Best 141 quotes in «world war 2 quotes» category

I'm sorry! It's just that it hurts so much and it never stops!

In Sugamo, Louie asked his escort what had happened to the Bird. He was told that it was believed that the former sergeant, hunted, exiled and in despair, had stabbed himself to death. The words washed over Louie. In prison camp, Watanabe had forced him to live in incomprehensible degradation and violence. Bereft of his dignity, Louie had come home to a life lost in darkness, and had dashed himself against the memory of the Bird. But on an October night in Los Angeles, Louie had found, in Payton Jordan’s words, “daybreak.” That night, the sense of shame and powerlessness that had driven his hate the Bird had vanished. The Bird was no longer his monster. He was only a man. In Sugamo Prison, as he was told of Watanabe’s fate, all Louie saw was a lost person, a life beyond redemption. He felt something that he had never felt fro his captor before. With a shiver of amazement, he realized that it was compassion. At that moment, something shifted swiftly inside him. It was forgiveness, beautiful and effortless and complete. For Louie Zamperini, the was was over.

In the eleven months preceding the outbreak of World War II, 211 treaties of peace were signed. Were these treaties of peace written on paper, or were they written on the hearts of men? And we must ask ourselves as we hear of treaties being written today, whether the treaties of the UN are written with the full cognizance of the fact that those who sign them are responsible before God?

In the future, Martin will recall this night as the first time -- and one of the only times -- he ever saw Germans crying in public, not at the news of a dead loved one or at the sight of their bombed home, and not in physical pain, but from spontaneous emotion. For this brief time, they were not hiding from one another, wearing their masks of cold and practical detachment. The music stirred the hardened sediment of their memory, chafed against layers of horror and shame, and offered a rare solace in their shared anger, grief and guilt.

In the way of a reflection of my family and friends I mused at the number of people that I encountered during the past 85 years. Everyone here has played an important part but there have been others, many of whom have now passed across the horizon of life, however the purpose of my reminiscing is to share happy thoughts while at the same time take a peek into the future. I can look back to those first few glimpses of my life and find my grandmother Ohme, Gertrude Thieme standing at what I perceived to be a high kitchen counter making sandwiches using a slice of almost not eatable German black bread they called schwartsbrod. With great care she laden it with lard, blootwurst or sometimes liberwurst, topped with the half of a crusty Keiser roll. I always got the heel of the roll, with a quarter lengthwise slice of a crunchy dill pickle. It was the first and last time I remember seeing her before she returned to Germany and the war. My sister Trudy had died a few years prior leaving a collective hole in my family. Her short life and subsequent death was devastating to my mother and father and I constantly felt the sorrow it brought into our home. My father unsuccessfully tried to make a success of a small delicatessen at 11 Nelson Avenue in Jersey City and we moved to 25 Nelson Avenue when my father started working as a chef at Lindy’s Restaurant on Broadway in Manhattan. At home we exclusively spoke German which was a hindrance during World War II. My mother and father never lost their German accent and the only one of my family that made a real effort to speak English without an accent was my Onkle Willie. My parents refused to associate with my Onkle Walter and his wife Tante Wilma although they always treated me kindly and I sometimes talked with my cousins Klein Walter und Norma. The neighborhood treated us as NAZI outcasts until Italy entered the war on the Axis side and suddenly we all had to prove that we were patriotic. Eventually I joined the tin can army and learned enough English to be accepted. As my accent faded I truly became an American.

In November, when our nation remembers her fallen soldiers and honours the lost youth of my generation, the Prime Minister, government leaders and the hollow men of business affix paper poppies to their lapels and afford the dead of war two minutes' silence. Afterwards, they speak golden platitudes about the struggle and the heroism of that time. Yet the words they speak are meaningless because they have surrendered the values my generation built after the horrors of the Second World War.

