Steve Middendorf

“China is the major Allied belligerent whose position on the meaning of the war has shifted most thoroughly during the postwar era.”
― Rana Mitter, China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism

“Papa’s long gone, but I continue to love him. I don’t believe it when people say that men like him were stupid and blind—believing in Stalin. Fearing Stalin. Believing in Lenin’s ideas. Everyone thought the same way. Believe me, they were good and honest people, they believed not in Lenin or Stalin, but in the Communist idea. In socialism with a human face, as they would call it later. In happiness for everybody. For each one. Dreamers, idealists—yes; blind—no. I’ll never agree with that. Not for anything! In the middle of the war Russia began to produce excellent tanks and planes, good weapons, but even so, without faith we would never have overcome such a formidable enemy as Hitler’s army—powerful, disciplined, which subjugated the whole of Europe. We wouldn’t have broken its back. Our main weapon was faith, not fear. I give you my honest Party-member’s word (I joined the Party during the war and am a Communist to this day). I’m not ashamed of my Party card and have not renounced it. My faith has never changed since 1941…”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II

“The burden of getting older was borne alone, but also as if by someone else, because he often couldn’t recognise bits of himself he caught in the mirror. Whose newly scrawny legs were those? Why was his head sitting further forward on his neck? Was it really kind of the gods to do this to the skin of his face, as if a child had been let loose with a brown marker?”
― Sebastian Barry, Old God's Time

“There was very heavy fighting. In that fighting we lost many people, and I was wounded. And after the battle came the funeral. Usually we gave short speeches over the grave. First came the commanders, then the friends. But here, among the dead, was a local fellow, and his mother had come to the funeral. She began to lament: “My little son! We prepared the house for you! You promised you would bring a young wife home! But you are marrying the earth…” The unit stood there, silent, no one touched her. Then she lifted her head and saw that not only her son had been killed, but many other young ones were lying there, and she began to cry over those other sons: “My sons, my dear ones! Your mothers don’t see you, they don’t know you’re being put in the ground! And the ground is so cold. The winter cold is cruel. I will weep instead of them, and pity all of you…My dear ones…Darlings…” She just said, “I will pity all of you” and “my dear ones”—all the men began weeping aloud. No one could help it, no one had strength enough. The unit wept. Then the commander shouted, “Fire the salute!” And the salute silenced everything. And I was so struck that I think of it even now, the greatness of a mother’s heart. In such great grief, as her son was buried, she had enough heart to mourn for the other sons…Mourn for them like her own…”
― Svetlana Alexievich, The Unwomanly Face of War: An Oral History of Women in World War II