Klemperer, a German-Jewish scholar, was spared deportation for most of the war, and then escaped, tearing off his yellow star, when Dresden was bombed in February 1945. The excerpt below, on the end of the war, is from a small town in Bavaria where he had fled (translation A. Badenoch)
8 May, Tuesday
[…]
Now that the threat to life is past, we are completely sick of the small but accumulated suffering of our situation, and we no longer find any compensation in the romance of it. But the feeling of gratitude is still there, and many hours of the day are pleasant again. Bucolic hours, so to speak. Also down-to-earth and very educational hours.
9 May, Wednesday morning
[…]
Light, and with it the radio, are expected any hour now. Up to now in vain. „Heckenstaller“ the mill owner here, has his own electricity. From him came what was certainly a radio report: yesterday 8/5 at 3AM, the absolute capitulation, along with the handing over of all submarines and mini-subs, was signed by Admiral Dönitz from the German side. “But that thing about the Russians, nothing was said about that,”Asam added. So even he had believed a little bit in the US-Soviet war after all. The many planes from yesterday, travelling slowly in groups of three layers, will have been transports. Subjectively, from us, the most characteristic thing is that we no longer run for cover, are not afraid anymore, but with every plane we remember the past fear.
