Book Erich Maria Remarque (7 Books Collection Set)
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Book 1: A Time to Live and a Time to Die
1944. The war is coming to an end. Private Ernst Graeber returns home from the Eastern Front on leave. But his hometown is destroyed by bombing. While looking for his parents, Ernst meets Elisabeth... They don't have much time. But the few days they spend together can hold a lifetime. All their short lives and a great love that has no future... When the whole world is falling apart, when someone decides for you that it's time to die, you want to live so badly...
France, 1939. The world is on the brink of World War II. Ludwig is one of those who have already experienced the cruelty of the Nazis: he was tortured by the Gestapo, a concentration camp, and lost his beloved. To escape, he flees to France and changes his name. From now on, he is a refugee surgeon named Ravik. The trials and tribulations of emigrant life fall on his shoulders. One day he meets Joan Madu, an actress from Italy. She, like Ravik, is lonely and lost in this cold world. A bad hour unites their souls, and the love that flares up between them becomes bitter with tears...
"Life is short... But what makes it so? The realisation that it is short..."
To be saved, to escape from Europe as far away from the Nazis as possible! Their last hope is a steamer to America. But finding tickets is almost impossible... A strange stranger is willing to give them his own in exchange for listening to them. A night full of wine and long conversations about life, nation, loss, and true love in wartime lies ahead...
The war is far behind. But the lives of those it touched with its deadly claws have been shattered. A young Belgian woman, Liliane, has known only hunger, flight, and hiding from the Nazis, and now she is slowly dying of tuberculosis. Her life is a race against death. The girl wants to live the rest of her days to the fullest, to feel the taste of true freedom, to experience happiness, even if she remains just an episode in the life of her beloved man. However, fate has its own way...
For many refugees, America seemed like a promised land, where there is neither war nor poverty. Journalist Robert Ross spent two years hiding from the Nazis in a Brussels museum. Now he can breathe into a free chest. But where can he find the strength to start his life anew? Robert is not alone. He sees the fate of other refugees. Doctors, art dealers, fashion models, actors - all of them are trying to cope with the pain left by the war in their own way. Some drown their grief in alcohol, others throw themselves into work. Some of them continue to fight with their last strength. Others lay down their arms. These different people, united by the stigma of "exiles", are devastated by the longing for their past and tired of searching. Will they find their place in this shattered world?
March 1945. The Möllern concentration camp is considered very humane: there are no gas chambers. But every day, hundreds of people die of hunger, abuse, and disease, and instead of names, they have only a number. The desperate anticipation of an imminent liberation unites the exhausted inhabitants of the Small Camp. Someone has to survive. In order not to forget. To tell the truth. To find the strength to start all over again, remembering the sparks of life that have gone out forever...
They returned from the war. They survived. And now they have to move on. An ordinary German army soldier Ernst Birkholz and his comrades have to get used to the peaceful world. Crippled by the war, with amputated limbs and deformed souls, they realise that everything that was important once has lost its meaning. Despite the fear, hopelessness, and loneliness, the former soldiers try to find a new meaning in life. But not everyone will have a chance to start over. Yes, they have returned from the war. But is it over for them completely?