Bill Downs quotes
The first act in the tragedy took place in September 1941, a few weeks after the Germans captured Kiev. One day they ordered all Jews to report at the Lukyanovka district and bring their valuables with them. Thousands of men, women, and children marched out to Lukyanovka, thinking they probably would be evacuated. Instead, Nazi SS troops led them to Babii Yar.
Bill Downs
Right now I could take you in my jeep for a ride of any 25 miles through the streets of Hamburg and pay you dollar for every undamaged house you could point out. I don't believe I would lose a five dollar bill in doing so. There is acre after acre of nothing but bricks and rubble. Particularly in the port and manufacturing area do you see nothing but twisted steel and shattered walls and broken bricks.
Bill Downs
Driving to the studio today, I passed a big football field. I had to look twice before I realized that the stands were jammed with people...thousands of them. I looked out on the playing field, and there wasn't a soul. And then I realized that this crowd were war prisoners. I went into the field, and there was a quiet, docile atmosphere about the place...the sort of atmosphere you get in an American football crowd between halves. Germans of every description sat quietly, chatting to their neighbors and doing nothing in particular. Bored British sentries stood around looking like ushers equipped with Tommy guns. It was that quiet.
Bill Downs
The United States State Department will tell you that American aid is given to preserve the things for which we stand, to promote the basic freedoms of mankind, not necessarily to promote individual governments. That is our justification for sending help to a Greek government that, for a time at least, could by no means be called democratic. In the case of Britain, the nation is marching on the road towards Socialism. But the ingrained liberty and freedom of the individual has been proved by men like Churchill who still speak out against the government and by the men like the transport workers and miners who tell the government which they voted for to go to blazes. And between these fires, the British government--no matter what its political shadings--has the job of getting the country back on its feet.
Bill Downs
The Hindenburg and Bleecker bastions were so strong that it was decided to bypass them on D-Day, and let this group of Nazis stew in their own juice. There was no hurry; the Germans couldn't do much damage there. They were completely isolated and could be cleaned out at will. Yesterday, the order came to blast them out.
Bill Downs
By this time we had reached the trench system. On both sides of us men were going along the trenches with their Tommy guns. A tank assaulted one of the trenches and behind it was a young radio operator calmly chewing a stalk of wheat, waiting to flash the words that the bastion had been taken. Shouts of "come on out of there you Nazi 'so-and-so's'" and "keep your hands up you 'such-and-such'" announced the arrival of the First Troop. Then they began to pop up like prairie dogs.
Bill Downs
People who evacuated their homes to get away from the bombings are beginning to come back. However, many have a strange conception of the meaning of unconditional surrender. Often they find their homes have been occupied by the slave workers who have been forced to withstand the bombing. They come to the military government and ask for authority to evict these people. But they get unsympathetic answers...the forced laborers stay put until they can be sent back to their homes...and the Germans look for billets.
Bill Downs
In Russia during the war, you seldom spoke of Communism versus capitalism. In the first place, we were then comrades-in-arms and the subject was not important. In the second place, the official line of the inevitable struggle between capitalism and Communism was a bit confused. Marshal of the Soviet Union Josef Stalin had indicated to Commander-in-Chief Franklin Roosevelt that the two systems could live in Diplomat-at-Large Wendell Willkie's One World side by side.
Bill Downs
