The Emerald Horizon Quotes

“The Nazis might as well have won the war if we allow them to rewrite our future as well as our past.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“What was wrong with people that they were so intent on control? If she never saw another flag again in her life, it would be too soon. All flags did was separate, show difference, one group rallying to one flag, another group rallying to another, all of it based on nothing more than what patch of earth you happened to be born on. It was all so stupid.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“Nobody will say this now, of course, but for a while, things were better than they were for years. We had jobs and money and holidays and even a car. Imagine that! And he said all this could only get better, German families’ lives would get better, we could be proud again, and the only fly in the ointment was the Jews.’ She shrugged. ‘It made sense.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“I actually believed that jumped-up little Austrian would make our country great again, you believe that? How stupid we were. But”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“Those men who had no merit or talent suddenly swaggering about like they were someone important, issuing commands and barking orders at their former superiors – it was hard to take. That’s possibly why they were all clinging to what surely must be a lost cause at this stage, because without the Nazi Party and their affiliations to cling to, they went back to being nobodies.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“Hope for a future where people are kind and people are judged not by their religion or their nationality but by the way they treat their fellow man.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“I don’t recognise my own children any more. I’m afraid of them. They have been so indoctrinated…’ She pointed to her temple and whispered, ‘They get inside their heads, the teachers, the youth leaders. Parents don’t matter, nobody matters but the führer and the Fatherland.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“he reported his own father. He’s one of them, our own son. I’m afraid, Ariella. I can’t believe I gave birth to him. He’s a monster, and the girls are terrified of him too. He hits them, and me too sometimes.’ She touched her cheek. ‘And he taunts me, saying that Nathaniel is dead, that he was a traitor, an enemy of the Reich.’ The words tumbled from her in a torrent of fear and emotion.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“These people, these Nazis who stood by while the Jews were rounded up, weren’t strangers. They were her neighbours, people she and her family had interacted with all the time. She could recall the shocked horror she felt as one by one the Germans around her joined the Party. Had they hated her and her children all along? It”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“this war has taught me anything, Roman, it’s that there is no one defining characteristic of any nationality.’ Her Russian was rusty, but she found the words to say what she felt. ‘We are all a mixture of everything – good and bad, brave and cowardly, kind and hateful. No one nation or people has a monopoly on anything. So yes, I know not all Russians are like the ones that killed my friend. Germans have hurt me, exiled my children, but it was also Germans who hid me, who gave me food. So I don’t judge people by their nationality, only by their actions.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“I have survived so far due to the kindness of Gentiles.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“They might be perfect Aryans, but believe me, they are every bit as enslaved as yours would have been if they’d stayed.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“the barracks. Even the girls. They are in the girls’ brigade,”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“on the goodness of people and how little acts of kindness were like little acorns that grew into mighty oaks.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“All flags did was separate, show difference, one group rallying to one flag, another group rallying to another, all of it based on nothing more than what patch of earth you happened to be born on. It was all so stupid.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“You are a human being, trying your best under such incomprehensible conditions, like us all, you can’t explain this. Nobody can, it’s insane. We’ll do this together, all of us, and hopefully they will feel our love and support.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“Flowers bloomed in the park – not the beautifully manicured beds of the life before Hitler, but still some remained and popped their brightly coloured heads up. Nature didn’t care what stupid messes humans got themselves into; it just carried on regardless.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“Ata lo bokher et ha’mishpakha shelkha hem matnat ha’el lekha, kmo she ata lahem. It means you don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you and you to them,”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“Nature didn’t care what stupid messes humans got themselves into; it just carried on regardless.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“She should have felt relief – no more dreaded swastikas – but all she felt was a deep bone-weariness. More flags, more men deciding the fate of others. What was wrong with people that they were so intent on control? If she never saw another flag again in her life, it would be too soon. All flags did was separate, show difference, one group rallying to one flag, another group rallying to another, all of it based on nothing more than what patch of earth you happened to be born on. It was all so stupid.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“Two old Jewish ladies against a well-organised regime determined to destroy them… Well, they wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“inasmuch”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon

“Her daddy used to say that whenever you saw a white feather, it was the souls of the dead reminding you that they were watching over you.”
― Jean Grainger, The Emerald Horizon