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Paul Gallico
Coronation
Imagine seeing the Queen that close as she goes by in her golden carriage! The kiddies will have something to tell their kiddies, won’t they? And a drink of real champagne to go with it! Coronation Day, 2 June 1953! A humble, working-class family from Sheffield is desperate to buy train tickets to London to see the coronation, but doing so means forsaking their annual seaside holiday. After some scrimping and saving, and a family meeting in which the enthusiasm of the children overrules the reluctance of their long-suffering mother and grandmother, the Clagg family take the plunge and buy premium, champagne tickets for the big day.
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Histoire de la Gestapo
Gestapo, ces trois syllabes ont, pendant douze années, fait trembler l’Allemagne, puis l’Europe entière. Des centaines de milliers d’hommes ont été traqués par les agents qui opéraient sous le couvert de cette « raison sociale », des millions d’êtres humains ont souffert et sont morts sous leurs coups ou sous ceux de leurs frères, les SS.
Jamais, dans aucun pays et à aucune époque, une organisation n’atteignit cette complexité, ne détint un tel pouvoir, ne parvint à un tel point de « perfection » dans l’efficacité et dans l’horreur.
A ce titre, la Gestapo demeurera dans la mémoire des hommes comme l’exemple d’un instrument social dévoyé par des êtres sans scrupules.L’être humain est un fauve dangereux. En période normale, ses instincts mauvais demeurent à l’arrière-plan, jugulés par les conventions, les habitudes, les lois, les critères d’une civilisation. Mais, que vienne un régime qui non seulement libère ses impulsions terribles, mais en fasse des vertus, alors du fond des temps le mufle de la bête réapparaît sous le masque fragile du civilisé, déchire cette mince écorce et pousse le hurlement de mort des temps oubliés.Ce que le nazisme, incarné quelque sorte dans la Gestapo, a tenté de réaliser, et qu’il a failli réussir, c’est la destruction de l’homme, tel que nous le connaissons, tel que des millénaires l’ont façonné.