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10 Quotes about the Holocaust + One Survivor’s Story (Video)

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, the designated date to remember the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust and other victims of Nazi

persecution. This year it marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi concentration camp.

In remembrance of those who experienced the horrors of that dark period of history, here are 10 quotes about the Holocaust about life, love, and keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive—as well as a video testimony of a Holocaust Survivor living in Israel.

10 Moving Quotes about the Holocaust

1. “To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.” —Elie Wiesel, Holocaust Survivor and author of Night, 1960

 

2. “The Holocaust manifested the veneer of civilization so thin and fragile that repetition was possible.” —Sam Kaltman, Auschwitz Survivor

 

3. “For evil to flourish, it only requires good men to do nothing.” —Simon Wiesenthal, Jewish Austrian Holocaust Survivor

 

4. “Humanity seems doomed to do more evil than good. The greatest ideal on earth is human love.” —Władysław Szpilman, Warsaw Holocaust Survivor and author of The Pianist

 

5. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death. —Elie Wiesel, Night, 1960

 

6. “Escape was not our goal since it was so unrealistic. What we wanted was to survive, to live long enough to tell the world what had happened in Buchenwald.” —Jack Werber, Buchenwald Survivor and author of Saving Children

 

7. “For your benefit, learn from our tragedy. It is not a written law that the next victims must be Jews. It can also be other people. We saw it begin in Germany with Jews, but people from more than twenty other nations were also murdered.” —Simon Wiesenthal, Jewish Austrian Holocaust Survivor

 

8. “Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” —Yehuda Bauer, respected authority on the Holocaust

 

9. “Jews survived all the defeats, expulsions, persecutions and pogroms, the centuries in which they were regarded as a pariah people, even the Holocaust itself, because they never gave up the faith that one day they would be free to live as Jews without fear.” —Jonathan Sacks, Jewish rabbi, philosopher, theologian, author

 

10. “In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.” —Anne Frank, German-Jewish diarist

Hear one Survivor’s story, Manya, who through artwork, shares her memories, pain, and hope:

Join us in supporting Manya and other Holocaust Survivors at the ICEJ Haifa Home, where they can find community, care, and healing from renewed trauma from the ongoing war as they continue to share their stories with the world.

Support the work of the ICEJ Haifa Home for Holocaust Survivors today.


For More on This Topic

Read “Haifa Home Team Caring for Holocaust Survivors during War” by Marelinke van der Riet
Read “Caring for the Elderly and Holocaust Survivors in Battered Eshkol Region” by Laurina Dreisse