Jessie

“How can I describe the strange, strange combination of experiences each day here in this beautiful place brings!” he wrote Saima. “The eyes have one continual feast. It is late in the spring. Flowering trees are everywhere and the charm of the romantic little towns and the fairy tale castled countryside is enhanced by all this freshness. And in the midst of it all—thousands of homeless foreigners wandering about in pathetic droves. Germans in uniform, mostly with arms and legs—or more—missing. Children who are friendly, older ones who hate you, crimes continually in the foreground of life. Plenty, misery, recriminations, sympathy. All such an exaggerated picture of the man-made way of life in a God-made world. If it all doesn’t prove the necessity of Heaven, I don’t know what it means. I believe that all this loveliness showing through the rubble and wreck are just foreshadowings of the joys we were made for.”
― Robert M. Edsel, The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves, And The Greatest Treasure Hunt In History