“Was it fear? I don’t know anymore: hate and fear are very alike and they’re great motivators, don’t you think? They should both be included among the great muses of destruction. I don’t want to speak badly of my brother, Herr Schipper, but that day, there was no dissuading him. It was as if he’d been convinced in an instant that the old authors our grandparents and parents read were to blame for Germany’s misfortune. He said: We have one of the biggest private libraries in the city; they’ll come for us and our books; you’ll see, Maria.”
