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“Death was eternal, but so was life.
Darkness was eternal, but so was light.
Hate was eternal, but above all, so was love.”
― Lisa Scottoline, Eternal

“The power of words does not lie in the stories we tell, but in our ability to connect to the hearts of those who read them.”
― Mario Escobar, The Librarian of Saint-Malo

“It is not pleasant to be disliked,' he said, 'and it is very unpleasant to be German and to know that one is hated because one is German and because, collectively, we are wrong in what we are doing. That is why I hate this war, or one of the reasons. And of course, because of this, we shall lost it. We must. We have to.”
― Eric Newby, Love and War in the Apennines

“Claims for compensation for physical damage through sterilization and for psychological damage through incarceration were not recognized for this reason. Claims for lost possessions were rejected on the basis of a wholesale prejudice that Gypsies did not own possessions. Claims for compensation for lost income on the basis of a reduction of earning capacity (as a result of physical and psychological damage and years lost due to imprisonment) were rejected on the grounds that Gypsies were unlikely to have sought employment even under more favourable circumstances. Like the German Jews, the Roms had been stripped of their citizenship rights by the Nazi regime's racist legislation.”
― Yaron Matras, I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies

“There was every proof that the persecution and genocide against Romani minorities had been carried out on the basis of racial ideology. Nevertheless, many Roms encountered difficulties reclaiming their German citizenship. As a result they were also considered to be ineligible for compensation payments, which according to the West German compensation law could be made only to German citizens. By the time their citizenship had been reinstated and compensation claims were filed again, claimants were often informed that the deadline for submitting claims had passed.”
― Yaron Matras, I Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies

“My own recommendation, then as always, was that no operations should be undertaken in the Mediterranean except as a directly supporting move for the Channel attack and that our planned redeployment to England should proceed with all possible speed. Obviously a sufficient strength had to be kept in the Mediterranean to hold what we had already gained and to force the Nazis to maintain sizable forces in that area.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I devoutly hope that we will never again have to see such scenes as these. I think and hope, pray that humanity will learn more than we ... learned up to that time. But these people [allied soldiers during D-Day in Normandy] gave us a chance, and they bought time for us, so that we can do better than we have done before.”
― David Eisenhower, Going Home To Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961-1969

“He [John Eisenhower] followed up by presenting me with Eugene Davidson's The Trial of the Germans, a searching and exhaustive account of the Nuremberg trials complete with in-depth profiles of the Nazi defendants. Like the Bible I had received at age ten, The Trial of the Germans was one of the most treasured gifts I had”
― David Eisenhower, Going Home To Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961-1969

“I didn't even feel quite comfortable about having a modestly good time. This guilt was a holdover from the bleak cold days of the Depression when the long gray lines quickly scratched through the hardly realized moments of color ... the long winter dream played out against an always nightmarish backdrop of black and white. Ironic indeed that it took another nightmare, the red and gold blast of war, to make us rub our eyes and become accustomed once again to a brilliant spectacle. The unfamiliar color dulled our senses to the horror. We were enjoying ourselves for the first time in a decade. This was the carnival time of life, and we intended to celebrate, and celebrate we did, although a bit uneasily and self-consciously.”
― Margaret Brown Kilik, The Duchess of Angus

“Marco felt despair, despite the victory. He had believed in Fascism, and they had believed in Nazism. Yet he was alive, and they were dead. There was no difference between him and them. They were all young men who believed in the wrong thing. Marco prayed this was the last war, but he knew it wouldn't be. Men were fallible, and they would always believe in the wrong things. He sensed that he had just learned something that his father had already known, but neither of them spoke.”
― Lisa Scottoline, Eternal

“Sometimes everything has to come crashing down for us to understand what we have built our lives upon.”
― Mario Escobar, The Librarian of Saint-Malo

“Youth is much more persuasive than maturity, reminding us of what we have forgotten, that the present is the only thing that actually exists.”
― Mario Escobar, The Librarian of Saint-Malo

“Hopes are just wishes we cast into the wind. And the only thing that can bring them back to us are the inscrutable whims of fate.”
― Mario Escobar, The Librarian of Saint-Malo

“Private investors traditionally had been obliged to take losses when debtors defaulted, but it became apparent that the U.S. Government was not about to relinquish its creditor hold on the Allies. This intransigence obliged them to keep tightening the screws on Germany.”
― Michael Hudson, Super Imperialism: The Origin and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance

