Holocaust Survivor Quotes

“Do you know where Jean de Tournet is?” Jason asked.
“He is dead, Uncle,” Charlotte said flatly.
“How do you know?”
“I killed him in 1943. He was doing business with the Nazis. He tried to rape me” – she stopped and shivered – “but I killed him before he could.”
Jason and Sophie both looked at Charlotte with horror. This was the first time Jason had showed any genuine emotion throughout the evening. It was fear.”
― Hugo Woolley, The Wasp Trap

“I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.”
― Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved

“It's a disgrace to us all! he almost screamed. 'We're letting them take us to our death like sheep to the slaughter!.....at least we could break out of the ghetto, or at least die honourably, not as a stain on the face of history!”
― Władysław Szpilman

“Sooner or later in life, everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unobtainable . . . Our ever-sufficient knowledge of the future opposes it and this is called in the one instance: hope.”
― Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

“I become almost wild and shout at them: - To whom are you reciting Kaddish? Do you still believe? And what do you believe, whom are you thinking? Are you thanking the Lord for his mercy and taking away our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers? No, no! It is not true; there is no God. If there were a God, he would not allow such misfortune, such transgression, where innocent small children, only just born, or killed, by people who want only to to honest work and make themselves useful to the world are killed! and you, living witnesses of the great misfortune, remain thankful. Whom are you thanking?”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“All were expecting to die, and every day of their life was a day of suffering and torment. All had witnessed terrible crimes, and the Germans would have spared none of them; the gas chambers awaited them. Most, in fact, were sent to the gas chambers after only a few days of work, and were replaced by people from new contingents. Only a few dozen people lived for weeks and months, rather than for days and hours; these were skilled workers, carpenters and stonemasons, and the bakers, tailors and barbers who ministered to the Germans' everyday needs. These people created an Organizing Committee for an uprising. It was of course, only the already-condemned, only people possessed by an all-consuming hatred and a fierce thirst for revenge, who could have conceived such an insane plan. They did not want to escape until they had destroyed Treblinka. And they destroyed it.”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“He cannot forgive himself for having saved himself when his wife and child went to their deaths we are all as if drugged. Yesterday all of my family were living and now - all are dead. Each of us stands as if turn to stone. I weep for my fate, for what I have left to see.”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“I "salvati" del Lager non erano i migliori, i predestinati del bene, i latori di un messaggio: quanto io avevo visto e vissuto dimostrava l'esatto contrario. Sopravvivevano di preferenza i peggiori, gli egoisti, i violenti, gli insensibili, i collaboratori della "zona grigia",le spie. Non era una regola certa (non c'erano, nè ci sono nelle cose umane, regole certe), ma pure sempre una regola. Mi sentivo sì innocente, ma intruppato fra i salvati, e perciò alla ricerca permanente di una giustificazione.”
― Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved

“I weep for my fate, for what I have left to see.”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“Siamo monadi, incapaci di messaggi reciproci, o capaci solo di messaggi monchi, falsi in partenza, fraintesi all'arrivo.”
― Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved

“I had never been so grateful for shoveling shit in all my life.”
― E.J. Wood, The Forgotten Man

“I don't believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone, are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as guilty, otherwise the peoples of the world would have risen long ago! from We Are Witnesses: Five Diaries of Teenagers Who Died in the Holocaust”
― Jacob Boas

“Here is what I learned. Happiness does not fall from the sky; it is in your hands. Happiness comes from inside yourself and from the people you love. And if you're healthy and happy you are a millionaire.”
― Eddie Jaku, The Happiest Man on Earth

“Each year, Flore entice celebrate our wedding anniversary on 20 April - Hitler's birthday. We are still here; Hitler is down there. Sometimes, when we are sitting in the evening in front of the television with a cup of tea and a biscuit, I think, aren't we lucky? In my mind, this is really the best revenge, and it is the only revenge I'm interested in - to be the happiest man on earth.”
― Eddie Jaku, The Happiest Man on Earth

