Aaron’s Reviews > Europe Central > Status Update

“On the sixth if December, during celebrations in honor of the Stalin Constitution which guaranteed the rights of all peoples, he whispered to Glikman: If they chop off both my hands, I’ll keep writing music with the pen in my teeth …”

“Käthe had once asked the boy why, what he had against Jews, how he could possibly wish more on Germany more hate and war. He replied: Excuse me, Frau Kollwitz, but I would like to stand for something. I would like to be there for something.—Now both of them wore swastika armbands. They looked more cheerful than she had ever seen them.

…

You know the difference between you and us …? We’re optimists.”

“In the Hitler years we still believed in books enough to burn them. Imagine, then, how much life our faith could impart to stone effigies of eagles back in the Kaiser’s day, when belief really meant something!”