Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Alfred Nestor

Quote by Alfred Nestor

“Children accept the conditions they are born into, and, to a degree, I was getting used to the bombings, fires, and death around me. I remember that I thought those things were normal. It is grown-ups who worry about things, and this ... this was total panic! I could taste the fear, and I could see that my mother was frightened, which I had never seen before, and this made me even more frightened.”

Quote by Alfred Nestor

Book:Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
Create image

Work

Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Alfred Nestor

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Alfred Nestor. more

You May Also Like

“One day, I noticed that my father’s uniform had changed from a smart, light green colour with silver edging on the shoulder straps to a black uniform with SS markings and runes on the collar. I asked him why this was, and he told me that he was still a policeman, but now worked for the Schutzpolizei.”

WwiiHitlerWw2Survival StoryNazi PartyHitler S GermanyWar StoryAlfred NestorUncle HitlerSecond World War In GermanyAlf NestorAuthor Alfred NestorSecond World War ChidhoodSchutzpolizeiGerman Ss
Book:Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
Create image

“One woman, called Eva, used to visit my mother and sometimes we would call in next door to visit her. Sometimes Frau Eva gave me cakes and fruit drinks. I remember she was very kind. It was not until many years later that I understood just who she was. To me, at the time, she was just a very nice woman who lived next door sometimes, although she did tend to go away, and was often not seen for several months.”

WwiiHitlerWw2Survival StoryNazi PartyHitler S GermanyWar StoryAlfred NestorUncle HitlerSecond World War In GermanyAlf NestorAuthor Alfred NestorSecond World War Chidhood
Book:Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
Create image

“I do recall hearing a conversation in our home in Strausberg, between my mother and my father, where my mother sounded very angry that my cousin had let the Rödels down by having to be dragged out of Oma’s house, crying for his mother and shouting that he did not want to return to the war in Russia. Like a great many other soldiers throughout that period, he died in Russia on 5 May, 1944. He was just twenty years of age, and is buried somewhere in that country.”

WwiiHitlerWw2Survival StoryNazi PartyHitler S GermanyWar StoryAlfred NestorUncle HitlerSecond World War In GermanyAlf NestorAuthor Alfred NestorSecond World War ChidhoodRodelRussian War
Book:Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
Create image

“After the Christmas and New Year of 1944 my mother and I returned to Strausberg, but the area was full of people evacuated from Berlin due to mass bombings on the capital by the RAF. These had started, in a small way, on 25 August, 1940, and had continued through 1941 and 1942. However, by November, 1943, these air attacks were major, involving mass bomber streams of more than 800 aircraft. I used to stand outside the front of our house and look at the sky, watching the silver bombers turning over Strausberg and heading in the direction of Berlin. Many were shot down, some near us in the fields around Strausberg.”

WwiiHitlerWw2Survival StoryNazi PartyHitler S GermanyWar StoryAlfred NestorUncle HitlerSecond World War In GermanyAlf NestorAuthor Alfred NestorSecond World War ChidhoodBerlin EvacuationRaf Mass BombingsStrausberg Bombed
Book:Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
Create image

“But the public did not know the truth about what happened to the people in the trucks; they believed the stories from the government, who said that these people, known as Untermensch (non-people or ‘lower people’), were simply moved to open spaces in the east and settled on farms, away from Germany, so as not to ‘contaminate’ the German race. This is an example of people not wishing to know the facts behind the rumours in which were whispered between trusted friends. The general belief was that the rumours were rubbish anyway, for how could a civilized country do such things? Our leaders would never allow anything bad to happen to these people; after all, we were not barbarians! And so nothing was said, or done, and the public developed a collective blindness to the truth.”

WwiiHitlerWw2Survival StoryNazi PartyHitler S GermanyWar StoryAlfred NestorUncle HitlerSecond World War In GermanyAlf NestorAuthor Alfred NestorSecond World War ChidhoodNon PeopleUntermensch
Book:Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
Create image

“I quickly got used to being picked up by my mother, and taken to the air raid shelter near our home. Although frightening, this was a great adventure to me as a child, for in the shelter I played with the other children and we felt safe there as we were surrounded by grown-ups; although now the grown-ups were more worried than they had been in the past. There were greater feelings of anxiety and fear in the older people, which we children also felt, and it unsettled us all.”

WwiiHitlerWw2Survival StoryNazi PartyHitler S GermanyWar StoryAlfred NestorUncle HitlerSecond World War In GermanyAlf NestorAuthor Alfred NestorSecond World War Chidhood
Book:Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
Create image

“I heard people talking about what this Red Army did to any Germans they captured, and this only added to my fears.”

WwiiHitlerWw2Survival StoryNazi PartyHitler S GermanyWar StoryRed ArmyAlfred NestorUncle HitlerSecond World War In GermanyAlf NestorAuthor Alfred NestorSecond World War ChidhoodRussian Red Army
Book:Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
Create image

“We had the air war overhead, which was frightening, but we were, in a way, getting used to it. Now, however, we could hear – and at night, see – the flashes of explosions reflected in the dark sky. We could feel the ground vibrate under our feet. The war was getting closer!”

WwiiHitlerWw2Survival StoryNazi PartyHitler S GermanyWar StoryAlfred NestorUncle HitlerSecond World War In GermanyAlf NestorAuthor Alfred NestorSecond World War ChidhoodAir War In BerlinGermany Bombed
Book:Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
Create image

“The train, I was later told by my mother, only had about ten carriages to it, and there were hundreds of people fighting to get on. I don’t think anybody knew where the train was going, only that it was leaving Strausberg and would take us away from the Russians, who were now arriving on the far end of the platform. Some German SS soldiers and Police were shooting at the Russian troops, and many people – men, women and children – were hit by the flying bullets.”

WwiiHitlerWw2Survival StoryNazi PartyHitler S GermanyWar StoryAlfred NestorUncle HitlerSecond World War In GermanyAlf NestorAuthor Alfred NestorSecond World War ChidhoodRussian TroopsSs Soldiers
Book:Uncle Hitler: A Child's Traumatic Journey Through Nazi Hell to the Safety of Britain
Create image