I could find. 1938 I was again near Krakov, drawn back to home. There, I found treasure. Scrounging through a pile of bricks not much different than all the others, I found a chamber only half damaged by the collapsed building above it. Inside were many rare books and manuscripts, the like of which I had only imagined in my youth. Book of magic and powerful learning. I began to study. The books revealed the world as my earlier studies of the occult only hinted. Much of it I found incomprehensible. I understood enough to know that here lay the power I needed to survive in a world God had obviously abandoned.

My studies attracted the attention of the previous owner of the house, who, unlike the house, was perfectly preserved despite the war. Unknown to me, he had watched as I pored over the texts. My care with the manuscripts and obvious fascination saved my life as that first day in the cellar as light turned to twilight.

The third night he revealed himself. Again, I found myself absorbed in a text far older than me as the day waned. A man I had not heard offered to light a candle, that I may continue my studies. Startled, I turned to look at him. His eyes held mine. I was filled with a dreadful mixture of fear and attraction. I wanted to flee, but couldn’t take my eyes off him. He asked me about my studies. I found myself telling all to him. All my pain and loss poured out unbidden. I told him of my family. I told him how I ate the camp rats because there was no other food. I told him that God had turned his back on us. We were on our own to survive.

He told me that I wasn’t going need be alone anymore. He would adopt me into a new family. A powerful family which war could not destroy. All I needed to do was die in his embrace and I would no longer be weak. Again I tried to flee, but couldn’t. I wanted to live but I also wanted to die. To put an end to all the suffering. This is the only way he said. God is both terrible and loving. He tempers his people through suffering. There is a place for the tormented and tormentor. Afterwards, you’ll understand. Then he embraced me.

Even now after nearly 50 years, I can still remember the pleasure as my blood flowed into him and my heart struggled to keep beating though there was nothing left inside. As consciousness faded I felt a tremendous release as all the pain of my mortal life drained with the last of my blood. Then I felt a trickle at the back of my throat, quickly followed wracking pain as my dying body absorbed its new vitae. The pain was mixed with a surge of power unlike any I had felt before. I tried to stand and knocked over a shelf of books because I couldn’t handle my new strength. Everything seemed brighter. The shadows less gloomy. I could hear muffled noises I hadn’t noticed before. I listened more closely and heard a thumping beat. It made the most wonderful music.

I realized I was hungry. Ravenously hungry. My master led me into another part of the cellar I hadn’t noticed before. Before me lay a beautiful German girl, gagged and with arms tied up like my sister was when the Polish guards came for her. Now I knew the source of that compelling music. Her blood was rich when I tasted it. I dove for her neck which throbbed so compellingly. My master (who said I should call him Sire) held me back and showed me how to drink slowly, neatly. The woman relaxed in my arms as the pleasure of the embrace overwhelmed her fear. I continued to drink.

When I realized I had killed her, I was filled with remorse. I had become a monster. I was evil. My sire laughed. "An hour ago you were telling me you hate God for what he allowed the Germans to do. Now you’re feeling sorry for a German. One who would see you exterminated."

We moved to Vienna. It took us some time to get all the books safely out of Krakov as the Iron curtain began to fall around eastern Europe. It was there that my new unlife really began. Where I met the beings who were my new family and my place within that family.