A synopsis of Jean Paul Sartre's Troubled Sleep (found in an online comment):
In the novel, Germany invades France, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war.
The Germans destroy village after village, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war.
With superior tanks and airplanes, the Germans quickly defeat the French, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war.
The French are forced to surrender, but the French soldiers don't truly understand that they are at war.
The French soldiers are taken to a temporary prison camp, but they don't truly understand they are at war.
A rumor spreads among them that Hitler has decided to send them home to their families. The soldiers are cheered. Some even praise Hitler for his graciousness in victory. They don't realize they are actually at war.
At the end of the novel, the Germans order the French soldiers onto trains. The trains start moving. It is understood by the soldiers that if the trains go north, to Germany, then they are being sent to slave labor camps, but if the train turns south, then they are being sent home to their families.
In the final scene, the train comes to a fork, where it must go north or south. The soldiers watch anxiously. And then train turns north, toward Germany. And then, finally, the French soldiers realize they are at war.
Frank Frison, Holocaust survivor:
"If fascism could be defeated in debate, I
assure you that it would never have happened, neither in Germany, nor in
Italy, nor anywhere else. Those who recognised its threat at the time and
tried to stop it were, I assume, also called "a mob". Regrettably too many
"fair-minded" people didn't either try, or want to stop it, and, as I
witnessed myself during the war, accommodated themselves when it took
over. People who witnessed fascism at its height are dying out, but the
ideology is still here, and its apologists are working hard at a comeback.
Past experience should teach us that fascism must be stopped before it
takes hold again of too many minds, and becomes useful once again to
some powerful interests."
Adolf Hitler:
"Only one thing could have stopped our movement - if our
adversaries had understood its principle and from the first day smashed
with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement."
“The real reason that non-violence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes…is that white men do not want their lives, their self-image, or their property threatened.”
— James Baldwin
