Excerpt from Fanny Herself by Edna Ferber: Which statement Best interprets the author's use of figurative language in the underlined sentence on page 2 of Passage 2?

Explain the effect of the juxtaposition of the following lines that serve as a beginniing to the new section that begins on page nine: anguish. german soldiers-with their steel helmets and their deaths-head emblem. still, our first impressions of the germans were rather reassuring.