Alfons Heck Quotes

Nobody except a demented prophet of doom could have foreseen their (Jews) terrible fate. The half million Jews of Germany, less than one percent of our population, knew they faced difficult times with Hitler's ascendance to power, but they were hardly prepared for the onslaught of repressive measures against them. ...many believed he would moderate once he legitimately headed the government. They reasoned since he had gained power by making them the scapegoats, his fury was largely a political pretense to gather votes and would abate under his new respectability. They were dead wrong.

I was fascinated by Siegfried's wooden leg, a remembrance of the 1914 Battle of the Sommes, where he had earned the Iron Cross I Class for conspicuous bravery. He was proud of his service for the Fatherland; but as it turned out, the Fatherland wasn't proud of him. Just 13 years after he showed me how to play marbles and sit correctly on a horse, Siegfried and the whole Ermann family were gassed in Auschwitz for being Jewish ...

Of the Gymnasium class of 1939, half had died. Not one was yet 18.

I found it much harder to accept the harsh reality of the German experience in the Third Reich. We, a civilized, humane people, had allowed ourselves to become indifferent to brutality committed by our own government on our own citizens.