Famous Holocaust Quotes From Survivor Elie Wiesel
One of the most prominent Holocaust survivors in the world is Elie Wiesel. As of the time of this writing, Wiesel is still with us today. As a young man of barely fifteen, he was snatched from his community and was deported to live in a series of Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz.
During Wiesel’s imprisonment and torture, he watched his father waste away and die from the cruel treatment inflicted upon him by the Nazis. After liberation, Wiesel became a prominent writer, authoring a series of works based upon his experiences and speaking around the world about the importance of never forgetting what happened during the Holocaust in Europe.
“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”
“I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.”
“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.”
“I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.”
“No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”
“Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.”
“I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.”
“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.”
“Sometimes I am asked if I know 'the response to Auschwitz’; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.”
“It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.”
“We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.”
“Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.”