Quotes About Memory

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.

To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.     SOMETIMES

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 didn't know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever.

Un giorno riuscii ad alzarmi, dopo aver raccolto tutte le mie forze. Volevo vedermi nello specchio che era appeso al muro di fronte: non mi ero più visto dal ghetto. Dal fondo dello specchio un cadavere mi contemplava. Il suo sguardo nei miei occhi non mi lascia più.

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.

Dead souls have more to say than living ones.

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future

Do I have the right to represent the multitudes who have perished? Do I have the right to accept this great honor on their behalf? I do not. No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions. And yet, I sense their presence. I always do—and at this moment more than ever. The presence of my parents, that of my little sister. The presence of my teachers, my friends, my companions … This honor belongs

To forget a holocaust is to kill twice.

To live is to betray the dead. We hasten to bury and forget them because we are ashamed; we feel guilty towards them.

Indifference always helps the aggressor, never his victims. And what is memory if not a noble and necessary response to and against indifference?

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

To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

Wasn't forgetfulness a gift of the gods to the ancient world? Without it. Life would be intolerable, wouldn't it? Yes, but the Jews live by other rules. For a Jew, nothing is more important than memory. He is bound to his origins by memory. It is memory that connects him to Abraham, Moses and Rabbi Akiva.

Et autour d'eux, tant d'amis, tant de frères, tant de camarades, des visages que j'avais connus dans mon enfance et d'autres que j'avais vu vivre et agoniser, espérer et blasphémer, à Buchenwald et à Auschwitz.

A man who has suffered more than others, and differently, should live apart. Alone. Outside of any organized existence. He poisons the air. He makes it unfit for breathing. He takes away from joy its spontaneity and its justification. He kills hope and the will to live. He is the incarnation of time that negates present and future, only recognizing the harsh law of memory. He suffers and his contagious suffering calls forth echoes around him.

He who doesn't forget God isn't cold in his grave," she said. "What keeps him warm?" I insisted. Her thin voice had become like a whisper: it was a secret. "God himself.

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 .

Men to the left! Women to the right! Eight words spokern quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother.

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.

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.

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

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