Quotes About Witness

Ever wonder why Christians are often lethargic in worship? Why our allegiance is weak and our obedience sporadic? It's because we know little of God's power working through the church. Imagine how our faith and worship would explode if we witnessed more of God's life-changing work in the lives of His people. Again, the spiritual principle here is "the greater the awe, the greater the worship.

I didn't answer her. All I could have said was I don't know, a sentence that was becoming a kind of witness to our own ignorance or incompetence. Or both.

Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.

Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to life as long as God himself

And then I explained to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

When you listen to a witness, you become a witness.

I have tried to keep memory alive... I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

In retrospect I must confess that I do not know, or no longer know, what I wanted to achieve with my words. I only know that without this testimony, my life as a writer—or my life, period—would not have become what it is: that of a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory.

Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

How was it possible that men, women, and children were being burned and that the world kept silent?

Even if I wrote on nothing else, it would never be enough, even if all the survivors did nothing but write about their experiences, it would still not be enough. *Response when asked how much longer is he going to write about the Holocaust

I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

How was it possible that men, women, and children are being burned and that the world kept silent?

NEVER SHALL I FORGET that night , the first night in camp , that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed . Never shall I forget that smoke . Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky . Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever .

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?

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.

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

In front of us, those flames. In the air, the smell of burning flesh. It must have been around midnight. We had arrived. In Birkenau.

For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.     SOMETIMES

The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.

A novel about Auschwitz is not a novel—or else it is not about Auschwitz.

Deep down, the witness knew then, as he does now, that his testimony would not be received. After all, it deals with an event that sprang from the darkest zone of man. Only those who experienced Auschwitz know what it was. Others will never know. But would they at least understand?