“Each year, Flore and I celebrate our wedding anniversary on 20 April - Hitler's birthday. We are still here; Hitler is down there. Sometimes, when we are sitting in the evening in front of the television with a cup of tea and a biscuit, I think, aren't we lucky? In my mind, this is really the best revenge, and it is the only revenge I'm interested in - to be the happiest man on earth.”
― Eddie Jaku, The Happiest Man on Earth

“You are still doing important things, contributing your own small piece to the world we live in. We must never forget this. Your efforts today will affect people you will never know. It is your choice whether that effect is positive or negative. You can choose every day, every minute, to act in a way that may uplift a stranger, or else drag them down. The choice is easy. And it is yours to make.”
― Eddie Jaku, The Happiest Man on Earth

“How can a gang of pompous little men so quickly destroy the democratic institutions of a great country?!”
― Edith Hahn Beer, The Nazi Officer's Wife: How One Jewish Woman Survived the Holocaust

“The Nazis not only had subtle ways of destroying human life and dignity, they were equally good at desecrating the graves of the dead ― something that is held sacred and ring-fenced with care within the culture of every single tribe and nation in the world.”
― Tadeusz Pankiewicz, The Cracow Ghetto Pharmacy

“These small examples are incontrovertible proof of what blind, organised hatred can lead to, and of just how low standards of human morality can fall.”
― Tadeusz Pankiewicz, The Cracow Ghetto Pharmacy

“Like many other survivors, I feel an obligation to tell my story again and again. The Holocaust was the scientifically designed, state-sponsored murder of the Jewish people by Nazi Germany and its allies. The Holocaust should never be forgotten and should never happen again.”
― Rena Finder, My Survival: A Girl on Schindler's List

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. — Elie Wiesel”
― Sally Lefton Wolfe, The Survivor’s Legacy: How the Holocaust Shaped Future Generations

“When you abandon everything you can believe in, you're abandoning yourself. As if you've never existed. But that takes a long time. If you're no longer in control of your own life, can you at least be in control of its end?”
― Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night

“Resilience means renaître de sa souffrance (reborn from one’s own pain), it corresponds to the ability to rebound from adversities, overcome them, and come out stronger, even transformed.”
― Boris Cyrulnik, Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma

“Il m'a fallu du temps pour comprendre que le plaisir vient du fantasme, puis de l'abandon. J'avais peur de l'abandon, c'était l'une des pires choses au camp, se relâcher, abandonner la lutte de chaque jour, flirter avec volupté vers l'idée que tout vous est égal, et devenir une loque qui n'attend plus que la mise à mort.”
― Marceline Loridan-Ivens, L'Amour après

“Je ne sais pas faire autrement, l'Histoire m'a choisie, mastiquée, déchiquetée, recrachée survivante, et plutôt que de la fuir, de me soigner aux sentiments et aux passions intimes, je ne peux vivre sans elle, je la longe comme on suit un cours d'eau par peur de me perdre. J'ai vécu, aimé et travaillé tout près d'elle.”
― Marceline Loridan-Ivens, L'Amour après

“I hoped, and I still hope, that wherever her spirit is, she accompanies me and understands the passion that burned in me to tell our children and future generations what happened to her and to other children who survived the inferno, children who paid a heavy price for the horror they experienced.”
― Zipora Klein Jakob, The Forbidden Daughter: The True Story of a Holocaust Survivor - Library Edition

“Born in fire and died in fire.”
― Zipora Klein Jakob, The Forbidden Daughter: The True Story of a Holocaust Survivor

“Memory is like throwing a stone into water. There are ripples.”
― Marie Doduck, A Childhood Unspoken

“Today, looking back on the six years of that war, I realize that the worst thing I endured in the Holocaust was not the hunger, the cold, or the beatings; it was the humiliation. It was almost impossible to bear the helplessness of unjustified humiliation. Helplessness becomes linked with that dishonor.”
― Israel Meir Lau, Out of the Depths: The Story of a Child of Buchenwald Who Returned Home at Last

“When we come together to listen and learn from each other, there is hope. This is where human dignity begins, where peace begins, where dignity begins: in a small gesture of respect, in listening.”––Elie Wiesel”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom