For twenty years Bertha von Suttner knew that this war was coming, while we lived our lives near her without suspecting it.
But I ask you as I ask myself, do I speak the truth when I say we have been short sighted, we have not seen this war coming? Yes and no, each of these responses would be exaggerated, as every man has his own way of knowing, his own and dangerous way to know and not wanting to know, both linked to a basic function of our willingness to live. We notice many things, but we do not consciously notice them because we do not want, because we send them back violently and keep them in the subconscious, in the twilight of our feelings. We all know about death, who lives in us and grows within, but we do not want to know, in order to live more clearly, and we act as if we would breat forever. When we cross a spring landscape, while we enjoy this shining image in the window of our train compartment, we know that before us in the locomotive, a half-naked man is sweating before the boiler, but as we know we would spoil our pleasure with such a thought, we reject it violently.
Thus, in peacetime, by means of convenience, light-heartedness and survival instinct, we did not believe in war, because we did not want to be disturbed. But she, Bertha von Suttner, chose the tragic mission of being the perennial troublemaker, opponent of her era, as Cassandra in Troy or Jeremiah in Jerusalem. She heroically decided to live among the sarcasm rather than betray her heart.
I know too well how the situation of Jews is tragic. In my articles, I could only but allude to it [...] And above-all, the most important thing is that because of the terrible suffering of the people of Galicia who fight for Austria, one can find arguments in favor of anti-Semitism. I am firmly convinced that the already latent frustration will explode not against those who provoked the war, the party of the Post of Reich, but against the Jews. I am convinced, unswervingly, that anti-Semitism after the war will be the nest of the "great Austria," that Poland and the Viennese will finally find there some sort of unity.