Holocaust Quotes

• I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

  Elie Wiesel

  Peace, Bystanders, History

  Elie Wiesel (2011). “From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences”, p.170, Schocken

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• For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.

  Simon Wiesenthal

  Men, History, Evil

  96 Copy quote

• The Holocaust is not only a tragedy of the Jewish people, it is a failure of humanity as a whole.

  Moshe Katsav

  People, Humanity, Tragedy

  "Anger amid the tears - did the allies do enough to save Jews?" by Owen Bowcott, www.theguardian.com. January 28, 2005.

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• In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.

  Anne Frank

  Believe, Heart, Thinking

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• The things I saw beggar description ... The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty, and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where there were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in a position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to "propaganda".

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Men, Hands, Order

  "Commemorating The 70th Anniversary Of Liberation", www.ushmm.org.

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• The horror of the Holocaust is not that it deviated from human norms; the horror is that it didn't. What happened may happen again, to others not necessarily Jews, perpetrated by others, not necessarily Germans. We are all possible victims, possible perpetrators, possible bystanders.

  Yehuda Bauer

  Bystanders, May, Horror

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• If we bear all this suffering and if there are still Jews left, when it is over, then Jews, instead of being doomed, will be held up as an example.

  Anne Frank

  Suffering, Example, Bears

  Anne Frank, General Press (2016). “The Diary of a Young Girl”, p.136, GENERAL PRESS

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• For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.

  Elie Wiesel

  War, Bears, Bearing Witness

  "Elie Wiesel, Nobel winner and Holocaust survivor, dies aged 87" by Alan Yuhas, www.theguardian.com. July 2, 2016.

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  There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.

  Elie Wiesel

  Freedom, Philosophy, Military

  Elie Wiesel (2011). “From the Kingdom of Memory: Reminiscences”, p.182, Schocken

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• In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death.

  Anne Frank

  Motivational, Believe, Divorce

  FaceBook post by Anne Frank from Apr 07, 2015

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• Sexually progressive cultures gave us literature, philosophy, civilization and the rest, while sexually restrictive cultures gave us the Dark Ages and the Holocaust.

  Alan Moore

  Sex, Philosophy, Dark

  Alan Moore (2009). “25,000 Years of Erotic Freedom”, Abrams Books

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• The smell of death overwhelmed us even before we passed through the stockade. More than 3200 naked, emaciated bodies had been flung into shallow graves. Others lay in the streets where they had fallen. ... Eisenhower's face whitened into a mask. Patton walked over to a corner and sickened. I was too revolted to speak. For here death had been so fouled by degradation that it both stunned and numbed us.

  Omar N. Bradley

  Smell, Naked, Degradation

  132 Copy quote

• Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.

  Primo Levi

  Believe, Asking Questions, Numbers

  138 Copy quote

• The Nazis victimized some people for what they did, some for what they refused to do, some for what they were, and some for the fact that they were.

  John Horton Conway

  People, Facts, Nazi

  17 Copy quote

• The Holocaust also shows us how a combination of events and attitudes can erode a society's democratic values.

  Tim Holden

  Attitude, Events, Erode

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• If God is all good, then He is not all powerful. If God is all powerful, then He is not all good. I am a disbeliever is the omnipotence of God because of the Holocaust. But for 35 years, I have been believing that He is doing the best he can.

  Norman Mailer

  Powerful, Believe, Years

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  Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

  Elie Wiesel

  Bystanders, Remembrance, Silence

  Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, Norway, 11 Dec. 1986

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• I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.

  Elie Wiesel

  Bystanders, Remembrance, Silence

  Elie Wiesel (2012). “Night”, p.141, Macmillan

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• A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased

  Hans Frank

  War, Years, Guilt

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• The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed.

  Stephen Ambrose

  Evil, Crime, Genocide

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• Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

  Elie Wiesel

  Dream, Night, Dust

  Night ch. 3 (1960)

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• The history of the genocide perpetrated during the Second World War does not belong to the past only. It is a ‘living history’ that concerns us all, regardless of our background, culture, or religion. Other genocides have occurred after the Holocaust, on several continents. How can we draw better lessons from the past?

  Irina Bokova

  War, Past, Doe

  21 Copy quote

• Dachau has been my own lifelong point of no return. Between the moment when I walked through the gate of that prison, with its infamous motto, 'Arbeit Macht Frei,' and when I walked out at the end of a day that had no ordinary scale of hours, I was changed, and how I looked at the human condition, the world we live in, changed ... Years of war had taught me a great deal, but war was nothing like Dachau. Compared to Dachau, war was clean.

  Martha Gellhorn

  War, Years, Return

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• The Holocaust is a sacred subject. One should take off one's shoes when entering its domain, one should tremble each time one pronounces the word.

  Elie Wiesel

  Shoes, Entering, Sacred

  Elie Wiesel, Robert Franciosi (2002). “Elie Wiesel: Conversations”, p.53, Univ. Press of Mississippi

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• Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

  Elie Wiesel

  Bystanders, Remembrance, Silence

  Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Oslo, Norway, 11 Dec. 1986

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