Old times, Evil times [antikvár]

PrefaceThis is not an autobiography. Neither is it a study of a period in history. It is a description of how the fate of a group of common people, including me and my family, was affected by events before, during, and after that horrible cataclysm, the Second World War. Anything that is normally the material of biographies but has no relevance in this context (such as personal development and relations) was omitted.Later, as an afterthought, I added an Epilogue on our first impressions of Canada; after all, our move there was a consequence of our wartime and postwar experiences. I also included Appendices containing a couple of short studies on ideas that occupied me at various times as I was working on the main text.Two observations motivated me to write my story. The first came while reading some of the published personal accounts describing the same period. Most of these were written by prominent people who by personality and temperament were more aggressive, more assertive, and on occasion more provocative than we lesser creatures would have been under similar circumstances. Many were true heroes, taking enormous risks; no wonder they had gotten into some hair-raising situations, the accounts of which then made for exciting reading. In contrast, the situations described in my narrative were largely forced upon us, ordinary people, without any provocation on our part. We seemed to be "antiheroes": our attitude was generally passive, unwilling to takevii