Эли Визель цитаты

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„Не передать опыт означает предать его.“

„Я верю Гитлеру больше, чем всем остальным. Он один сдержал свои обещания, все свои обещания, данные еврейскому народу.“

„Анри Бергсон — один из самых выдающихся мыслителей XX века.“

„Совершенно недопустимо сравнивать высылку представителей народа рома [из Франции] в Румынию, гражданами которой они являются, с депортацией евреев в гитлеровские лагеря уничтожения.“

„На Востоке мне довелось беседовать с мудрецом, чей ясный и кроткий взор погружен в вечный закат.
— Умереть — это не решение, — сказал он.
— А жить? — спросил я.
— И жить — тоже не решение, но кто сказал, что решение вообще существует? Вам не убедить меня, что он был неправ. Без решений можно обойтись, важны только вопросы — и от нас самих зависит, допустим мы их или отвергнем. За каждым вопросом кроется не ответ, а тайна.“

„А кто сказал, что молиться надо, чтобы получить милость? Может быть, молиться надо, чтобы открыть дверь и остаться на пороге? Ты не думаешь?» — «Мне не хотелось бы остаться ни с чем…» — «Молитва никогда не остается без вознаграждения. Каждая несет в себе собственную награду. Ты обогащаешься в ту минуту, когда молишься, а не потом».“

„Слова в благоприятный момент равносильны поступкам.“

„Допускаю, что человек может знать так много. Но как вы сумели все это понять?“

„Спросите их, каким образом была выиграна война. Эзра бен Аврахам, старик из Марокко, будет утверждать, что победа стала возможной благодаря его слезам. С первого до последнего дня он не переставал плакать. Кривой Велвел, у которого хорошо подвешен язык, яростно возражает ему: «Да мне смотреть на тебя тошно! Противник просто смеется над такими плаксами, как ты. Это из-за моей радости он отступил! Я все время плясал, даже когда ел, даже когда спал. Если бы я остановился, если бы пролил хоть одну слезу, мы бы проиграли войну!». Цадок, тощий йе-менит, жалуется, что никто уже не помнит, как усердно, дни и ночи напролет, он молился. «День и ночь я только молился, только молился!» — «А я пел! — кричит сумасшедший по прозвищу Моше-пьяница. — Прохожие не понимали, как я могу петь, когда всюду громыхают пушки. Это я, я своими песнями помогал ребятам целиться». «А я играл с детьми, — краснея, замечает робкий Яаков. — Я ходил из школы в школу, из убежища в убежище, и всюду я играл с ребятишками в войну.“

„Там что-то жгли. К яме подъехал грузовик и вывалил в нее свой груз — это были маленькие дети. Младенцы! Да, я это видел, собственными глазами… Детей, объятых пламенем.“

“I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.”

“Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.”

“You’re shaking … so am I. It’s because of Jerusalem, isn’t it? One doesn’t go to Jerusalem, one returns to it. That’s one of its mysteries.”

“Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death.”

“Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible.”

“Certain things, certain events, seem inexplicable only for a time: up to the moment when the veil is torn aside.”

“To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice”

“Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations — not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated. Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children.”

“For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where hanging here from this gallows…”

“If someone had told us in 1945 that in our lifetime religious wars would rage on virtually every continent, that thousands of children would once again be dying of starvation, we would not have believed it. Or that racism and fanaticism would flourish once again, we would not have believed it.”

“When I woke up, it was daylight. That is when I remembered that I had a father. During the alert, I had followed the mob, not taking care of him. I knew he was running out of strength, close to death, and yet had abandoned him.
I went to look for him.
Yet at the same time a thought crept into my mind: If only I didn't find him! If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care of myself…Instantly, I felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever.”

“But now, I no longer pleaded for anything. I was no longer able to lament. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone, terribly alone in a world without God, without man. Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes no, but I felt myself to be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an observer, a stranger.”

“The absent no longer entered our thoughts. One spoke of them who knows what happened to them? but their fate was not on our minds. We were incapable of thinking. Our senses were numbed, everything was fading into a fog. We no longer clung to anything. The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had all deserted us. In one terrifying moment of lucidity, I thought of us as damned souls wandering through the void, souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either.”

“The barbed wire that encircled us like a wall did not fill us with real fear. In fact, we felt this was not a bad thing: we were entirely among ourselves. A small Jewish republic…”

“How are we to reconcile our supreme duty towards memory with the need to forget that is essential to life? No generation has had to confront this paradox with such urgency. The survivors wanted to communicate everything to the living: the victim's solitude and sorrow, the tears of mothers driven to madness, the prayers of the doomed beneath a fiery sky.”

“What I don't like today is, to put it coarsely, the phony Hasidism, the phony mysticism. Many students say, "Teach me mysticism."”

“The Hungarian lieutenant went around with a basket and retrieved the last possessions from those who chose not to go on tasting the bitterness of fear.
"There are eighty of you in the car," the German officer added. "If anyone goes missing, you will all be shot, like dogs."
The two disappeared. The doors clanked shut. We had fallen into the trap, up to our necks. The doors were nailed, the way back irrevocably cut off. The world had become a hermetically sealed cattle car.”

“Whenever an angel says "Be not afraid!" you'd better start worrying. A big assignment is on the way.”

“It seemed as impossible to conceive of Auschwitz with God as to conceive of Auschwitz without God. Therefore, everything had to be reassessed because everything had changed. With one stroke, mankind's achievements seemed to have been erased. Was Auschwitz a consequence or an aberration of "civilization"? All we know is that Auschwitz called that civilization into question as it called into question everything that had preceded Auschwitz. Scientific abstraction, social and economic contention, nationalism, xenophobia, religious fanaticism, racism, mass hysteria. All found their ultimate expression in Auschwitz.”

“Some writings could sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.”

“That place, Mr. President, is not your place. Your place is with the victims of the SS.”

“From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace.. . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated—ever.”

“The most important question a human being has to face… What is it? The question, Why are we here?”

“An SS came toward us wielding a club. He commanded:
"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. There was no time to think, and I already felt my father's hand press against mine: we were alone.”

“No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.”

“The beloved objects that we had carried with us from place to place were now left behind in the wagon and, with them, finally, our illusions.”

“"The yellow star? So what? It's not lethal…"
(Poor Father! Of what then did you die?)”

“We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal wave of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for men everywhere to decide once and for all to put an end to hatred of anyone who is "different" — whether black or white, Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem — anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually.”

“If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity.”