“But in spite of the stones it was marvellous to be working up on the Pian del Sotto: going out on to it while the morning star was still shining brilliantly in a sky that was the colour of blue-black ink; seeing the sun coming up behind Bismantova, below and far away, first illuminating the forest on the mountainside above, then flooding the plateau; sometimes rising behind dark clouds and then shining red through a hole in one of them, as if someone had opened the door of a furnace. And I liked being there when the sun was high overhead and torn white and grey clouds were racing over the mountain top from the west casting dark shadows on the pale fields, and hordes of starlings would swoop over them, and high over everything a goshawk as pale as the clouds and with wing-tips as ragged-looking as they were, soared on the wind which sighed in the trees like the wind in the rigging of a sailing-ship. And I liked it, too, when the sun had gone behind the mountain and everything on the plateau was in shadow and there was a smoky blueness in the woods which were still so green in the sunlight that it was difficult to believe that autumn had come and was well advanced.”
― Eric Newby, Love and War in the Apennines

“This prevalence of private armies, in Austria as in Germany, their marching and counter-marching, their street battles with whips, beer bottles, knuckle-dusters and occasionally even firearms, proved not their strength, but the weakness of the state.”
― George Clare, Last Waltz in Vienna

“The July 1934 Putsch and Dollfuss's assassination could have been prevented. Since 29 May of that year clear evidence of the planned Nazi conspiracy was available to the Austrian authorities. It came from a number of highly reliable sources. The warnings were passed to the senior security officials who were charged with the protection of the state, the government and the Chancellor. Without doubt some of them collaborated with the Nazi conspirators. Also without doubt some of the others acted with typical Austrian Schlamperei. They did not take the warnings seriously.”
― George Clare, Last Waltz in Vienna

“You heard his storm-troopers shout their "Juda verrecke!" You heard him denounce us Jews, threaten us, revile us.'

'Yes, I did. But will you believe me, Herr Klaar, that I and thousands like me, didn't take all that seriously? After what I saw today I know that I was wrong. But believe me, I thought all that anti-Jewish propaganda was just rabble-rousing, something for that drunken SA mob. I ignored it and thought it unimportant. I felt certain all that would be forgotten once Hitler came to power, that ...'

'And the Nuremberg laws?' Father interrupted her.

She thought a little while before replying.

'Yes,' she said, 'you're right to ask me that question. What shall I say? Of course, I know about them., but I also know now that I pushed that knowledge away from me. It won't be as bad as it sounds, I thought, and that injustice, I persuaded myself, had to be put on the scales and weighed against Hitler's achievements. Nearly six million unemployed were found jobs. Germany was strong and respected again, the same of Versailles was wiped out. Yes, I looked for the good things and was intentionally blind to the bad. I am sorry, Stella, I wanted so much to believe.”
― George Clare, Last Waltz in Vienna

“Co takiego zrobili dla ciebie Anglicy? Podczas wojny zrzucili ciÄ™ do Paryża, żebyÅ› wykradÅ‚ dla nich plany. Potem powtórzyli tÄ™ akcjÄ™ w Warszawie, obiecujÄ…c ci, że wyÅ›lÄ… polskich spadochroniarzy, jak tylko wybuchnie tam powstanie. Zamiast tego wysÅ‚ali ich do Holandii, żeby Niemcy ich dosÅ‚ownie rozstrzelali. A kiedy ty walczyÅ‚eÅ› w powstaniu, oni dogadywali siÄ™ ze Stalinem, do którego Å‚agru ciÄ™ zesÅ‚ać. Ale ty uciekÅ‚eÅ›. I przyjechaÅ‚eÅ› tu, żeby zobaczyć, jak odmawiajÄ… wam udziaÅ‚u w defiladzie zwyciÄ™stwa, a waszych generałów zmuszajÄ… do pracy jako mechaników samochodowych i barmanów w podrzÄ™dnych knajpach, bo nie dali choćby emerytury ludziom, którzy odbijali dla nich EuropÄ™.”
― PaweÅ‚ Majka, Czerwone Å»niwa. Uderzenie wyprzedzajÄ…ce

“How cruel the atomic bomb is to an innocent child, Sensei.”
― Kyoko Iriye Selden

