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“Eâ€� per questo che, in fondo al cuore, mi considero un fallito. Non che questo importi molto. Sub specie aeternitatis tutti noi, senza eccezioni, siamo dei falliti. Non ricordo più dove ho letto che “la morte intacca la nostra fiducia nella vita mostrandoci che in fin dei conti tutto è ugualmente futile se visto in rapporto alle tenebre che ci attendono.â€� Sì, “futileâ€� è la parola esatta. Eppure non posso lamentarmi: ho più amici che nemici e ci sono momenti in cui sono quasi felice di essere al mondo â€� quando guardo il sole che tramonta e la luna che spunta, o vedo la neve sulla cima della montagna.”
― Fred Uhlman, L'amico ritrovato

“When I had almost reached him he turned and smiled at me. Then, with a strangely gauche and still hesitant movement, he shook my trembling hand. "Hello, Hans", he said, and suddenly I realised to my joy and relief and amazement that he was as shy and as much in need of a friend as I.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“How would he in all his glory ever be able to understand my shyness, my suspicious pride and my fear of being hurt?”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“He came into my life in February 1932 and never left it again. More than a quarter of a century has passed since then, more than nine thousand days, desultory and tedious, hollow with the sense of effort or work without hope- days and years, many of them as dead as dry leaves on a dead tree. I can remember the day and the hour when I first set eyes on this boy who was to be the source of my greatest happiness and of my greatest despair.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Un giorno un nazista ricevette l'incarico di piazzarsi fuori dalla porta dello studio di mio padre con un cartello su cui era scritto: "Tedeschi, attenti. Evitate gli ebrei. Chiunque avrà a che fare con un ebreo sarà rovinato." Mio padre, allora, indossò l'uniforme da ufficiale, vi appuntò tutte le sue decorazioni, tra cui la Croce di Ferro di prima classe, e andò a mettersi di fianco al nazista. Questi aveva l'aria sempre più imbarazzata, mentre, pian piano si radunava attorno a loro una piccola folla. All'inizio la gente rimase in silenzio, ma, man mano che il numero dei presenti cresceva, cominciarono a udirsi dei borbottii che si trasformarono ben presto in grida di scherno. L'ostilità era diretta al nazista tanto che questi, poco dopo, pensò bene di andarsene, Non tornò più, né fu sostituito. Trascorsi alcuni giorni, mentre mia madre dormiva, papà aprì il gas.”
― Fred Uhlman, L'amico ritrovato

