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Concentration Camp Quotes

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Concentration Camp Quotes

“It's not unreal to me yet, though it might get that way soon. It still feels very real. And not even horrible -- the dead are just the dead. I am convinced that the living people they once were would have been proud of their protective bodies hoodwinking their murderers to save someone else. [..] But it's not civilized. There is something indecent about it -- really foully indecent. The civilized Rose-person in me, who still seems to exist beneath the layers of filth, knows this. [..] I have become so indifferent about the dead.”

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Book:Rose Under Fire
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“Memory, come tell a fairy tale About my girl who's lost and gone. Tell, tell about the golden grail And bid the swallow, bring her back to me. Fly close to her and ask her soft and low If she thinks of me sometimes with love, If she is well? Ask too before you go If I am still her dearest, precious dove. And hurry back, don't lose your way, So I can think of other things. But you were too lovely, perhaps, to stay. I loved you once. Good-bye, my love.”

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Book:I Never Saw Another Butterfly: A Play
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“My mother personally knew Nusreta Sivac, who was held, tortured, and raped at the camp for two months. I admire Nusreta’s extraordinary courage and fortitude in enduring the horror of genocide and speaking boldly about her experiences. She is a champion for women’s rights and a hero of the Bosnian people. She motivated and vehemently advocated for justice by persuading other Bosniak rape victims to come forward and take legal action against their perpetrators. Thanks to Nusreta’s efforts, rape in the context of war is categorized as a war crime under international law. She was instrumental in helping convict her rapist and bringing him to justice. She was continually raped for two months in captivity. Sivac also spent years collecting evidence and testimonies from rape survivors and constructing legal cases which were presented to the ICTY. For centuries, rape was considered a byproduct of war. Are women just considered spoils of war? Her contributions are a powerful achievement because they mark the first time in history that an international court convicted war crimes solely for sexual violence. I applaud Nusreta for being a pioneer.”

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Author:Aida Mandic
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“All were expecting to die, and every day of their life was a day of suffering and torment. All had witnessed terrible crimes, and the Germans would have spared none of them; the gas chambers awaited them. Most, in fact, were sent to the gas chambers after only a few days of work, and were replaced by people from new contingents. Only a few dozen people lived for weeks and months, rather than for days and hours; these were skilled workers, carpenters and stonemasons, and the bakers, tailors and barbers who ministered to the Germans' everyday needs. These people created an Organizing Committee for an uprising. It was of course, only the already-condemned, only people possessed by an all-consuming hatred and a fierce thirst for revenge, who could have conceived such an insane plan. They did not want to escape until they had destroyed Treblinka. And they destroyed it.”

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Book:The Last Jew of Treblinka
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“We are at once put to work sorting. My friend Leybl stands next to me. We inspect every garment as carefully as possible. On the other side of me stands a worker who has already been here for several days. I want to find out from him what happened here, since, despite the fact that I can see the clothes left behind by the victims, I still cannot grasp what is going on.”

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Book:The Last Jew of Treblinka
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“The Omarska geological region is rich in iron ore and has been historically lucrative for mining companies. After the Bosnian Genocide, The Mittal Steel Company bought the rights to extract iron ore from the camp site. In 2005, they announced plans to build a memorial replacing one of the camp buildings. Due to active political hostility from Serbs against building a memorial, the idea was abandoned. Bosniaks argue that the bodies of all victims should first be extracted and respectfully cremated before the memorial construction to avoid desecrating dead bodies. 20 years after the Omarska genocidal nightmare, there was no progress for building a memorial.”

Social JusticeInjusticeGenocideConcentration CampBosnian WarOmarska Camp
Author:Aida Mandic
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“Bosniak civilians were forced to flee their homes due to the constant shelling and army attacks by May 1992. Most of the civilians were taken as prisoners or surrendered to the Serb forces. The residents were then gathered and moved to the prison camps operated by the Serb forces in the surrounding area. Within 3 weeks of the hostile takeover of the government entities, the Serb forces mounted large scale military offense and subsequently started rounding up civilians and moving them to the Omarska camp.”

WarSocial JusticeGenocideConcentration CampBosnian WarBosnia And HerzegovinaOmarska CampOmarska
Author:Aida Mandic
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“The Bosnian Serb forces operated the Omarska concentration camp to torture, murder, rape, and abuse captured Bosnian civilians, intellectuals, and politicians in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina (Prijedor municipality). The camp held over 7,000 innocent Bosnian civilians as prisoners for more than five months during 1992. Several hundred people died due to constant abuse by the Serb forces including mass executions, starvation, beatings, repeated sexual abuse, and horrifying living conditions. The camp guards frequently cut the throats of the Bosniak captives. Prisoners ate spoiled food found by scavenging for it.”

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Author:Aida Mandic
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“He might all the same do a little something for us. We’re on our backs, doesn’t He see?' 'I’m doing my best, I tell you,' said Father Julien. 'I pray and I pray and I pray . . .' 'Even we find a way of doing something for the may- beetles.’ 'You don’t give a damn about the may-beetles, you bastards,' said Father Julien. 'You do it out of pride. If you weren’t in a forced labor camp you’d step on may-beetles without even noticing their existence. This is something that happens in the head, not in the heart. You’re bursting with pride, that’s what it is.”

PrideSurvivalSurvivorsConcentration CampGods PlanConcentration CampsGods PresenceLabor CampHuman Pride
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

MenWayInspirationalHumansLastsGivenLeadershipFreedomPowerfulAttitudeTakenOne ThingSocietyCircumstancesJudgmentMental HealthGrievingPositive AttitudeConcentrationMost PowerfulBeing HappyMy AttitudeFreedom Of ChoiceSearch For MeaningGrief And HealingPositive Thinking And AttitudeAuschwitzHuman FreedomConcentration CampHutsWinning AttitudeBest AttitudeFreedom To ChooseKeep A Positive AttitudePositive Thinking AttitudeGriefingMans Search For MeaningAttitude Is EverythingPositive Mental AttitudeGreat Positive AttitudeGrief LossAttitudes And SuccessPositive Attitude And SuccessThose GrievingHuman CompassionDeath And GrievingGrief ComfortCan Do AttitudeGrief HealingCool AttitudeInspirational FreedomGrief And HopeDeath GrievingGrieving And HealingComfort The GrievingGrieving LossGrieving A LossGrieving And LossStimulus And ResponseVictims Of CircumstanceChoosing One
Book:Man's Search For Meaning, Gift Edition
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“Some European countries insist on saying that during World War II, Hitler burned millions of Jews and put them in concentration camps. Any historian, commentator or scientist who doubts that is taken to prison or gets condemned. Although we don't accept this claim, if we suppose it is true... If the Europeans are honest they should give some of their provinces in Europe - like in Germany, Austria or other countries - to the Zionists and the Zionists can establish their state in Europe. You offer part of Europe and we will support it.”

IfsWorldGivingShouldWarCountryStatesAcceptingMillionsSupportTakenDoubtHonestOffersEuropeScientistClaimsPrisonJewWar Of The WorldsGermanyConcentrationCampsHistorianWorld War IiWorld War IBurnedOther CountriesProvincesCommentatorsZionistConcentration CampEuropean CountriesAustria
Author:Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
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“If you complain of people being shot down in the streets, of the absence of communication or social responsibility, of the rise of everyday violence which people have become accustomed to, and the dehumanization of feelings, then the ultimate development on an organized social level is the concentration camp... The concentration camp is the final expression of human separateness and its ultimate consequence. It is organized abandonment.”

PeopleIfsHumansFeelingsSocialLevelsResponsibilityViolenceStreetsExpressionCommunicationDevelopmentShotsConsequenceUltimateEverydayFinalsAbsenceComplainingOrganizedConcentrationCampsSocial ResponsibilityAccustomedAbandonmentConcentration CampSeparatenessDehumanization
Author:Arthur Miller
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“Indeed, the ideal for a well-functioning democratic state is like the ideal for a gentleman's well-cut suit it is not noticed. For the common people of Britain, Gestapo and concentration camps have approximately the same degree of reality as the monster of Loch Ness. Atrocity propaganda is helpless against this healthy lack of imagination.”

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Author:Arthur Koestler
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“If this is the degree of inflation planned for in advance, the real outcome is indeed likely to be such that most of those who will retire at the end of the century will be dependent on the charity of the younger generation. And ultimately not morals but the fact that the young supply the police and the army will decide the issue: concentration camps for the aged unable to maintain themselves are likely to be the fate of an old generation whose income is entirely dependent on coercing the young.”

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Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
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“NEGRO :; Member of a subgroup of the human race who hails, or whose ancestors hailed, from a chunk of land nicknamed not by its residents Africa. Superior to the Caucasian in that negroes did not invent nuclear weapons, the automobile, Christianity, nerve gas, the concentration camp, military epidemics, or the megalopolis.”

HumansRaceChristianityLandMilitaryMembersWeaponsNuclearSuperiorsHuman RaceGasConcentrationNervesCampsAncestorNuclear WeaponsAutomobileEpidemicsHailChunksResidentsConcentration CampCaucasian
Book:Stand on Zanzibar
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“Holocaust is very much a part of present discussion all over the place. There are little plaques everywhere you go around in different neighborhoods. "This person here was prosecuted." "This person was sent to this concentration camp." "A family of Jews lived here. They took over his business." Little, very discrete, very dignified plaques are everywhere.”

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Author:Bob Balaban
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“Despite the hundreds of attempts, police terror and the concentration camps have proved to be more or less impossible subjects for the artist; since what happened in them was beyond the imagination, it was therefore also beyond art and all those human values on which art is traditionally based.”

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Book:The Savage God: A Study of Suicide
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“I have said, and I repeat, at the risk of appearing sacrilegious, that the gas chambers are a detail of the history of the Second World War... If you take a book of a thousand pages on the Second World War, in which 50 million people died, the concentration camps occupy two pages and the gas chambers ten or 15 lines, and that's what's called a detail.”

PeopleIfsWorldSaidTwoBookWarLinesMillionsRiskThousandTenPagesDiedDetailsWar Of The WorldsRepeatsGasConcentrationCampsWorld War IChamberAppearingSecond World WarConcentration CampGas ChambersSacrilegious
Author:Jean-Marie Le Pen
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“Among other things I think humor is a shield, a weapon, a survival kit. So here we are several billion of us, crowded into our global concentration camp for the duration. How are we to survive? Solemnity is not the answer, any more than witless and irresponsible frivolity is. I think our best chance lies in humor, which in this case means a wry acceptance of our predicament. We don't have to like it but we can at least recognize its ridiculous aspects, one of which is ourselves.”

ThinkingMeanLyingChanceAnswersCasesAcceptanceWeaponsSurvivalAspectBillionsRidiculousConcentrationCampsShieldsCrowdedIrresponsibleDurationPredicamentsConcentration CampSolemnityFrivolityWry
Author:Ogden Nash
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“Feminism has fought no wars ... killed no opponents ... set up no concentration camps ... starved no enemies ... practiced no cruelty. Its battles have been for education, for the vote, for better working conditions, for safety in the streets ... for reforms in the law.”

Has BeensWarLawFightingWomenEducationEnemyFeminismStreetsConditionsBattleVoteSafetyKillingFeministCrueltyReformOpponentsVotingConcentrationCampsWomen EmpowermentNo WarConcentration CampPublic SafetyAccess To EducationWorking Conditions
Author:Dale Spender
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“In South America euphemism appears to be the grisly preserve of violent power. 'Liberty' was the name of the biggest prison in Uruguay under the military dictatorship, while in Chile one of the concentration camps was called 'Dignity.' It was the self-styled 'Peace and Justice' paramilitary group in Chiapas [Mexico] that in 1997 shot 45 peasants in the back, nearly all of them women and children, as they prayed in a church. What have the souls of the south done over the past few decades to deserve quite so much liberty and dignity and peace and justice?”

ChildrenSoulSelfDoneAmericaPastNamesLanguageChurchJusticeLibertyViolenceGroupsMilitaryShotsDeserveDignityPrisonSouthDecadesViolentOppressionPreservesConcentrationCampsMexicoDictatorshipPeasantsOver The PastPeace And JusticeChileSouth AmericaConcentration CampEuphemism
Author:Isabel Fonseca
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“We have our difficulties, true; but we are a wiser and a tougher nation than we were in 1932. Never have there been six years of such far flung internal preparedness in all of history. And this has been done without any dictator's power to command, without conscription of labor or confiscation of capital, without concentration camps and without a scratch on freedom of speech, freedom of the press or the rest of the Bill of Rights.”

YearsHas BeensDoneNationsDemocracyRightsSpeechSixLaborDifficultyBillsPressesCommandInternalsConcentrationCampsDictatorFreedom Of SpeechWiserScratchesBill Of RightsFreedom Of The PressPreparednessConcentration CampConscription
Book:The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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“I was born in the middle of the Second World War when the United States dropped their atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when millions of people were dying in concentration camps, when half the planet were colonies that belonged to empires. The word feminism didn't exist. And in my lifetime I have seen all these things improved, changed. We are more connected, more informed. We can fight against stuff together in ways we couldn't before.”

PeopleWorldWayWarStatesTogetherFightingStuffBornUnitedHalfMillionsUnited StatesFeminismMiddleDyingChangedPlanetsLifetimeConnectedWar Of The WorldsBombsEmpiresConcentrationCampsColonySecond World WarAtomic BombHiroshimaConcentration CampHiroshima And Nagasaki
Author:Isabel Allende
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