Quotes from Fred Uhlman

I couldn't understand it. It was impossible that he, so careful to avoid giving pain, so thoughtful, always ready to make allowances for my impetuosity, my aggressiveness when he disagreed with me Weltanschauung — should have forgotten to invite me. And so, too proud to ask him, I became more and more worried and suspicious, and obsessed by the desire to penetrate the stronghold of the Hohenfels.

Wouldn't it be better to avoid the thrust of the dagger which, I knew, with the atavistic insight of a Jewish child, would in a few minutes be plunged into my heart?

For half an hour I kept up the pretence, but I knew perfectly well that he knew what was going on in me, or he would not have kept off the subject of the greatest importance to us both; the evening of the day before.

I was alone before you came and would be still more alone if you threw me over, but I can't bear the idea of your being too ashamed of me to introduce me to your parents.

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.

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 — but even so he'd hate to hurt my mother's feelings. You see, he's still very much in love with her.

Still, I mustn't grumble: I have more friends than enemies and there are moments when I am almost glad to be alive — when I watch the sun set and the moon rise, or see snow on mountain tops.

I made sure about their past before shaking hands with them. You have to be careful before you can accept a German.

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.

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?

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.