What did I want? I wanted the war to be over so I could ask her out.

He was beautiful.
The knight was beautiful,handsome when he smiled.
He didn’t want anyone to see it.
He didn’t want to acknowledge it himself.
But for a brief moment, I saw him. The real man inside of him, not the one tortured by secrets and pain.
And he was beautiful.

Just when you think this war has taken everything you loved, you meet someone and realize that somehow you still have more to give.

He threw his burning cigarette onto our clean living room floor and ground it into the wood with his boot.
We were about to become cigarettes.

What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us?

The Wilhelm Gustloff was pregnant with lost souls conceived of war. They would crowd into her belly and she would give birth to their freedom.