Suddenly, the officer turned, raising his riding whip and shouted, 'Ein moment!' The Feldwebel turned, looked perplexedly at the officer and came back pushing the boy with outstretched arm.… 'Listen, I don’t want to hurt you. You are a child, and I am not waging war against children. You have fired at my men, but I am not waging war on children. Lieber Gott, I am not the one who invented war.' The officer broke off, then went on in a strangely gentle voice: 'Listen, I have one glass eye. It is difficult to tell which is the real one. If you can tell me at once, without thinking about it, which of the two is the glass eye, I will let you go free.'
'The left eye,' replied the boy promptly.
'How did you know?'
'Because it is the one that has something human in it.'”

Kaputt (1946) by Curzio Malaparte

Screenshots: collage by other means.