The Star and the Shamrock Quotes

“It wasn’t that people didn’t care – they did – but it was on a scale that seemed impossible to solve.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“It is as if we can only process what is happening on this small level – one man, one community. The reality of what is happening in Europe is too hard for one person to understand. The scale is too big.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“Here you are, an Irish woman, so concerned for the life of one Jew, when all over Europe, Jews are dying by the hundreds of thousands. It strikes me, that because Daniel is an individual, and a person who has touched your heart, you care so much. Each of those put on a train east, each person beaten to death on the street or worked to exhaustion in a quarry or a mine, they too are individuals, and their presence on earth touched the heart of another.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“The treatment of Jews – not just by Nazis but by their neighbours, people they would have considered friends – had taken a deep psychological toll on everyone. It manifested in the adults and the children in the same way, as stoic determination, but she was sure it masked a hurt so deep, she doubted it would ever heal.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“Charles Lindbergh and the America First Committee were fighting him. Lindbergh had just addressed a rally of 30,000 in Los Angeles, lashing out at what he saw as a very pro-war government, but the American president’s fireside chats seemed to be swinging the American public towards participation in the war on a bigger scale. They really needed American boots on the ground.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“It was deemed unpatriotic to dwell on the negative, and people instead were focusing on Roosevelt’s insistence to the American government that they would need to step up their efforts to defeat Hitler.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“Otherwise, I would be in a camp by now, or worse.’ ‘It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? I mean I know it’s happening, but that German people are just going along with it…’ Elizabeth still found the situation in Europe difficult to comprehend.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“Germany and Austria are very civilised places. Opera, ballet, art, architecture… There is an ancient and proud culture in those countries. But they just had enough of the Jews – that’s how they saw it – and wanted them out. Simple as that. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.’ Talia”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“assumed”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“it took them by surprise. By the time they knew what he really was, it was too late to stand up to him. But we know what his plan is over here, and we’ll be ready for him if he does try to come.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“the”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“She lost him, her Rudi, because someone wanted the culmination of four long years of slaughter to look nice on a piece of paper.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“The Talmud says, “He who saves one life saves the world entire.”’ He nodded slowly.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“were”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“Yes. But don’t say dead. Only to praise God. When you tell this to the children, say this. Their father is with God, and he is safe.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“He who saves one life saves the world entire.”’ He nodded slowly.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“Yes, Viola, can you translate the prayer for us?’ Viola stood and turned to Elizabeth, her blue eyes locked with her teacher’s. ‘It means blessed are you, oh Lord, who rewards the undeserving with goodness, and who has rewarded me with goodness.’ She paused. ‘And then we reply, “May he who has rewarded you with all goodness, reward us with all goodness forever.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“how”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“They say that grief is the price of love, but it was a price she could never pay again.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock

“The deeply held belief of peace-loving nations in which people had a right to be whoever they wanted, practice whatever faith they wanted, was horribly juxtaposed by the horrors of what Hitler was trying to do.”
― Jean Grainger, The Star and the Shamrock