abstract
| - Francesca Gimpel (b. 2001) was the middle daughter of Heinrich and Lise Gimpel. Unlike her elder sister, Alicia, Francesca and her youngest sister Roxane did not know they were Jews, and so parroted the Greater German Reichs' propaganda of the inferiority of the Jews. As 2010 progressed into 2011, Francesca was exposed to the problems of Nazism as Führer Heinz Buckliger instituted reforms. Unfortunately for her, Francesca's fourth-grade teacher was Frau Koch, known to the whole school as "The Beast". Koch, a fierce Nazi, ran her class in the most authoritarian manner. However, Koch unwittingly demonstrated the inconsistencies of the system, approving of rebuttals to Buckliger on the one hand, and expressing the importance of obedience to the Führer on the other. When Erika Dorsch denounced Heinrich Gimpel as a Jew early in 2011, the Gimpel children were taken into custody along with their father. Francesca, not knowing the truth, fought adamantly and bitterly with her captors, but nonetheless spent time in a detention center, until Erika Dorsch retracted the accusation, and the Gimpels were released. In 2011, upon her tenth birthday, Francesca was told the secret.
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