Ww2 Quotes

“The Doctor: Amazing.
Nancy: What is?
The Doctor: 1941. Right now, not very far from here, the German war machine is rolling up the map of Europe. Country after country, falling like dominoes. Nothing can stop it, nothing. Until one tiny, damp little island says "No. No, not here." A mouse in front of a lion. You're amazing, the lot of you. I don't know what you do to Hitler, but you frighten the hell out of me.”
― Steven Moffat

“Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people”
― Heinrich Heine

“War was funny like that: one minute you could try and block it and have the most wonderful thoughts, the next you were back in the nightmare.”
― Mark A. Cooper, The Edelweiss Express

“A girl got kicked out of the swimming hole today. Inge Hachmann. They said they wouldn’t let us swim with a half-breed. Unsanitary. A half-breed, Werner. Aren’t we half-breeds too? Aren’t we half our mother, half our father?”
― Anthony Doerr, All the Light We Cannot See

“‎I was cursed with the pessimism of both the Russians and the Jews two of the gloomiest tribes in the world. Still if there wasn't greatness in me maybe I had the talent to recognize it in others even in the most irritating others.”
― David Benioff, City of Thieves

“That is the way we decided to talk, free and easy, two young men discussing a boxing match. That was the only way to talk. You couldn't let too much truth seep into your conversation, you couldn't admit with your mouth what your eyes had seen. If you opened the door even a centimeter, you would smell the rot outside and hear the screams. You did not open the door. You kept your mind on the tasks of the day, the hunt for food and water and something to burn, and you saved the rest for the end of the war.”
― David Benioff, City of Thieves

“The mind is a powerful thing. It can take you through walls.”
― Denis Avey, The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II

“It was neither German nor Jew who ruled the ghetto - it was illusion.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“They say 'stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage'. It was a quotation I knew as a boy. I had made it my own back then. I knew they couldn't capture my mind. Whilst I could still think, I was free.”
― Denis Avey, The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II

“It was now December 7, 1941; the date that Franklin D. Roosevelt was destined to declare would live in infamy.”
― Randall Wallace, Pearl Harbor

“After months of rumors, inference, and horrible miscalculations, the impossible had happened. The U.S. Pacific fleet lay twisted anad burning at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean in Honolulu. Had he been wrong about Japan not taking an offensive right now? God, he had thousands of men and women to think of, and he feared in his heart that it might not turn out the way he had seen it. He felt doomed, almost paralyzed by his gross miscalculation. He determined, however, that he would not let the word out about Pearl Harbor until he could meet with his American strategists and Philippine President Manuel Quezon.”
― Joyce Shaughnessy, Blessed Are the Merciful

“I was on one of my world 'walkabouts.' It had taken me once more through Hong Kong, to Japan, Australia, and then Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific [one of the places I grew up]. There I found the picture of 'the Father.' It was a real, gigantic Saltwater Crocodile (whose picture is now featured on page 1 of TEETH).

From that moment, 'the Father' began to swim through the murky recesses of my mind. Imagine! I thought, men confronting the world’s largest reptile on its own turf! And what if they were stripped of their firearms, so they must face this force of nature with nothing but hand weapons and wits?

We know that neither whales nor sharks hunt individual humans for weeks on end. But, Dear Reader, crocodiles do! They are intelligent predators that choose their victims and plot their attacks. So, lost on its river, how would our heroes escape a great hunter of the Father’s magnitude? And what if these modern men must also confront the headhunters and cannibals who truly roam New Guinea?

What of tribal wars, the coming of Christianity and materialism (the phenomenon known as the 'Cargo Cult'), and the people’s introduction to 'civilization' in the form of world war? What of first contact between pristine tribal culture and the outside world? What about tribal clashes on a global scale—the hatred and enmity between America and Japan, from Pearl Harbor, to the only use in history of atomic weapons? And if the world could find peace at last, how about Johnny and Katsu?”
― Timothy James Dean, Teeth

“Ernie got it,' I said afterwards. 'His experience taught him that you've got to fight for what's right. It gets you into a lot of trouble but he came to the same conclusion as me.' People think it could never happen here. Don't you believe it; it doesn't take much.”
― Denis Avey, The Man Who Broke Into Auschwitz: A True Story of World War II

“All the nut eaters and food faddists I have ever known, died early after a long period of senile decay - Winston Churchill”
― Stuart Finlay, What Churchill Would Do: Practical Business Advice Based on Winston's WW2 Wisdom

“They used to tie us to a tree, but that is forbidden now. In many ways we are treated quite like men.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

“That’s war. It won’t let anyone get away unscathed. I’m sorry about Grete.”

