“Je t’aime,” the young soldier declared to the farmgirl in German-inflected French as they strolled hand-in-hand through peaceable pastures. “I love your smile. Your eyes. Your lovely long hair…”

But she couldn’t forget her neighbors’ wrathful warning: “Someday we’ll drive out the pigs. Then we’ll come for you with shears.”

Alex Markovich is old enough to remember World War II.