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84b90e9
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The night lifted, leaving behind it a grayish light the color of stagnant water. Soon there was only a tattered fragment of darkness, hanging in mid-air, the other side of the window. Fear caught my throat. The tattered fragment of darkness had a face. The face was my own.
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Elie Wiesel |
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3e66928
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His last word had been my name. A summons. And I had not responded.
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Elie Wiesel |
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9f9ac03
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What are You, my God? I thought angrily. How do You compare to this stricken mass gathered to affirm to You their faith, their anger, their defiance? What does Your grandeur mean, Master of the Universe, in the face of all this cowardice, this decay, and this misery? Why do you go on troubling these poor people's wounded minds, their ailing bodies?
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Elie Wiesel |
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6746bf2
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True enemies aren't always the ones who hate each other.
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hate
truth
enemy
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Elie Wiesel |
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275ae52
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At every step, somebody fell down and ceased to suffer.
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Elie Wiesel |
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3ab8a61
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Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.
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murder
remember
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Elie Wiesel |
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498da10
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Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim
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Elie Wiesel |
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5cb2460
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Today's wealthy are poor though they don't know it. They can't bring their possessions to where we're all going.
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Elie Wiesel |
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efdc4dd
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There are a thousand and one gates leading into the orchard of mystical truth. Every human being has his own gate. We must never make the mistake of wanting to enter the orchard by any gate but our own. To do this is dangerous for the one who enters and also for those who are already there.
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Elie Wiesel |
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f668c90
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The shock of finding a familiar word in an unfamiliar setting.] A SS man would examine us. Whenever he found a weak one, a musulman as we called them, he would write his number down: good for the crematory.
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Elie Wiesel |
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a507ccd
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It all belonged to everyone since it no longer belonged to anyone.
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Elie Wiesel |
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b99c9cf
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NIGHT. No one was praying for the night to pass quickly. The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was consuming us. Were this conflagration to be extinguished one day, nothing would be left in the sky but extinct stars and unseeing eyes.
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Elie Wiesel |
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0d3b92a
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Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever." "Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."
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faith
god
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Elie Wiesel |
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8a445f9
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If I had spoken to him out loud, he would have understood the tragic fate of those who came back, left over, living dead. You must look at them carefully. Their appearance is deceptive. They are smugglers. They look like the others. They eat, they laugh, they love. The seek money, fame, love. Like the other. But it isn't true; they are playing, sometimes without even knowing it. Anyone who has seen what THEY have seen cannot be like the oth..
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tragedy
living-dead
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Elie Wiesel |
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74556de
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Love is this and love is that; man is born to love; he is only alive when he is in the presence of a woman he loves or should love.
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Elie Wiesel |
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3554b7c
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Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must--at that moment--become the center of the universe.
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Elie Wiesel |
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81402c5
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We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them.
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Elie Wiesel |
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aec0d5a
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I looked up at my father's face, trying to glimpse a smile or something like it on his stricken face. But there was nothing. Not the shadow of an expression. Defeat.
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Elie Wiesel |
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39d95a1
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We're on the threshold of death. Soon, we shall be inside ...
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Elie Wiesel |
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3e8165a
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Have faith in life, a thousand times faith. By driving out despair, you will move away from death.
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Elie Wiesel |
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c430cc9
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I remember: it happened yesterday, or eternities ago. A young Jewish boy discovered the Kingdom of Night. I remember his bewilderment, I remember his anguish. It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed. I remember he asked his father, "Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Age..
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Elie Wiesel |
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175ecf2
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No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them. Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.
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Elie Wiesel |
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53d449a
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Be careful in your relations with those in power; they draw you close or allow you to approach them only when they need you. They are your friends when your friendship is useful to them and affords them pleasure, but they forget you when you are in trouble. Elie Wiesel quoting Rabban Gamliel
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Elie Wiesel |
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519107f
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Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.
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Elie Wiesel |
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f2a140d
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He was a past master of making himself seem insignificant, of seeming invisible.
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Elie Wiesel |
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9f499d1
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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?
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Elie Wiesel |
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da74079
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I had many things to say, I did not have the words to say them. Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly as language became an obstacle. It became clear that it would be necessary to invent a new language. But how was one to rehabilitate and transform words betrayed and perverted by the enemy? Hunger--thirst--fear--transport--selection--fire--chimney: these words all have intrinsic meaning, but in those times, they meant some..
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Elie Wiesel |
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3698a9a
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Men to the left! Women to the right! Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother.
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Elie Wiesel |
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c085923
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Love that makes everything complicated. While hate simplifies everything. Hatred puts accents on things and beings, and on what separates them. Love erases accents.
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Elie Wiesel |
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3a812e3
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The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.
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Elie Wiesel |
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3d11e08
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Nobody asked anyone for help. One died because one had to. No point in making trouble.
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Elie Wiesel |
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14973f7
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To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. SOMETIMES
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Elie Wiesel |
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76d6c1c
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Then he smiled. I shall always remember that smile. What world did it come from? Heavy snow continued to fall over the corpses.
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Elie Wiesel |
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3a5a7c0
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And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their r..
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Elie Wiesel |
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d727fc5
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I knew that I was no longer arguing with him but with Death itself, with Death that he had already chosen.
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Elie Wiesel |
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071cf70
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No commandment surpasses the one concerning the liberation of hostages, for they are among the starving, the thirsting, the stripped, always in danger of death.
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Elie Wiesel |
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36883bc
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the torturer scores a victory over his victim when the latter, in the grip of doubt, begins to torture himself.
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Elie Wiesel |
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12f1ea8
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In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone.
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Elie Wiesel |
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6dc0bc2
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Both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people have lost too many sons and daughters and have shed too much blood. This must stop, and all attempts to stop it must be encouraged.
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Elie Wiesel |
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ee7fbe5
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Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind?
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Elie Wiesel |
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0799d28
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Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.
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Elie Wiesel |
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0a3c454
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His eyes would suddenly go blank, leaving two gaping wounds, two wells of terror.
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Elie Wiesel |
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04330fe
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The gates of the camp opened. It seemed as though an even darker night was waiting for us on the other side. The
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Elie Wiesel |
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749e5a9
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Musime se vzbourit proti bohum a rikat: "Chcete mi odeprit stesti? Tak dobre, ukousnu si ho poradne sousto!" To je tvari v tvar utrpeni jedina platna odpoved."
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Elie Wiesel |