“I remember seeing one elderly man look at us, and he held his hand out, and most frightening were his eyes, dark as a soulless abyss, so black that it looked as if it had been blasted from a cyclone. I felt he was looking right at me. For a moment, I thought I was looking through his sockets, past his brain and behind him; as the tears started rolling down my cheeks a godless universe was expanding within me. Then I became hysterical.”
Source: Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
“I look at my mother, connected by a breath of glimmering hope, her red and shadowed eyes reveal that some element of our whole being has been lost and, somehow, thrown away. Sob-gasp, sob-gasp, sob-gasp. Slowly, that feeling within me fades. But wisps of it stay with you, locked in the chambers of your mind, always.”
Source: Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
“The fact is that many people did not – and still do not – understand that many Germans were held in the concentration camps from 1933 onwards. The camps were not just for Jews or other ‘non-people’, but also for any German who had made some remark about the Nazis, or who would not follow the Nazi rules.”
Source: Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
“The veil between the worlds, the seen and unseen, is thinnest on Halloween.”
Source: The Dream Haunters
“Within minutes we had left the station and were entering a cutting with trees on both sides, so the horror of the massacre was now out of sight. The train left the wooded cutting, and we saw Strausberg on fire. There were Russian tanks in the streets and soldiers on foot entering buildings. People were being dragged out, and shot.”
Source: Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
“I thought of the people on the roof and wondered how they managed to stay up there as there was nothing to hang on to but, thinking back, I think they had either been shot or had fallen off the train many miles back as we left Strausberg.”
Source: Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
“At times the engine stopped, and grown-ups and children climbed out of the carriages with tins to collect water from the engine steam pipes. This was the only drinking water that we had access to, and though it was hot and very rusty, it was the best drink I felt I’d ever had.”
Source: Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
“We had seen too many horrors already, and we could see and hear more explosions all around us as the war continued, very close to our hiding place; machine gun fire and the sounds of grenades – all very frightening.”
Source: Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
“But you never knew where the bombs would fall in the dark, so night bombing was even more frightening than daylight bombing. Let’s just say, it scared the living daylights out of us!”
Source: Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
“With our collective shock, what we saw seemed to be frozen into a state of suspended animation. Indelibly etched into our memories in terror, forever! My life was in slow motion, it was as if I was no longer in my body and this was a rather bad dream! It is almost impossible to describe with words what I saw, but I will try. This very experience is the one that has continued to shake me awake during the dense night of my lifetime.”
Source: Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain