Quotes from Fred Uhlman

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.

Everything about him aroused my curiosity: the care with which he selected his pencils, the way he sat — erect, as if at any moment he might have to get up and give an order to an invisible army — 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.

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.

How would he in all his glory ever be able to understand my shyness, my suspicious pride and my fear of being hurt?

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.

All I knew, then, was that he was going to be my friend. Everything attracted me to him.

Then his proud bearing, his manners, his elegance, his good looks — and who could be altogether insensitive to them? — powerfully suggested to me that here at last I had found someone who came up to my ideal of a friend.

Standing quite still I looked at him. Needless to say Konradin hadn't giggled. He hadn't clapped either. But he looked at me.

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.

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.

His pleasure at seeing me was so genuine, so unmistakable, that even I, with my inbred suspicions, lost all fear.

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?

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.

No recuerdo donde leí que "la muerte debilita nuestra confianza en la vida al demostrar que al final todo es igualmente fútil ante la oscuridad definitiva". Sí, "fútil" es la palabra exacta.

Who was I to dare to talk to him? In which of Europe's ghettos had my ancestor been huddled when Frederick von Hohenstaufen gave Anno von Hohenfels his bejewelled hand?

A few days later it was the turn of the "Caviar" of the class. Three boys, Reutter, Müller and Frank, were known by this sobriquet because they kept strictly to themselves in the belief that they, and they alone among us, were destined to make their mark in the world.

No, la vera bellezza ha bisogno di silenzio. Una sola parola può distruggerla. La bellezza, la grande bellezza, può essere dolorosa: ci sono momenti in cui si vuole solo piangere, e il rumore di una voce umana, di una macchina, di una radio, perfino il gracchiare di un corvo possono essere tanto distruttivi quanto un sasso scagliato in uno stagno pieno di ninfee rosse e bianche.

I can't remember exactly when I decided that Konradin had to be my friend, but that one day he would be my friend I didn't doubt.

The problem was how to attract him to me. What could I offer the one who had gently but firmly turned down the aristocrats and the Caviar? How could I conquer him, entrenched behind barriers of tradition, his natural pride and acquired arrogance?

I had no fear, only one will and one desire. I was going to do it for him.

When at last I left him I ran all the way home. I laughed, I talked to myself, I wanted to shout and sing, and I found it very difficult not to tell my parents how happy I was, that my whole life had changed, and that I was no longer a beggar but as rich as Croesus.

It seemed to me that there were just two possibilities. Either no God existed, or there did exist a deity who was monstrous if powerful and futile if powerless.

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.

I know my Germany. This is a temporary illness, something like measles, which will pass as soon as the economic situation improves. Do you really believe the compatriots of Goethe and Schiller, Kant and Beethoven will fall for this rubbish?