Verner aka ‘Jens’
in the novel 'the Informer' by Steen Langstrup”
― Steen Langstrup, The Informer

“Dal Ka-Be la musica non si sente bene: arriva assiduo e monotono il martellare della grancassa e dei piatti, ma su questa trama le frasi musicali si disegnano solo a intervalli, col capriccio del vento. Noi ci guardiamo l'un l'altro nei nostri letti, perchè tutti sentiamo che questa è musica infernale.
I motivi sono pochi, una dozzina, ogni giorno gli stessi, mattina e sera: marce e canzoni popolari care a ogni tedesco. Esse giacciono incise nelle nostre menti, saranno l'ultima cosa del Lager che dimenticheremo: sono la voce del Lager, l'espressione sensibile della sua follia geometrica, della risoluzione altrui di annullarci prima come uomoni per ucciderci poi lentamente.
Quando questa musica suona, noi sappiamo che i compagni, fuori nella nebbia, partono in marcia come automi; le loro anime sono morte e la musica li sospinge, come il vento le foglie secche, e si sostituisce alla loro volontà. Non c'è più volontà, ogni pulsazione diventa un passo, una contrazione rilflessa dei muscoli sfatti. [...] Ma dove andiamo non sappiamo. Potremo forse sopravvivere alle malattie e sfuggire alle scelte, forse anche resistere al lavoro e alla fame che ci consumano: e dopo? Qui, lontani momentaneamente dalle bestiemme e dai colpi, possiamo rientrare in noi stessi e meditare, e allora diventa chiaro che non ritorneremo. Noi abbiamo viaggiato fin qui nei vagoni piombati; noi abbiamo visto partire verso il niente le nostre donne e i nostri bambini; noi fatti schiavi abbiamo marciato centro volte avanti e indietro alla fatica muta, spenti nell'anima prima che dalla morte anonima. Noi non ritorneremo. Nessuno deve uscire di qui, che potrebbe portare al mondo, insieme col segno impresso nella carne, la mala novella di quanto ad Auschwitz, è bastato animo all'uomo di fare all'uomo.”
― Primo Levi

“Some events do take place but are not true; others are, although they never occurred.”
― Elie Wiesel

“In the vast expanse of the Pacific, island hopping emerged as a stroke of strategic brilliance, enabling the Allied forces to bypass heavily fortified Japanese strongholds while securing key strategic points. This nimble and audacious approach not only conserved precious resources but also provided crucial bases for launching further offensives. Island hopping reshaped the trajectory of the Pacific War, illustrating the power of adaptability and innovation in the face of formidable adversaries.”
― Ian W. Toll

“It strikes me funny that at the end of life, it doesn’t matter what uniform we wore.”
― Marcus Brotherton; Tosca Lee, The Long March Home

“They’re skinnier and dirtier than I remember—walking skeletons with skin sagging from their bones. Souls staring out from their human remains, waiting to be released.”
― Marcus Brotherton; Tosca Lee, The Long March Home

“We stumble into the road to stare after the truck. A few minutes later a few Filipino soldiers come marching in its wake, Farther on, someone’s blowing a whistle and I can’t believe what I’m hearing: ‘Cease fire, cease fire!’ It don’t seem possible that after the horror of all we’ve been through, a war can end with a whistle and two words”
― Marcus Brotherton; Tosca Lee, The Long March Home

“Ain’t no Army coming to save us. The war’s all turned to the Nazis now. President’s clean forgotten us. You and I don’t even exist”
― Marcus Brotherton; Tosca Lee, The Long March Home

“We didn’t come through hell just to die when it’s over. If we have to run— if we have to swim off this island— we’re gettin’ through this. The three of us— all home alive. That’s our only aim from here on out.”
― Marcus Brotherton; Tosca Lee

“I’ve seen men sit down hard with bullet wounds, talk for a little while like they were only stunned, and die two minutes later. Soldiers blown to more pieces than can be scraped together in a box. Barrios of civilians bombed to nothing just because they were in the way.”
― Marcus Brotherton; Tosca Lee, The Long March Home

“Don’t you think it’s strange?” I said. He had gotten several feet ahead of me and he stopped and turned.

“What do you mean?”

“That we were children together.” I looked up at his face. “You’re so familiar to me—but not. I see my past in you—but you’re still a stranger.”
― Margot Abbott, The Last Innocent Hour

“It was 1941. I was 18, and Peter, 21. We were young and old at the same time.”
― Jessica Glasner, Flight of the Seahawks

“They know that ten heads lopped off will destroy them, but we are a free people; we have as many heads as we have people.”
― John Steinbeck, The Moon Is Down

“When the war broke he laughed and cried, "Now what did they have to do that for?" In his letters to John he was eloquent in his bitterness. He was sure that both he and John were going to die in this war. He said he preferred to die at sea. The sea was clean.”
― Bienvenido N. Santos, You lovely people

“For the time being, Europe’s epic of mass killing is over theorized and misunderstood.”
― Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin