Raul Hilberg Quotes

• But what began in 1941 was a process of destruction not planned in advance, not organized centrally by any agency. There was no blueprint and there was no budget for destructive measures. They were taken step by step, one step at a time. Thus came about not so much a plan being carried out, but an incredible meeting of minds, a consensus - mind reading by a far-flung bureaucracy.

  Raul Hilberg

  Taken, Reading, Agency

  37 Copy quote

• The missionaries of Christianity had said in effect: You have no right to live among us as Jews. The secular rulers who followed had proclaimed: You have no right to live among us. The German Nazis at last decreed: You have no right to live.

  Raul Hilberg

  Holocaust, Lasts, Christianity

  Raul Hilberg (1973). “The destruction of the European Jews”, Octagon Press, Limited

  35 Copy quote

• As the Nazi regime developed over the years, the whole structure of decision-making was changed. At first there were laws. Then there were decrees implementing laws. Then a law was made saying, ‘There shall be no laws.’ Then there were orders and directives that were written down, but still published in ministerial gazettes. Then there was government by announcement; orders appeared in newspapers. Then there were the quiet orders, the orders that were not published, that were within the bureaucracy, that were oral. And finally, there were no orders at all. Everybody knew what he had to do.

  Raul Hilberg

  Order, Years, Law

  36 Copy quote

• At crucial junctures, every individual makes decisions and ... every decision is individual.

  Raul Hilberg

  Decision, Individual, Juncture

  35 Copy quote

• The Jews are the conscience of the world. They are the father figures, stern, critical, and forbidding.

  Raul Hilberg

  Father, World, Figures

  17 Copy quote

• A great percentage of the mistakes I discovered in
  my own work, could be attributed to testimonies.

  Raul Hilberg

  Mistake, Percentages, Testimony

  16 Copy quote

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