Elie Wiesel Quotes
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An SS came toward us wielding a club. He commanded:'Men to the left! Women to the right!'Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother. There was no time to think, and I already felt my father's hand press against mine: we were alone.
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'Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!' the Hungarian police were screaming.That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death.
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There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
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The beloved objects that we had carried with us from place to place were now left behind in the wagon and, with them, finally, our illusions.
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If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity.
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None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims.
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I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it. One doesn't study calculus before studying arithmetic. In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism.
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Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.
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What is abnormal is that I am normal. That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.
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People thought this was a good thing. We would no longer have to look at all those hostile faces, endure those hate-filled stares. No more fear. No more anguish. We would live entirely among Jews, among brothers...
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Whenever an angel says 'Be not afraid!' you'd better start worrying. A big assignment is on the way.
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Of course some wars may have been necessary or inevitable, but none was ever regarded as holy. For us, a holy war is a contradiction in terms. War dehumanizes, war diminishes, war debases all those who wage it. The Talmud says, 'Talmidei hukhamim marbin shalom baolam' (It is the wise men who will bring about peace). Perhaps, because wise men remember best.
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The most important question a human being has to face... What is it? The question, Why are we here?
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In Jewish history there are no coincidences.
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I had anger but never hate. Before the war, I was too busy studying to hate. After the war, I thought, What's the use? To hate would be to reduce myself.
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'The yellow star? So what? It's not lethal...'(Poor Father! Of what then did you die?)
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From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. . . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated-ever.
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Most people thought we would remain in the ghetto until the end of the war, until the arrival of the Red Army. Afterward everything would be as before. The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion.
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If you ask me what I want to achieve, it's to create an awareness, which is already the beginning of teaching.
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That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS.
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Time does not heal all wounds; there are those that remain painfully open.
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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.
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We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal wave of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for men everywhere to decide once and for all to put an end to hatred of anyone who is 'different' - whether black or white, Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem - anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually.
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No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.