The most amazing thing is that he survived to write: Hans Fallada

And then a strange thing happens in "Every Man Dies Alone," as Otto Quangel is transferred from the horrendous Gestapo prison basement to a "remand" prison, which seems to be a place where prisoners are held pending execution - it's not clear - but is a much cleaner and more comfortable holding cell, and he gets a new cellmate, an orchestra conductor, who talks to him kindly about music, teaches him to play chess, and most important talks to him about humanity and ethics and justice, all in a very low-key way - Quangel becomes a human, and not an automaton, in prison, and all this makes sense, in a society gone mad the prison is a sanctuary, the refuge of the morally upright. Reminds me - and it's been a million ears since I rad it - of the end of The Stranger, which as I recall ends with a sense of freedom and liberation achieved in prison. Of course this isn't quite the end of Every Man Dies Alone, and more horrible things can happen and probably will, and it's not clear what kind of salvation can be worthwhile for one who's executed by a racist tyrant and his henchmen - it's the society that needs salvation, not the imprisoned. Clearly a sense in these last chapters that Fallada is writing out of his own experience - what he must have seen in a Nazi mental institution must defy belief, and can you blame him for an addiction to morphine? The most amazing thing of all is that he survived, if not for long, to write this book and provide testimony to what he witnessed.