“Now at last, at last, his hour had struck. He had been waiting in Parliament for forty years, had grown bald and gray in his nation’s service, had endured slander and calumny only to be summoned when the situation seemed hopeless to everyone except him.”
― William Manchester, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932

“When this war was over, he and his family--all Germans--were going to have to live with the black mark of this (whatever this was) for a long, long time.”
― Chris Bohjalian, Skeletons at the Feast

“O.K., let's go." And again, cheers rang through Southwick House. Then the commanders rushed from their chairs and dashed outside to get to their command posts. Within thirty seconds the mess room was empty, except for Eisenhower, The outflow of the others and his sudden isolation were symbolic. A minute earlier he had been the most powerful man in the world. Upon his word the fate of thousands of men depended, and the future of great nations. The moment he uttered the word, however, he was powerless. For the next two or three days, there was almost nothing he could do that would in any way change anything. The invasion could not be stopped, not by him, not by anyone. A captain leading his company onto Omaha, or a platoon sergeant at Utah, would for the immediate future play a greater role than Eisenhower. He could now only sit and wait.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier and President

“Je ne dis rien, je n'ai pas envie de discuter. Je me demande combien d'Allemands il va falloir tuer encore pour que cet enfant allemand ait une chance de ne pas devenir un boche, Il n'y est pour rien, ce gosse, et il y est pour tout, cependant. Ce n'est pas lui qui s'est fait petit nazi et c'est pourtant un petit nazi. Peut-Petre n'a-t-il plus aucune chance de ne plus être petit nazi, de ne pas grandir jusqu'à devenir un grand nazi. À cette échelle individuelle, les questions n'ont pas d'intérêt. C'est dérisoire, que se gosse cesse d'être petit nazi ou assume sa condition de petit nazi. En attendant, la seule chose à faire pour que ce gosse ait une chance de ne plus être petit nazi, c'est de détruire l'armée allemande. C'est d'exterminer encore des quantités d'hommes allemands, pour qui'ils puissent cesser d'être nazis, ou boches.”
― Jorge Semprún, The Long Voyage

“Nous regardons monter sur la plate-forme ce Russe de vingt ans et les S.S. s'imaginent que nous allons subir sa mort, la sentir fondre sur nous comme une menace ou un avertissement. Mais cette mort, nous sommes en train de l'accepter pour nous-mêmes, le cas échéant, nous sommes en train de la choisir pour nous-mêmes. Nous sommes en train de mourir de la mort de ce copain, et par là même nous la nions, nous l'annulons, nous faisons de la mort de ce copain le sense de notre vie. Un projet de vivre parfaitement valable, le seul valable en ce moment précis. Mais les S.S. sont de pauvres types et no comprennent james ces choses-là.”
― Jorge Semprún, The Long Voyage

“Vous vous rendez compte, quelle vie cette vie. Vous vous rendez compte, quel monde ce monde," Mais oui, je me rends compte. Je ne fais que ça, me rendre compte et en rendre compte. C'est bien ce que je souhaite. J'ai souvent recontré, au cours de ces années, ce même regard d'étonnement absolu qu'a eu ce viellard qui allait mourir, juste avant de mourir. J'avoue, d'ailleurs, n'avoir jamais bien compris pourquoi tant de types s'étonnaient tellement, Peut-être parce que j'ai une plus longue habitude de la mort sur les routes, des foules en marche sur les routes, avec la mort aux trousses. Peut-être que je n'arrive pas à m'étoner parce que je ne vois que ça, depuis juillet 1936. Ils m'énervent, souvent, tous ces étonnés. Ils reviennent de l'interrogatoire, éberlués. "Vous vous rendez compte, ils m'ont tabassé. -- Mais que voulez-vous qu'ils fassent, nom de dieu? Vous ne saviez donc pas que ce sont des nazis?" Ils hochaient la tête, ils ne savaient pas très bien ce qu'il leur arrivait. "Mais bon dieu, vous ne saviez pas à qui nous avons affaire?" Ils m'énervent souvent, ces éberlués. Peut-être parce que j'ai vu les avions de chasse italiens et allemands survoler les routes à basse altitude et mitrailler la foule, bien tranquillement, sur les routes de mon pays. À moi cetter charrette avex la femme en noir et le bébé qui pleure. À moi ce bourricot et la gran-mère sur le bourricot. À toi cette fiancée de neige et de feu qui marche comme une princesse sur la route brûlante. Peut-être qui'ils m'énervent, tous ces étonnés, à cause des villages en marche sur les routes de mon pays, fuyant ces mêmes S.S., our leurs semblables, leurs frères. Ainsi, à cette question: "Vous vous rendez compte?" j'ai une réponse toute faite, comme dirairt le gars de Semur. Mais oui, je me rends compte, je ne fais que ça. Je me rends compte et j'essaie d'en rendre compte, tel est mon propos.”
― Jorge Semprún, The Long Voyage

