Elie Wiesel

To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.

I'll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it.

We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children. Between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it. Between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and offering him the solidarity and hope he deserves.

Worse still is that mankind - the non-Jewish world - learned nothing from the Holocaust: The event which had no precedent in history, which should be equal to the Revelation at Sinai in significance.

A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.

Listen to me, kid. Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every many for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even you father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. And you are hurting yourself. In fact, you should be getting his rations.

Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.

I wanted to write a commentary on the Bible, to write about the Talmud, about celebration, about the great eternal subjects: love and happiness.

When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.

I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.

Perhaps some day someone will explain how, on the level of man, Auschwitz was possible; but on the level of God, it will forever remain the most disturbing of mysteries.

If I were in the government, I would persuade the prime minister to see the beauty in the fact that people see Israel as a haven - from their sadness to their hope.

I never teach the same course twice.

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments.

You would be amazed at the number of doors a Nobel Prize opens.

I never felt any attraction towards violence. I never tried to express myself through violence. Violence is a language.

No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.

To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

It was like a page torn from a history book, from some historical novel about the captivity of babylon or Spanish Inquisition.