The Midwife Of Auschwitz Quotes
"There's not hope, the tiny infants aren’t old enough for that, but there’s a sort of longing that reaches deep into me."
"Perhaps every child I birthed has left a little part behind, a nub of the umbilical cord that will always make it easy for a pair of wide baby eyes to melt my heart."
"Like everything else in this big room, it isn’t shiny or smart but it rings with love."
"The journey this morning was simple, but the years preceding it have been a tangle of hurt and pain."
"We have been on the sort of dark, dirty road that no one should have to tread to get to this run-down place of dwindling hope."
"There have been too many bars, too many fences, too much segregation and division."
"For a moment she considered taking off her coat to sit on, but it was new and bought in a recklessly pale blue."
"The soft rays were warm on her skin but autumn was sending tendrils into the stone and it felt chill against her legs."
"Every day she’d spent the whole time rehearsing sentences in her head that had tangled into agonising lumps whenever she’d tried to force them out of her lips."
"Germany have invaded. The Wehrmacht are swarming across our borders and we are none of us safe."
"It was a question she was to ask herself again and again over the dark years to come."
"Jesus taught her to turn the other cheek but the Nazis had come in slapping both cheeks at once and it was hard to forgive an offence when ten more were already coming at you."
"Ana looked closely at Ester, shaking her head at the passing of time."
"What power had guns and tanks against such simple renewal?"
"The conversation had hit a rut at that piece of information."
"She was pretty sure her parents would think her too young to marry, or at least too committed to her nursing."
"It was like a rigid little bubble of a ritual they were both too shy to pop in case it had no other substance."
"Not that there’d been any mention of marriage, or even of dinner, or a walk in the park, or anything more than lunch on the steps of St Stanislaus’ cathedral."
"With the SS on every corner? I can imagine how they’d choose to come to my aid."
"The physical side of their marriage had not got off to the best of starts with the horrors of being bundled from the synagogue just as their wedding celebrations had truly been starting."
"Her features were soft and delicate and her hair even blonder than Ester’s own."
"The Nazis had taken much from them, but they could not take a mother’s love."
"The Nazis love their fine uniforms and their wives are mad for nice clothes."
"The poor mother had been in labour for over a day and was growing weaker, but Baby was staying firmly inside."
"We must stick together, Ester. It’s the only way any of us will come out of this alive."
"‘You are my feast, Ester,’ he’d murmured against her skin. ‘You are my concert and my party, my night out and my day in. You are all I need.’"
"‘Will you look after her?’ ‘Of course,’ Ana had assured her. ‘It will be my pleasure.’"
"‘I’m sorry, my love,’ she gasped out. ‘I’m so, so sorry.’"
"You are the most wonderful thing that ever happened to me, my beautiful Ester, and I refuse to believe that the universe is going to take you away."
"Life must be our goal in these dark times, for if we stay alive then we can find each other and life – real life, full of love and joy and care – can surely start up again."
"Hold on, my Ester, hold on with all you have, for I love you with every inch of myself and, whatever it takes, I will be here for you when this is over."
"We take any baby put on the list for the Lebensborn programme and we tattoo them with their mother’s number – small and neat and somewhere it won’t be noticed."
"Secret marking, Naomi, my sweet – secret marking!"
"We have to tattoo her. We have to tattoo her with her mother’s number – small and neat and somewhere it won’t be noticed."
"You mark my Oliwia and I’ll find her. One day, I’ll find her."
"That stupid stone isn’t worth even a tenth of this wonderful woman."
"Pray Pfani gets into her precious Puff, Naomi, because I have a plan. They might take our babies from us, but one day, when this is all over and our lives are no longer bounded by wire, we will find them again."
"It’s worth a bit of German sausage, I’d say."
"They can’t do that, Ana. They’re making them all wet."
"Life was a gift from God and if He saw fit to keep her alive, it was for a reason and she must embrace that."
"Three tiny words with the power of a thousand times that many."
"God help her, she had known that those were happy times but until she’d come to Birkenau, she’d had no concept of how unhappy it was possible to be."
"I love you. There was a letter too, heavily censored and with the same words scored out for no reason bar basic cruelty, but Bartek had got them through to her anyway."
"Perhaps winning did not always look the way they thought it might."
"The act of creation was still beautiful but every birth was bittersweet."
"Resist! When the time is right, resist! They are rising up in Warsaw."
"Did Christ not exhort forgiveness? Did he not teach his children to turn the other cheek and treat others as they would like to be treated?"
"‘Thank you,’ she managed. ‘Common humanity,’ Ana said drily."
"It’s hurting, Margarite, because I think Baby is facing forwards. That will make it more painful because you are spine to spine, but it doesn’t mean there will be any problem with the birth. Do you understand?"
"The world is a terrifying place. It became so from the moment the Nazis started stamping all over us and even now that we’re stamping on them in return, it’s still as frightening as before."
"We only get one life and the Nazis have wrecked enough of it."
"There’s plenty of time. People are scattered all over Poland and beyond. Some have joined the armies, some might be in hospitals, some are just in hiding or finding their way back. He’ll be here, I know it."
"For two years I had lived the most basic of lives, no better than an animal in a cage save for the camaraderie and support I had found in the women around me."
"The Nazis had started shipping prisoners deeper into the Reich at the back end of last year but then the train lines had been bombed and even that had stopped. Those people remaining in Birkenau, prisoners and guards alike, were trapped on these windy, marshy plains until someone came to free them."
"‘I did it, Ruth,’ she whispered. ‘I kept her safe. I kept Ester safe for you.’"
"‘It’s quite simple,’ Naomi confirmed, ‘because without it I would fall apart. The world is a terrifying place.’"
"I survived. And so did Ana and so, perhaps, did..."
"Love cannot be ravaged by guns and tanks and evil ideologies."
"It is not over yet, it is far from over, but it is properly begun."
"We are together now, Ester. We have found each other and next we will find our daughter."
"You’ll never be ready, but you’re here and that’s enough."
"I can spread the word in the synagogues and put notices up in the Relief Committee corridors and hope that some relative comes forward, but other than that..."