Edith Hahn Beer Quotes
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The soul withdrew to a rational silence. The body remained there in the madness.
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We heard that the Americans and the British encouraged mothers to work in the war industries, that they provided child care and paid high wages to a highly motivated, patriotic workforce. But the Führer rejected this idea. German women received extra rations, even medals of honor, for breeding profusely.
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One class. No masters. No slaves. No black. No white. No Jew. No Christian. One race-- The human race.
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Around four o’clock, when our bosses were having tea, the forewoman bumped me with her bony hip. This was a sign that she would take over for fifteen minutes while I went on a break. Every day she gave one of us a break like that. There was no more “reason” for her kindness than for the cruelty of the camp commander who had slapped Trude. It was the individuals who made their own rules in this situation. No one forced them to behave in an unkind manner. The opportunity to act decently toward us was always available to them. Only the tiniest number of them ever used it.
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My father's decision to let me go to high school had a monumental on my life, because for the first time I had friends who were boys. It had nothing to do with sex, I assure you....No, it was about intellectual development. You see, in those days, boys were simply better educated than girls. The read more, traveled more, thought more. So now, for the first time, I began to have friends with whom I could really talk....
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We told each other every funny story we could think of. One of them stays in my mind. A German citizen wants to commit suicide. He tries to hang himself, but the rope is of such a poor quality that it breaks. He tries to drown himself, but the percentage of wood in the fabric of his pants is so high that he floats on the surface like a raft. Finally he starves to death from eating official government rations.
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Something always happened, you see. A Yiddish song on Hanukkah, a British rabbi's prayer on the radio, some kindness on a train or in the street that reminded me, no matter how far I retreated, no matter how deep into self-denial my fear drove me, that the Jews would always be my people and I would always belong to them.
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I think that every time you hurt somebody you care for, a crack appears in your relationship, a little weakening—and it stays there, dangerous, waiting for the next opportunity to open up and destroy everything.
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The high-strung Frieda made the mistake of telling Frau Fleschner that she had a toothache. She was taken to a dentist. He pulled ten of her teeth! After one day, they put her back in the fields, spitting blood. She was twenty-one years old.
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How can a gang of pompous little men so quickly destroy the democratic institutions of a great country?!” cried Wolfgang, pounding on the table in frustration, making the chess pieces topple.
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Life is beautiful, and it begins tomorrow.
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It was the individuals who made their own rules in this situation. No one forced them to behave in an unkind manner. The opportunity to act decently toward us was always available to them. Only the tiniest number of them ever used it.
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He disliked wearing his uniform and always changed out of it right away when he came home. Symbols of authority irritated him—unless the authority was his own.
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The farmers had grown proud and haughty. They ate better than anyone else in Germany now. And, like Volkswagen and Siemens, they had slaves. All they had to do was feed the local Nazi power elite, and they could have all the slaves they wanted.
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They wanted to know, you see. They were afraid that with our typical Austrian faces, we might be able to pass. They didn’t want to be fooled. Even then, in the 1920s, they wanted to be able to tell who was a Jew.
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We haven’t heard from you yet, Frau Vetter,” said the commandant. “Oh yes … yes … I was supposed to call you, that number …” I fumbled in my bag. “I wonder if I still have it …” Did I really imagine that I could convince him I had misplaced his number the way I had “lost” my Nazi Red Cross pin? “The number is on your desk,” he said with a smile. “Ah. Yes. In my office.” “No. Not that desk. The antique desk with the brass fittings and feet like the claws of a lion, the desk you have in your apartment.” In my mind’s ear, I heard the fiend Goebbels laughing.
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Often, the teachers would ask me what language we spoke at home. This was a not-so-subtle way of discovering if we spoke Yiddish which we didn’t and were therefore Jewish which we were.
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When Frieda, Trude, Lucy, and I walked to work, the German children hooted at us: “Jewish swine!” In town, the shopkeepers would not even sell us a beer. I wrote to Mama that Osterburg was a friendly town.
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Man is a greater thing than you have thought him.