Quotes about Memory

Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to life as long as God himself

The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria...

Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.

Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

There are so many who know more than I do, who understand the world better than I do. I would be truly learned, a great scholar, if only I could retain everything I've learned from those I have known. But then would I still be me? And isn't all that only words? Words grow old, too; they change their meaning and their usage. They get sick just as we do; they die of their wounds and then they are relegated to the dust of dictionaries. And where am I in all this?

Even if I wrote on nothing else, it would never be enough, even if all the survivors did nothing but write about their experiences, it would still not be enough. *Response when asked how much longer is he going to write about the Holocaust.

I didn't know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever.

To forget a holocaust is to kill twice.

To live is to betray the dead. We hasten to bury and forget them because we are ashamed; we feel guilty towards them.

I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

Wasn't forgetfulness a gift of the gods to the ancient world? Without it. Life would be intolerable, wouldn't it? Yes, but the Jews live by other rules. For a Jew, nothing is more important than memory. He is bound to his origins by memory. It is memory that connects him to Abraham, Moses and Rabbi Akiva.

A man who has suffered more than others, and differently, should live apart. Alone. Outside of any organized existence. He poisons the air. He makes it unfit for breathing. He takes away from joy its spontaneity and its justification. He kills hope and the will to live. He is the incarnation of time that negates present and future, only recognizing the harsh law of memory. He suffers and his contagious suffering calls forth echoes around him.