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Holocaust Literature Quotes

Browse 33 quotes about Holocaust Literature.

Holocaust Literature Quotes

“We did not speak of what we had seen. At the time, to speak of it seemed worse than sacrilege: We had witnessed a thing so terrible that it acquired a dreadful holiness. It was a miracle of evil. It was not possible to say with words what we had witnessed, and so we kept it safely guarded until the time we could bring it out, and show it to others, and say, 'Behold. This is the worst thing man can do'.”

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Author:Irene Guy Opdyke
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“We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last - the power to refuse our consent. So we must certainly wash our faces without soap in dirty water and dry ourselves on our jackets. We must polish our shoes, not because the regulation states it, but for dignity and propriety. We must walk erect, without dragging our feet, not in homage to Prussian discipline but to remain alive, not to begin to die.”

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Book:If This Is a Man / The Truce
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“Förste was still sitting in his cell in the same place. He dared not move from the spot. There was no way out for him any more, and no rescue. With deep sadness in his heart he had to admit that the years of existing like a ghost in the bunker had not hardened him and that he was anything but a fighter. Yet he still had one satisfaction: he had remained a decent person, and with modest joy he thought of the good he had done for Höfel and Kropinski, who were now going to die with him. In his death he would become one of the great host that was without name or number, humus soil out of which some day a finer world would flower. Perhaps there was the meaning he was looking for. When the camp gate was blown up, that soul would already have claimed him. . . .”

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Book:Nackt unter Wölfen
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“Time reminds everybody of death, but who goes around day and night talking about it? Was this the source of that strange anxiety which sometimes comes over us, without our knowing why? Like some strange sister of joy, it was a tremor of fear, of ending, of all that begins and passes away. Was this the source of that odd loneliness we feel even when we aren't alone. and which is akin to stardust?”

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Book:Diamonds of the Night
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“There was some need, some attraction that drew him closer to the German boy whose life he'd save, just to lose his own. But it was life that connected them, because it was death at the same time. It couldn't be put into words, it was intangible, but it was as complete as everything in life is; it was what connected birds and people or a grain of dust and the stars. It was strong because it was so weak and weak because it was so strong.”

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Book:Diamonds of the Night
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“And yet to reach for examples from the Holocaust, or the Jewish diaspora, has become a natural reflex when the question of ethnic or religious minorities comes up. It is a moral yardstick, yet at the same time an evasion. To be reminded of past crimes, of negligence or complicity, is never a bad thing. But it can confuse the issues at hand, or worse, bring all discussion to a halt by tarring opponents with the brush of mass murder.”

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Book:Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance
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“I looked at him. He sat in the darkness, with his brows knitted tightly together, as though trying to grasp something, to understand the inconceivable, to pinpoint the moment when everything suddenly got out of control and the point of no return was officially passed by both sides – the future murderers and their victims. The new Reich sorted us into two kinds and now he suddenly found himself among those who held an ax above our miserable heads.”

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Book:No Woman's Land
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“But Anja. I hear Anja's voice. Maybe I am insane. I hear her crying. I see her alone in the trees. I remember being alone and humiliated. I remember, too, the fat little boy hiding in the bathroom. And I see this man, Ariane. I see this evil man, Ariane. He laughs everyday still. He has had years of laughter. He has triumphed over the screams of others, he has triumphed with blood on his hands. And he laughs still. God has cursed us! He has either cursed us or He was never here to begin with. We've pretended God was here for our own sanity! That's the truth! We've pretended evil is punished and good is rewarded. A perfect scheme!”

MurderRighteousnessHolocaustLatinoRight And WrongHispanicAntisemitismHolocaust LiteratureSergio TroncosoYale UniversityJews And Judaism In EuropeRighteous Gentile
Book:The Nature of Truth
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