“Now the crucial question no longer seemed to be what life was, but what one was to do with this valueless, yet somehow uniquely valuable life?”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Until his arrival I had been without a friend. There wasn't one boy in my class who I believed could live up to my romantic ideal of friendship, not one whom I really admired, for whom I would have been willing to die and who could have understood my demand for complete trust, loyalty and self-sacrifice.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“To claim Palestine after two thousand years made no more sense to him than the Italians claiming Germany because it was once occupied by the Romans.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Many of our discussions took place as we walked up and down the streets, sat on benches or stood in doorways taking shelter from the rain.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“His pleasure at seeing me was so genuine, so unmistakable, that even I, with my inbred suspicions, lost all fear.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“I can't remember much of what Konradin said to me that day or what I said to him. All I know is that we walked up and down for an hour, like two young lovers, still nervous, still afraid of each other; but somehow I knew that this was only a beginning and that from now on my life would no longer be empty and dull but full of hope and richness for us both.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Standing quite still I looked at him. Needless to say Konradin hadn't giggled. He hadn't clapped either. But he looked at me.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Then his proud bearing, his manners, his elegance, his good looks â€� and who could be altogether insensitive to them? â€� powerfully suggested to me that here at last I had found someone who came up to my ideal of a friend.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“All I knew, then, was that he was going to be my friend. Everything attracted me to him.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“I studied his proud, finely carved face, and indeed no lover could have watched Helen of Troy more intently or could have been more convinced of his own inferiority.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Everything about him aroused my curiosity: the care with which he selected his pencils, the way he sat â€� erect, as if at any moment he might have to get up and give an order to an invisible army â€� and how he stroked his blond hair. I only relaxed when he, like everyone else, got bored and fidgeted whilst waiting for the bell for the interval between lessons.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Aún recuerdo una violenta discusión entre mi padre y un sionista que había venido a recaudar dinero para Israel. Mi padre aborrecía el sionismo. Esa sola idea le parecía demencial. A su juicio, era tan absurdo reclamar Palestina después de dos mil años como lo habría sido que los italianos reclamaran Alemania porque en otra época la habían ocupado los romanos. Eso sólo podría desembocar en una matanza interminable y los judíos deberían combatir a todo el mundo árabe.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“También teníamos intereses menos trascendentes, que parecían mucho más importantes que la certidumbre de que la Tierra se extinguiría, para lo cual faltaban millones de años, y de que nosotros mismos moriríamos, para lo cual parecía faltar aún más tiempo.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“I don’t know where I read that “death undermines our confidence in life by showing that in the end everything is equally futile before the final darkness.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“So, in my heart of hearts I look on myself as a failure. Not that this really matters. Sub specie aeternitatis we all, without exception, are failures.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Can’t you see them burning?â€� I shouted in despair. “Can’t you hear their screams? And you have the cheek to defend it because you aren’t brave enough to live without your God. What use to you or me is a powerless, pitiless God? A God sitting in the clouds and condoning malaria and cholera, famine and war?”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“La vista che si offre allo sguardo dall'alto dei rilievi circostanti è di grande bellezza: migliaia di ville, il vecchio e il nuovo Schloss, la Stiftskirche, l'Opera, i musei e quelli che un tempo erano i parchi reali. Ovunque un'infinità di Höhenrestaurants, sulle cui ampie terrazze la gente di Stoccarda soleva trascorrere le calde sere d'estate, bevendo vino del Neckar o del Reno e ingozzandosi di enormi quantità di cibo: insalate di carne e patate, Schnitzel Holstein, Bodenseefelchen, trote della Foresta Nera, salsicce calde di fegato e sanguinaccio con i crauti, Rehrücken con Preiselbeeren, tournedos in salsa bernese e Dio sa cos'altro, il tutto seguito da una straordinaria scelta di torte farcite, guarnite di panna montata. Se i cittadini di Stoccarda si fossero dati la pena di alzare gli occhi dal piatto, avrebbero visto, tra gli alberi e i cespugli di alloro, la foresta che si stendeva per chilometri e chilometri, e il Neckar che scorreva lento tra i dirupi, i castelli, i pioppeti, le vigne e le antiche città, verso Heidelberg, il Reno e il Mare del Nord.”
― Fred Uhlman, L'amico ritrovato

“Désormais, la question essentielle n'était plus de savoir ce qu'était la vie, mais de décider de ce qu'il fallait faire de cette vie sans valeur, et pourtant, en quelque sorte, d'un prix unique.”
― Fred Uhlman, L'Ami retrouvé: Refonte

“Ce n'étaient là que des abstractions, des chiffres, des statistiques, des informations. On ne peut souffrir pour un million d'êtres.”
― Fred Uhlman, L'Ami retrouvé: Refonte

“Did I really want or need to know? What difference would it make if he were dead or alive, since dead or alive I should never see him again?

But could I be certain? Was it completely and utterly out of the question for the door to open and for him to walk in? And wasn't I even now listening for his footstep?”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“So I went through the whole list except the names beginning with H, and when I had finished I found that twenty-six boys out of the forty-six in my class had died for das 1000-jährige Reich.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“I made sure about their past before shaking hands with them. You have to be careful before you can accept a German.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Still, I mustn't grumble: I have more friends than enemies and there are moments when I am almost glad to be alive â€� when I watch the sun set and the moon rise, or see snow on mountain tops.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“Perhaps if you were a Jewess it might be different. He'd suspect you of wanting to hook me. And he wouldn't like that at all. Of course, if you were immensely rich he might, he just might consider a marriage possible â€� but even so he'd hate to hurt my mother's feelings. You see, he's still very much in love with her.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion

“And if you want the whole truth, I've had to fight for every hour I've spent with you; and the worst of all, I didn't dare talk to you last night because I didn't want to hurt you.”
― Fred Uhlman, Reunion