Quotes from Elie Wiesel

we had to get up whenever a Kapo came in to check if, by chance, somebody had a new pair of shoes. If so, we had to hand them over. No use protesting; the blows multiplied and, in the end, one still had to hand them over. I had new shoes myself. But as they were covered with a thick coat of mud, they had not been noticed. I thanked God, in an improvised prayer, for having created mud in His infinite and wondrous universe.

The word "chimney" here was not an abstraction; it floated in the air, mingled with the smoke. It was, perhaps, the only word that had a real meaning in this place.

Why had they arrested me? 'Because of a word, perhaps, or a silent grimace,' Razziel Paritus suggested, stroking his beard. 'Or for something your parents were supposed to have done or said. In this country denouncing people is a social duty, a moral imperative, a kind of state religion. It's also possible they arrested you for no reason at all. That your only crime is your innocence.

Stripped of their property, crushed and mutilated, they still embody the nobility of Israel and the eternity of God, while their enemy—who is your enemy as well—embodies all that is most vile in man. I shall act not as their detractor, but as their melitz yosher, their intercessor.

And what do you take care of? What people throw away, what history rejects, what memory denies. The smile of a starving child, the years of its dying mother, the silent prayers of the condemned man and the cries of his friend: I gather them up and preserve them. In this city, i am memory.

he slapped my father with such force that he fell down and then crawled back to his place on all fours. I stood petrified. What had happened to me? My father had just been struck, in front of me, and I had not even blinked. I had watched and kept silent. Only yesterday, I would have dug my nails into this criminal's flesh. Had I changed that much? So fast?

They were forced to dig huge trenches. When they had finished their work, the men from the Gestapo began theirs. Without passion or haste, they shot their prisoners, who were forced to approach the trench one by one and offer their necks. Infants were tossed into the air and used as targets for the machine guns. This took place in the Galician forest, near Kolomay

Why should I be afraid? No one has hurt me. Winter nights are quiet here. If some stars are soaked with blood, it is because the sun has penetrated the dark sweet body. Night is screaming, and its screams become stars, don't you see? But that has nothing to do with US; so why should I be afraid of Night?

We marched. Gates opened and closed. We continued to march between the barbed wire. At every step, white signs with black skulls looked down on us. The inscription: WARNING! DANGER OF DEATH. What irony. Was there here a single place where one was not in danger of death?

He spoke only of what he had seen. But people not only refused to believe his tales, they refused to listen. Some even insinuated that he only wanted their pity, that he was imagining things. Others flatly said that he had gone mad.

I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow. THE

Jews, listen to me,' she cried. I see a fire! I see flames, huge flames.

Death alone is invisible. Man's end was the same everywhere.

Suffering is given to the living, not to the dead," he said looking right through me. "It is man's duty to make it cease, not to increase it. One hour of suffering less is already a victory over fate.

Forgetfulness was for him the death not only of knowledge but also of imagination.

Everybody around us was weeping. Someone began to recite Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I don't know whether, during the history of the Jewish people, men have ever before recited Kaddish for themselves.

It is in man that God must be loved, because the love of God goes through the love of man. Whoever loves God exclusively, namely excluding man, reduces his love and his God to the level of abstraction. Beshtian Hasidism denies all abstraction.

The dead have no place down here. They must leave us in peace.

We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear. All is grace. If the Almighty is the Almighty, the last word for each of us belongs to him.

Noapte. Nimeni nu se ruga s? treac? mai repede noaptea. Stelele nu erau decât scânteile marelui foc care ne devora. Dac? acel foc se va stinge într-o zi, pe cer nu va mai fi nimic, nu vor mai fi decât stele stinse, ochi morÅ£i.

tears, like drops of wax, flowed from his eyes.

The street resembled fairgrounds deserted in haste. There was a little of everything: suitcases, briefcases, bags, knives, dishes, banknotes, papers, faded portraits. All the things one planned to take along and finally left behind. They had ceased to matter.

I'm going to teach you the art of distinguishing between day and night. Always look at a window, and failing that look into the eyes of a man. If you see a face, any face, then you can be sure that night has succeeded day. For, believe me, night has a face." Then

you should know that the dead, because they are no longer free, are no longer able to suffer. Only the living can.