A time to...
Ernst and Elizabeth are an unlikely couple: beautiful but tragic. Their time is short like everything else during these evil times of World War II and yet they make the best of it while bombs are falling from the sky and death is a constant thought lingering over the few survivors, civilian and soldiers alike. It is alike a daisy blooming in the darkness and horrors of war, shinning brightly its white petals-a guiding light, a beacon of hope; our moment of innocence, our moment of immortality...if only for a brief moment until the wind scatters the petals to every corner of the world, to history, to Memory. Now is a time to die, a time to expect little, bear the horrors of the war and yet learn to find the time to live-to face life with courage and spirit of something better to come, for the end to come, for peace. But for Ernst a time to live is no more of the future but of the past long ago. It is a poignant, sad tale that goes for the heart and leaves you in pain and tears.
From the novel, a favorite quote:
They were standing in front of the shelves of books. "Take any of them you want," Pohlmann said. "Sometimes they help you through an evening."
Graeber shook his head. "They don't help me. But there's one thing I'd like to know: how does all this fit together-these books, these poems, these philosophies-with the inhumanity of the S.A., the concentration camps and the liquidation of innocent people?"
"They don't fit together. They simply exist at the same time. If the men who wrote these books were alive most of them would be sitting in a concentration camp too."
"Perhaps."
Pohlmann looked at Graeber. "You intend to get married?"
"Yes."
The old man pulled a volume from a shelf. "I can't give you anything else. Take this. It's nothing to read; it's pictures, just pictures. There have been times when I was not able to read and spent whole evenings just looking at pictures. Pictures and poems-they always helped as long as I had oil for the lamp. Later, in the dark, of course there was only prayer left."
"Yes," Graeber said without conviction.
"I've thought a great deal about you. And I've thought about what you said to me recently. There's no answer." Pohlmann hesitate and then said softly: "Only one. You must believe. What else remains?"
"Believe in what?"
"In God. And in what's good in men."
"Haven't you ever doubted that?" Graeber asked.
"Of course," the old man replied. "Often. How else could I believe?"
A Time to Love and a Time to Die by Erich Maria Remarque