Elie Wiesel Quotes

When you grow up Jewish, you are exposed at a very young age to the phenomenon of anti-Semitism and its extreme manifestation in the Holocaust. I spent a lot of time as a little kid wondering how something like that could happen.

We know, and we must never forget, that every path leads somewhere. The path of segregation leads to lynching. The path of anti-Semitism leads to Auschwitz. The path of cults leads to Jonestown. We ignore this fact at our peril.

When Jews are sacrificed, you have to ask yourself who will be next.

So many times I wanted to go to Auschwitz, but I couldn't take up the courage to go there.

Yet, nearly 6 decades after the Holocaust concluded, Anti-Semitism still exists as the scourge of the world.

The Jews deserved to die. I have no regrets. If I had the chance I would do it again.

Violence ravaged my life. I was a victim of hatred, and I have dedicated my life to reversing that hatred.

As long as your ideology identifies the main source of the world's ills as a definable group, it opens the world up to genocide.

Or a White Englishman would rather smash a White Frenchman than a Jew! Crazy!

There was a taboo as a result of the Holocaust that people respected that anti-Semitism was an ugly thing and should be avoided. Now that taboo seems to have been broken with impunity.

The disappearance of the Jewish state will not mean the disappearance of anti-Semitism.

I don't think anyone has been slandered more than the Jews.

The Holocaust illustrates the consequences of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on a society. It forces us to examine the responsibilities of citizenship and confront the powerful ramifications of indifference and inaction.

And I think all Nazis didn't see themselves as bad people. I've never met a racist yet who thought he was a racist. Or an anti-Semite who thought they were anti-Semitic.

Every conceivable cleavage of difference: Sindhi vs. Punjabi, Mohajirs vs. Pathans, Islam vs. Secularism, Shias vs. Sunnis, Deobandis vs. Barelvis, literates vs. illiterates, Woman vs. Man, Urban vs. Rural—has been exploited to magnify dissentions, giving rise to heinous blood baths, accentuated hatred, and intolerance.

It is an open war until the elimination of Israel and until the death of the last Jew on earth.

Don’t forget how quickly people who have lived next to each other for generations have turned on each other.

There is one thing that Germany did, and that was to rout the Jews out of their country. Until we rout the Jews out of this country, it does not matter what orders [laws] you make.

The defining mode of conflict in the era ahead is ethnic conflict.

The fuse of racial hatred is long and winds through all of Europe.

I would rather eat dirt than see my grandchildren grow up in the filthy, poisonous atmosphere of Jewry

Anti-Semitism is the unifying element of the reconstruction of Germany.

The Holocaust remains unique in contemporary Jewish consciousness for its capacity to engender the most visceral grief and abject pain.

The hatred and contempt for men, women and children that was manifested in the Shoah was a crime against God and against humanity.

To see the faces and hear the voices of victims of the Holocaust - one of the darkest chapters in history - was an experience I will never forget.