“Ton père n'est pas le Dr Haas?"
"Non", répond-elle.
"Il n'as pas été dans la Gestapo?"
"Non", dit-elle.
Elle ne détourne pas son regard.
"Peut.-être dans les Waffen-S.S.", lui dis-je.
"Non plus."
Alors, je ris, je ne peux m'empêcher de rire.
"Il n'a jamais été nazi, bien sûr", lui dis-je.
"Je ne sais pas."
J'en ai assez, tout à coup.
"C'est vrai, dis-je, vous ne savez rien. Personne ne sait plus rien. Il n'y a jamais eu de Gestapo, jamais de Waffen-S.S., jamais de "Totenkopf". J'ai dû rêver.”
― Jorge Semprún, The Long Voyage

“Literature has sometimes flourished under despotic regimes, but, as has often been pointed out, the despotisms of the past were not totalitarian. Their repressive apparatus was always inefficient, their ruling classes were usually either corrupt or apathetic or half-liberal in outlook, and the prevailing religious doctrines usually worked against perfectionism and the notion of human infallibility. Even so it is broadly true that prose literature has reached its highest levels in periods of democracy and free speculation. What is new in totalitarianism is that its doctrines are not only unchallengeable but also unstable. They have to be accepted on pain of damnation, but on the other hand, they are always liable to be altered on a moment’s notice. Consider, for example, the various attitudes, completely incompatible with one another, which an English Communist or ‘fellow-travelerâ€� has had to adopt toward the war between Britain and Germany. For years before September, 1939, he was expected to be in a continuous stew about ‘the horrors of Nazismâ€� and to twist everything he wrote into a denunciation of Hitler: after September, 1939, for twenty months, he had to believe that Germany was more sinned against than sinning, and the word ‘Naziâ€�, at least as far as print went, had to drop right out of his vocabulary. Immediately after hearing the 8 o’clock news bulletin on the morning of June 22, 1941, he had to start believing once again that Nazism was the most hideous evil the world had ever seen. Now, it is easy for the politician to make such changes: for a writer the case is somewhat different. If he is to switch his allegiance at exactly the right moment, he must either tell lies about his subjective feelings, or else suppress them altogether. In either case he has destroyed his dynamo. Not only will ideas refuse to come to him, but the very words he uses will seem to stiffen under his touch. Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child’s Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.

Totalitarianism, however, does not so much promise an age of faith as an age of schizophrenia…to be corrupted by totalitarianism one does not have to live in a totalitarian country. The mere prevalence of certain ideas can spread a kind of poison that makes one subject after another impossible for literary purposes. Wherever there is an enforced orthodoxy…good writing stops.”
― George Orwell, The Prevention of Literature

“It is not so easy to move on when your sleep is full of nightmarish memories.”
― Eva Mozes Kor, I Will Protect You: A True Story of Twins Who Survived Auschwitz

“The colonel had better reason than the brigadier for knowing that the Russians were hunky-dory, for once, in Jugoslavia, he had watched a Soviet division capture in a few hours from the Germans a bridge which the 386th Division could not have taken in under a week. Down the hill those flaxen-haired boys had marched, laughing and singing, and the bullets had come tearing at them, smashing their tibias, cracking their femurs, opening their bellies, gouging their eyes, grounding them, scorching them. As, through his field-glasses, the colonel had watched them swept from the bridge into the river, it had not seemed to him that they could really be suffering, as he himself had suffered in 1914, with the big angry red thing up against him, and he had to make and effort of will to understand that each of these boys had died his own death, smash up against the Christ he didn't believe in, with his bowels gushing out over his boots as he thought for the last time of his mother, and with his hair still young in the sun. And still others had come on, laughing and singing, as they marched to kill and to be killed by other boys with lineless faces, because it was sweet and decorous to die for one's country. Yes, the Russians were hunky-dory all right, provided they were fighting on the same side as you were.”
― Bruce Marshall, Vespers in Vienna