Elie Wiesel Auschwitz Quotes & Sayings

There is God in love and love in God. — Matshona Dhliwayo

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. — Elie Wiesel

Entertaining the reader is a good function. — David Denby

The time was ripe for Flower. The vibe was right. — Jody Watley

Worship does not satisfy our hunger for God-it whets our appetite. Our need for God is not taken care of by engaging in worship-it deepens. — Eugene H. Peterson

So what is transgressive in the practice of this secret Tantra is the gesture not to elide the difference that women present. What does this mean? That women represent not merely objects, property, or the possibility of sexual gratification, but an opening point to the possibility of difference as the subjectivity of the other. . .Rather, a recognition of the difference women present offers the possibility of a choice not to objectify women. This recognition recodes gendered relations inscribing woman discursively in the place of the subject. — Loriliai Biernacki

I remember those faces of people who were good I saw that. I saw a father who gave his bread to his son and his son gave back the bread to his father. That, to me, was such a defeat of the enemies, will of the enemies, theories of the enemies, aspirations, here [in Auschwitz]. — Elie Wiesel

Sometimes I am asked if I know 'the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response. — Elie Wiesel

Dropt tears have hastened your decay
And brought you one step nigher death;
And you have heard, unthrilled, unmoved,
The music of Love's golden breath
And seen the light in eyes that loved.
You think you hold the core and kernel
Of all the world beneath your crust,
Old dial? But when you lie in dust,
This vine will bloom, strong, green, and proved.
Love is eternal. — Eleanor Farjeon

You are in a concentration camp. In Auschwitz ... "
A pause. He was observing the effect his words had produced. His face remains in my memory to this day. A tall man, in his thirties, crime written all over his forehead and his gaze. He looked at us as one would a pack of leprous dogs clinging to life.
"Remember," he went on. "Remember it always, let it be graven in your memories. You are in Auschwitz. And Auschwitz is not a convalescent home. It is a concentration camp. Here, you must work. If you don't you will go straight to the chimney. Work or crematorium
the choice is yours. — Elie Wiesel

The American and the British armies liberated camps, there wasn't a single order of the day: Let's go and liberate the camp. They stumbled upon the camps. Same thing with the Russians, I asked the Colonel who liberated Auschwitz, they didn't, there wasn't a priority. But I feel that that was a mistake, it was a sin because they could have saved so many people and they didn't. — Elie Wiesel

At Auschwitz, not only man died, but also the idea of man. To live in a world where there is nothing anymore, where the executioner acts as god, as judge-many wanted no part of it. It was its own heart the world incinerated at Auschwitz. — Elie Wiesel

Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because he kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar? — Elie Wiesel

Q: How do you tell when there's an elephant in the pit?
A: Peanut shells on the floor. — Bucky Sinister

In fact, the question has haunted me for a long time: Does life have meaning after Auschwitz? In a universe cursed because it is guilty, is hope still possible? For a young survivor whose knowledge of life and death surpasses that of his elders, wouldn't suicide be as great a temptation as love or faith? — Elie Wiesel

If you're going to lose weight, you have to do it by changing your way of thinking about food. It cannot be the highlight of your life. — Jean Nidetch

I was 15, not 14, when I was inside there [Auschwitz], 15, and for me both were actually a surprise. — Elie Wiesel

I come from a very religious background.And actually I remained in it. All my anger I describe in my quarrels with God in Auschwitz, but you know I used to pray every day. — Elie Wiesel

The sincere Christian knows that what died in Auschwitz was not the Jewish people but Christianity. — Elie Wiesel

In the preceding pages, to paraphrase the words of Auschwitz survivor, writer, and Nobel Prize recipient Elie Wiesel, we share Martin Small's personal journey not so that you will understand but so that you will know you can never understand. — Martin Small

In a world that has REALLY been turned on its head, truth is a moment of falsehood. — Guy Debord

It takes a lot more than ability to run fast; it takes the ability to keep coming back and coming back. — Benji Durden

I've worked with five Presidents in America, all of them I ask the same question always: Why didn't the American allies bomb the railways going to Auschwitz? — Elie Wiesel

I will never know you well enough. I will always want more. — Priya Ardis

Here was an expert who had spent years perfecting her craft, yet one of her best dishes was created under intense pressure, in a couple of hours. — Sendhil Mullainathan

At the time of the liberation of the camps, I remember, we were convinced that after Auschwitz there would be no more wars, no more racism, no more hatred, no more anti-Semitism. We were wrong. This produced a feeling close to despair. For if Auschwitz could not cure mankind of racism, was there any chance of success ever? The fact is, the world has learned nothing. Otherwise, how is one to comprehend the atrocities committed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia ... — Elie Wiesel