Holocaust Literature Quotes

“We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death, but we still possess one power, and we must defend it with all our strength for it is the last - the power to refuse our consent. So we must certainly wash our faces without soap in dirty water and dry ourselves on our jackets. We must polish our shoes, not because the regulation states it, but for dignity and propriety. We must walk erect, without dragging our feet, not in homage to Prussian discipline but to remain alive, not to begin to die.”
― Primo Levi, If This Is a Man • The Truce

“If you had a secret - one that could destroy your life if shared, what would you do to protect it?”
― Shari J. Ryan, The Nurse Behind the Gates

“This is hell. Today, in our times, hell must be like this. A huge, empty room: we are tired, standing on our feet, with a tap which drips while we cannot drink the water, and we wait for something which will certainly be terrible, and nothing happens and nothing continues to happen.”
― Primo Levi, If This Is a Man • The Truce

“There’s no clearer definition of war than the sight of barbed wired fences surrounding dark fields muddied by the sky’s tears.”
― Shari J. Ryan, The Nurse Behind the Gates

“Whenever you feel like the world is against you, start counting your breaths. One breath every five seconds will show anyone who is watching that you haven’t a worry in the world.”
― Shari J. Ryan, The Nurse Behind the Gates

“The empty seats belong to the other Jewish kids who were in my class. I’m the only one left.”
― Shari J. Ryan, The Nurse Behind the Gates

“You’re right to fight for everything you believe in, and I’ll do “the same, but only until it is too dangerous. I won’t risk our lives for a fight we won’t win.”
― Shari J. Ryan, The Nurse Behind the Gates

“Our backyard looked like a marketplace. Valuable objects, precious rugs, silver candlesticks, Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty grounds- pitiful relics that seemed never to have had a home. All this under a magnificent blue sky.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“But, above all, the people I met there had an urgent message for me: tell this story, because it is different from the many stories the world knows. The Jews did not go to their deaths willingly -- indeed, there were Jewish resistance fighters. Female ones at that.”
― Roxane van Iperen, 't Hooge Nest

“Sidney Hellman doesn't remember who he was the last time around, if there was a last time. But how can he? None of us do.

Still, there are clues.

For instance, he starts seeing things. Images of events from another life. Terrible images."

--From the story "The Monster Inside," included in BROTHERS, FATHERS, AND OTHER STRANGERS, the new story collection by Mitchell Waldman”
― Mitchell Waldman

“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

“I was lying. I would have to lie. A lot. She was ill. It's all right to lie to sick people.”
― Elie Wiesel, Day

“...there was no longer any reason why I should fast. I no longer accepted God's silence. As I swallowed my bowl of soup, I saw in the gesture an act of rebellion and protest against Him. And I nibbled my crust of bread. In the depths of my heart, I felt a great void.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“To look good in defeat is the ultimate a person can want.”
― Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night

“There are some things we run after and it turns out that we run in vain. Then there are things we don't pursue, and those are the things that escape us.”
― Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night

“To kill and caress. Or simply kill, so you're not always bothered by something or somebody. So it is to be killed or to kill.”
― Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night

“Hunger and cold were like two walls with no room for anything else in between but loneliness, in which a man is a stranger even to himself.”
― Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night

“There was some need, some attraction that drew him closer to the German boy whose life he'd save, just to lose his own. But it was life that connected them, because it was death at the same time. It couldn't be put into words, it was intangible, but it was as complete as everything in life is; it was what connected birds and people or a grain of dust and the stars. It was strong because it was so weak and weak because it was so strong.”
― Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night

“The hope killed them," said the old man. "It killed the very best of them. And hopelessness straightened out the very best of us.”
― Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night

“We lived a decent and beautiful life," the old man said. "Maybe it's our innocence that irritates those who hate us so much and makes them kill us and burn us and hang us. It was a magnificent life because we lived in peace with ourselves. But we were always in the minority.”
― Arnošt Lustig, Diamonds of the Night

“Enough, you girls," their father said...
"Why Should I?" Marcia yelled. "You should go talk to her. Tell her she's an idiot! I was being creative, like she said! It just wasn't exactly the kind of creative she wanted.”
― Ruth Rotkowitz, The Whale Surfaces: Prequel to Escaping The Whale

“I wanted to tell her they’d all have new names soon, new lives. That it didn’t matter. But that wasn’t true. It mattered who you were and where you were from. The baby had once had parents, and those parents had given their daughter a name.”
― Jennifer Gold, Names in a Jar

“Sidney Hellman doesn't remember who he was the last time around, if there was a last time. But how can he? None of us do.

Still, there are clues.

For instance, he starts seeing things. Images of events from another life. Terrible images.

--From the story "The Monster Inside," included in BROTHERS, FATHERS, AND OTHER STRANGERS, the new story collection by Mitchell Waldman”
― Mitchell Waldman

“Sidney Hellman doesn't remember who he was the last time around, if there was a last time. But how can he? None of us do.

Still, there are clues....."

For instance, he starts seeing things. Images of events from another life. Terrible images.

--From the story "The Monster Inside," included in BROTHERS, FATHERS, AND OTHER STRANGERS, the new story collection by Mitchell Waldman”
― Mitchell Waldman

“What a thrilling story of wartime survival!”
― Ann Kirschner, Sala's Gift: My Mother's Holocaust Story

“And yet to reach for examples from the Holocaust, or the Jewish diaspora, has become a natural reflex when the question of ethnic or religious minorities comes up. It is a moral yardstick, yet at the same time an evasion. To be reminded of past crimes, of negligence or complicity, is never a bad thing. But it can confuse the issues at hand, or worse, bring all discussion to a halt by tarring opponents with the brush of mass murder.”
― Ian Buruma, Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance

“Our minds are nothing. That's the biggest nothing, the reason we are still in the hospital. Our minds are soft. Confused.”
― Monica Hesse, They Went Left

“But for reasons she would never be able to articulate to anyone, herself included, she took a few steps more into the despairing darkness that had gathered particularly thick in that remote corner of the death camp where she and her helpless child would surely die. Their lives, their deaths, unfit for even the roaches and the crawling things of the world.”
― Casey Fisher, The Subtle Cause