In time I told Clarissa the difficulties we had had escaping from the war zone. She warmed up to me as we worked together and I felt that I could trust her. Once when the farmer was away we undertook to till a field with a southern exposure. I wore the harness and pulled the plow like a horse as she steered it. Together we plowed an entire field alone, preparing it for the springtime planting. Their farm was alongside the main road going up the mountain directly behind the Village of Überlingen. It was situated high on one of the foothills of the Alps that surround the Bodensee.

Is war a sin?

It seemed impossible that men with hearts and brains were capable of it. Such devastation of cities, so many innocent lives lost. It seemed to him that if just a small part of the effort put into war could be put into peace, they'd be so much better off

It grey louder. Louder. They were singing, singing at the top of their lungs. Andrius joined, and then my brother and the gray-haired man. And finally, the bald man joined in, singing out national anthem. 'Lithuania, land of heroes...

It's a good thing we won the war. If we hadn't, I'd be hanged as a war criminal" -- Gen Curtis LeMay, quoted by Mahaffey, p.231 On March 10, 1945, LeMay's XXI Bomber Command sent 334 B-29's to Tokyo, loaded with 1,669 tons of incendiary bombs. The resulting firestorm killed over 100,000 Japanese and injured over a million. A quarter of the industrial production in Tokyo was destroyed. (p.232, paraphrased) The atomic bombing of Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945, killed around 120,000 Japanese. (Wikipedia)

It was as if an entire people had been condemned to live in Plato's cave, with their backs to the fire of life and deriving their only knowledge of what went on outside from the flickering shadows thrown on the wall before their eyes by the men and women who passed to and fro behind them. When after six years they emerged, dazzled, from the cave into the light, it was a new and vastly different world.

It was difficult to understand him. On the one hand he pandered even to the most unimportant things while on the other he was excessive and unfeeling. He might show the most fatherly concern for a female secretary who had stabbed her toe but be utterly ice-cold when issuing orders which set thousands to their deaths.

It was harder for the ones who were waiting, Annemarie knew. Less danger, perhaps, but more fear.

It had never occurred to me that simply being with a fellow prisoner would make me feel like I was still in prison.

It is very similar to late Weimar Germany, The parallels are striking. There was also tremendous disillusionment with the parliamentary system. The most striking fact about Weimar was not that the Nazis managed to destroy the Social Democrats and the Communists but that the traditional parties, the Conservative and Liberal parties, were hated and disappeared. It left a vacuum which the Nazis very cleverly and intelligently managed to take over. [Chomsky in a 2010 interview with Chris Hedges on the crisis of democracy in the United States]

It’s said that if you can hear a bomb whistle, then you’re safe. It’s the bomb you don’t hear that rips the roof from your building, pulverizes the walls, and buries you alive in a heap of smoldering slag. Still, the whistling builds up inside you like a scream. You can’t help but hold your breath.

It was at gunpoint that I fell into every hope and allowed myself to wish from the deepest parts of my heart. Komorov thought he was torturing us. But we were escaping into the stillness within ourselves. We found strength there.

I will be so glad for you to hear not the sounds of gunfire but the sounds of church bells, and of people working in peace.

J’ai déjà dit que la Communauté juive s’était chargée de recruter les travailleurs pour le service obligatoire afin d’épargner à la population la terreur des rafles. Chaque jour, les autorités allemandes lui communiquaient les instructions concernant le nombre d’hommes à fournir et le lieux où ceux-ci devaient se rendre. La Communauté envoyait des convocations aux personnes désignées. Ces billets indiquaient la date de la prestation et portaient l’avertissement suivant : les requis qui ne se présenteraient pas seraient signalés immédiatement à la police et sévèrement punis. Les rassemblements se faisaient à six heures du matin devant l’immeuble de la Communauté ou place Grzybow. Des chefs d’équipe permanents inscrivaient les ouvriers et les accompagnaient sur les chantiers sous la garde de soldats allemands. En décembre 1939, une nouvelle ordonnance obligea tous les Juifs de sexe masculin, âgés de douze à soixante ans, à se faire procéder à leur enregistrement. Tout homme inscrit reçut une carte portant sa photographie et mentionnant son identité, sa profession, ses occupations. Chaque mois, il lui fallait faire timbrer cette carte au bureau de la Communauté. Celui qui exerçait un travail régulier devait, en outre, verser au moins 20 zlotys à chaque vérification de sa fiche. Grâce à cette taxe, il était plus ou moins assuré de travailler à l’intérieur de la ville. Les Juifs sans emploi étaient portés sur la liste des « bataillons de travailleurs » envoyés, en général, dans des camps, à l’extérieur de la ville ; ils subissaient là l’enfer de l’esclavage, des souffrances morales et physiques ainsi que les pires humiliations. Ces bataillons de travailleurs étaient habituellement chargés de la construction des routes, de l’élargissement et de la consolidation des berges de la Vistule. Ils travaillaient comme de véritables bagnards. Des milliers d’entre eux ne revinrent jamais. Lorsqu’un requis n’obéissait pas à la convocation, la police arrêtait une personne de son entourage - souvent un malade ou un vieillard. Le ghetto faisait partie intégrante du mécanisme économique de l’appareil de guerre nazi. Des Allemands, comme Tebenz, mirent sur pied dans le ghetto même de gigantesques fabriques où l’on confectionna des vêtements militaires et civils dans les étoffes d’excellente qualité volées par les Allemands dans toute la Pologne. Un Allemand de Dantzig, Shulz, qui avant la guerre traitait des affaires avec des Juifs polonais, ouvrit rue Nowolipie plusieurs ateliers où l’on travailla le cuir et la fourrure. Leszczinsky, un Polonais, monta rue Ogrodowa de vastes ateliers d’habillement. Une société commerciale composée d’Allemands, de Volksdeutschen, de Polonais et de Juifs entreprit la fabrication d’articles de brosserie. La matière première fut fournie par les autorités allemandes. La production était utilisée généralement pour les besoins militaires et, peut-être, en partie, pour satisfaire la demande de milieux privés ayant quelque attache avec l’armée. Dans ces usines ne travaillèrent que des Juifs du ghetto. Leur nombre atteignit plusieurs dizaines de milliers. Chez Tebenz les effectifs, au début de 1943, dépassèrent quinze mille ouvriers. Leur salaire était infime. Chaque ouvrier avait droit à deux litres de soupe par jour au prix de 60 à 70 groschen ; sa condition était celle d’un esclave.

it was so beautiful', he said. 'the Three Pagodas Pass must be one of the loveliest places in the world. you've got this broad valley with the river running down it, and the jungle forest, and the mountains....we used to sit by the river and watch the sun setting behind the mountains, sometimes, and say what a marvellous place it would be to come to for a holiday. however terrible a prison camp may be, it makes a difference if its beautiful.

La semaine dernière, nous avons pris une décision. Nous allions sortir pour déblayer les briques. Des femmes de notre quartier y travaillaient quotidiennement. Les Trümmerfrauen. Elles nettoyaient les briques de toute trace de ciment. Elles empilaient dans des brouettes. Les emportaient dans un dépôt. On utiliserait les briques pour recronstruire Berlin. Une tâche utile, mais épuisante.

Léon prit conscience cet hiver-là que le droit s'était changé en injustice et que l'injustice était devenue la loi ; la racaille dominait et la loi était faite par des escrocs.

Like Antwone Fisher... ya gotta know where you come from... or you don't know shit. I didn't know shit after high school and college. Nothing. Nothing useful, at least. Then I read the Painted Bird... based on some real events as I understand it... and I understood... well at least I understood a little more. Like all the good little boys and girls, I used to hate Hitler, right? and then you get another side of the story and a little voice inside you says... shit... these people (my ancestors) are fucked up... maybe Hitler had a point...

Long ago she'd clamped an iron shell around her heart and nothing and no one could pry it lose, but deep inside the tender flesh still beat.

May be you find out I could be useful getting people out of camps and prisons in Germany - just before they got shot. I should love to do it and I like to jump out of a plane even every day.

It was the second time in a row they were expecting us. We’ve got an informer in our group.” Johannes aka ‘BB’ The Informer by Steen Langstrup

Lovely morning, World War Two.

Meet me tonight, six o’clock sharp, at the gates of the municipal hospital. It is very important that you are precise. Not five minutes early, not five minutes late. In case I’m not there, you leave straight away. Got it?” Ingrid aka ‘Alis K’ The Informer

Musel jsem se dívat na průzory do plynových komor a sám sledovat proces smrti... Znovu a znovu se mě ptali, jak se já a moji lidé na tyto operace můžeme nepřetržitě dívat a jak jsme schopni to vydržet. Má stálá odpověď zněla, že je to otázka železného odhodlání, s jakým musíme plnit Hitlerovy rozkazy, a takové odhodlání že lze získat pouze potlačením všech lidských citů.

My book "Bamboo Walls" is forever because the Djojobojo Prophecy is timeless!

Mechanically I carried on across the Irish Sea, noticing with a jaundiced eye that it had suddenly lost the sinister threat of no-man's-land and was transformed into a placid highway where ferry-steamers would soon chug peacefully over the unmarked graves of gallant seamen.

Media was a battle ground. So was the internet. People began walking openly with their weapons, whether it was a gun or a camera. Drones were always skimming overhead, filming the violence of the second civil war of the United States.

Nations that went down fighting rose again, but those who surrendered tamely were finished.

Never had a decent report in his life!" Tony repeated, hardly able to believe the words. He was thinking, in shocked surprise, that even Tante Bettina did not know how mad the English could be.

Neville Chamberlain, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, honestly believed that he could reason with Adolf Hitler in good faith. Now, most history books find little else to say about Chamberlain and he is solely remembered for believing that he could pacify Herr Führer by signing the Munich Agreement of 1938. In doing this, he ceded to Germany the Sudetenland, a German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia, without having any real authority to do so. Three days later, French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier followed suit, thereby giving the “German Reich” a piece of Czechoslovakia, consisting of the border districts of Bohemia, Moravia, and parts of Silesia. In March of 1939, German troops rolled in and occupied the territory. Three other parts broke off from Czechoslovakia, with one becoming the Slovak Republic, another part being annexed by Hungary, and the third part, which was borderland, becoming a part of Poland. These all came together to become satellite states and allies of Nazi Germany. On May 10, 1940, in a radio address to the 8th Pan American Scientific Congress, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared, “I am a pacifist. You, my fellow citizens of twenty-one American Republics, are pacifists too.” Roosevelt was referring to Canada and Latin America. The United States attempted to remain neutral and did not enter into the war until four days after Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan. Roosevelt opposed the concept of war and made every attempt to find a peaceful solution to the hostilities in Europe. On December 11, 1941, after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, both Germany and Italy declared war on the United States.

My pillowcases were totally full and the boots hanging around my neck added to the weight I was carrying, but I was determined to get my loot back to the house. Hiding what I couldn’t carry in a closet in the back of the office, I left with what I could carry, fully expecting to return for the rest later. The main roads were teeming with refugees and looters. Not wanting to be seen, I decided to use a little known path that ran around the back of the village. I reached a small stream and attempted to cross it by jumping from one stone to another. But with both hands full, I lost my balance and fell into the wet mud. Lying there totally exhausted and humiliated, I was close to tears. I simply couldn’t go on, when suddenly a hand took hold of my arm and pulled me up. I found myself looking into the stern face of a uniformed Home Guardsman. Holding me by my shoulders he instantly started to scold me for looting the foodstuff that was scattered in the mud. I knew that looters could be shot and my fear was that he would turn me over to the Moroccans for punishment. Luckily, he said that he didn’t want to single me out when everyone was doing the same thing. After telling him about my two small children, he told me to go home and look after them. I guess the Home Guard didn’t care who they answered to, Nazis or Moroccans, it was all the same to them! I guess that he was just doing his job.

My name’s Alis K. From now on you will be Willy. Come on, let’s push the bicycles for a bit.” Ingrid aka ‘Alis K’ The Informer

One of them was Fritz Thyssen, one of the earliest and biggest contributors to the party. Fleeing the "Nazi regime has ruined German industry." And to all he met abroad he proclaimed, "What a fool ( Dummkopf ) I was!

Now comes the picture of mass defeat, the most awesome spectacle of the war. It is in the bent bodies of old women who poke among ruins seeking some miserable object that will link their lives with the old days. It is in the shamed darting eyes of the defeated. It is in the faces of the little boys who regard our triumphant columns with fear and fascination. And above all it is in the thousands of beaten, dusty soldiers who stream along the roads towards the stockades. Their feet clump wearily, mechanically, hopelessly on the still endless road of war. They move as haggard, gray masses, in which the individual had neither life nor meaning. It is impossible to see in these men the quality that made them stand up and fight like demons out of hell a few shorts months ago.

Over everything—up through the wreckage of the city, in gutters, along the riverbanks, tangled among tiles and tin roofing, climbing on charred tree trunks—was a blanket of fresh, vivid, lush, optimistic green; the verdancy rose even from the foundations of ruined houses. Weeds already hid the ashes, and wild flowers were in bloom among the city’s bones. The bomb had not only left the underground organs of the plants intact; it had stimulated them.

One part of him recoiled in instinctive horror at the daily waste, the inundation of destruction and death that inexorably assaulted the mind and heart; once again he saw the faculty depleted, he saw the haunted looks upon those who remained behind, and saw in those looks the slow death of the heart, the bitter attrition of feeling and care.

Out in the palace gardens, groundskeepers buried statues in the dirt. As Justice and Peace were entombed together, a workman wrote on one flank "We'll come back for you." The grave was covered with leaves to conceal it. - Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad

Overriding all of them, however, was the memory of 1918, the belief that the Jews, wherever and whoever they might be, threatened to undermine the German war effort, by engaging in subversion, partisan activities, Communist resistance movements and much else besides.

People who spent the war in prison camps have written a lot of books about what a bad time they had, she said quietly, staring into the embers. they don't know what it was like, not being in a camp.

Of the 403,272 tank soldiers (including a small number of women) who were trained by the Red Army in the war, 310,000 would die. Even the most optimistic troops knew what would happen when a tank was shelled. The white-hot flash of the explosion would almost certainly ignite the tank crew’s fuel and ammunition. At best, the crew—or those at least who had not been decapitated or dismembered by the shell itself—would have no more than ninety seconds to climb out of their cabin. Much of that time would be swallowed up as they struggled to open the heavy, sometimes red-hot, hatch, which might have jammed after the impact anyway. The battlefield was no haven, but it was safer than the armored coffin that would now begin to blaze, its metal components to melt. This was not simply “boiling up.” The tank would also torch the atmosphere around it. By then, there could be no hope for the men inside. Not unusually, their bodies were so badly burned that the remains were inseparable. “Have you burned yet?” was a question tank men often asked each other when they met for the first time. A dark joke from this stage in the war has a politruk informing a young man that almost every tank man in his group has died that day. “I’m sorry,” the young man replies. “I’ll make sure that I burn tomorrow.

She dreamed of Venice. However, it wasn’t a city alive with stars dripping like liquid gold into canals, or Bougainvillea spilling from flowerpots like overfilled glasses of wine. In this dream, Venice was without color. Where pastel palazzi once lined emerald lagoons, now, gray, shadowy mounds of rubble paralleled murky canals. Lovers could no longer share a kiss under the Bridge of Sighs; it had been the target of an obsessive Allied bomb in search of German troops. The only sign of life was in Piazza San Marco, where the infamous pigeons continued to feed. However, these pigeons fed not on seeds handed out by children, but on corpses rotting under the elongated shadow of the Campanile.

She didn't care so much whether the world would ever forgive her people; but she did hope that someday, somehow, she would be able to forgive herself.

She did this because Hitler and him men had given her no other choice.

She raised her head and saw a squadron of fighter planes. She stretched her hand high as if she could grab hold and climb away from what she had done, from who she was.