-
Optimistic
"The deportees were quickly forgotten. A few days after they left, it was rumored that they were in Galicia, working, and even that they were content with their fate.
Days went by. Then weeks and months. Life was normal again. A calm, reassuring wind blew through our homes. The shopkeepers were doing good business, the students lived among their books, and the children played in the streets." P6 -
Faithful
"By day I studied Talmud and by night I would run to the syna- gogue to weep over the destruction of the Temple." -
Devout
"Why did I pray? Strange question. Why did I live? Why did
I breathe?" -
Moishe the Beadle- Before
"Moishe the Beadle was the exception. He stayed out of people's way. His presence bothered no one. He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible." P3 -
Moishe the Beadle- Before
"Physically, he was as awkward as a clown. His waiflike shyness made people smile. As for me, I liked his wide, dreamy eyes, gazing off into the distance. He spoke little. He sang, or rather he chanted, and the few snatches I caught here and there spoke of divine suffering, of the Shekhinah in Exile, where, according to Kabbalah, it awaits its redemption linked to that of man." P3 -
Contrast - Later on in the book
"My father was a cultured man, rather unsentimental. He rarely displayed his feelings, not even within his family, and was more involved with the welfare of others than with that of his own kin." P4 -
Stubborn or Doesn't give up
"He wanted to drive the idea of studying Kabbalah from my mind. In vain. I succeeded on my own in finding a master for my- self in the person of Moishe the Beadle." P4 -
People Ignores Moishe
"Moishe was not the same. The joy in his eyes was gone. He no longer sang. He no longer mentioned either God or Kabbalah. He spoke only of what he had seen. But people not only refused to believe his tales, they refused to listen. Some even insinuated that he only wanted their pity, that he was imagining things. Others flatly said that he had gone mad." P7 -
Moishe Hopeless
"Jews, listen to me! That's all I ask of you. No money. No pity. Just listen to me!" he kept shouting in synagogue, between the prayer at dusk and the evening prayer.
Even I did not believe him. I often sat with him, after ser- vices, and listened to his tales, trying to understand his grief. But all I felt was pity.
"They think I'm mad," he whispered, and tears, like drops of wax, flowed from his eyes. P7 -
No Longer Care to Live
I wanted to return to Sighet to describe to you my death so that you might ready yourselves while there is still time. Life? I no longer care to live. I am alone. But I wanted to come back to warn you. Only no one is listening to me ..." -
Memories - before camp
"They passed me by, one after the other, my teachers, my friends, the others, some of whom I had once feared, some of whom I had found ridiculous, all those whose lives I had shared for years. There they went, defeated, their bundles, their lives in tow, having left behind their homes, their childhood."
"They passed me by, like beaten dogs, with never a glance in my direction. They must have envied me." -- P17 -
Happy that people are alive
Freed from the barbers' clutches, we began to wander about the crowd, finding friends, acquaintances. Every encounter filled us with joy—yes, joy: Thank God! You are still alive!
Some were crying. They used whatever strength they had left to cry. Why had they let themselves be brought here? Why didn't they die in their beds? Their words were interspersed with sobs. P35 -
Hope
“Germany would be defeated. It was only a matter of time, months or weeks, perhaps. The trees were in bloom. It was a year like so many others, with its spring, its engagements, its weddings, and its births.“ P8 -
Day=Night
"The days resembled the nights, and the nights left in our souls the dregs of their darkness." P100 -
Lost of hope
"I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people." P81 -
Everyone is the same
There no longer was any distinction between rich and poor, notables, and the others; we were all people condemned to the same fate—still unknown. P21 -
Do not give up hope - in camp
"We mustn't give up hope, even now as the sword hangs over our heads. So taught our s a g e s ... " P31 -
Shocked- baby burn
Not far from us, flames,
huge flames, were rising from a ditch. Something was being burned there. A truck drew close and unloaded its hold: small children. Babies! Yes, I did see this, with my own e y e s ... c h i l - dren thrown into the flames. (Is it any wonder that ever since then, sleep tends to elude me?) P32 -
Never shall I forget
NEVER SHALL I FORGET that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed.
Never shall I forget that smoke.
Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bod- ies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky.
Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith for- ever.
P34 -
Questioning God
Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.
P45 -
Advice about fear
"And most important, don't be afraid!"
That was a piece of advice we would have loved to be able
to follow. P96 -
Bell
The bell. It was already time to part, to go to bed. The bell regulated everything. It gave me orders and I executed them blindly. I hated that bell. Whenever I happened to dream of a better world, I imagined a universe without a bell. P73 -
Lost Faith
He was not alone in having lost his faith during those days of selection. I knew a rabbi, from a small town in Poland. He was old and bent, his lips constantly trembling. He was always praying, in the block, at work, in the ranks. He recited entire pages from the Talmud, arguing with himself, asking and answering himself end- less questions. One day, he said to me:
"It's over. God is no longer with us." P76 -
Seperation - Father
As for me, I was thinking not about death but about not wanting to be separated from my father. We had already suffered so much, endured so much together. This was not the moment to separate. P82 -
Shame, Disappointment - finding father
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 only of myself...Instantly, I felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever. P106 -
Beginning of Work
ARBEIT MACHT FREI. Work makes you free. P40 -
Violin- Juliek's Soul
It was pitch dark. I could hear only the violin, and it was as though Julie’s soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding through the strings- his last hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again… when I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse. P5 -
Still had hope - before going to camp
"To the last moment, people clung to hope." P15 -
Fear - Ellie (Idek)
"I wanted to run away, but my feet were nailed to the floor. Idek grabbed me by the throat." P57 -
Begin to hate his oppressors
"That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death." -
Family
"My father wouldn't hear of it. He told me and my big sisters, "If you wish, go there. I shall stay here with your mother and the little one...
Naturally, we refused to be separated." P20 -
Questioning his faith
"I looked at my house in which I had spent years seeking my God, fasting to hasten the coming of the Messiah, imagining what my life would be like later. Yet I felt little sadness. My mind was empty." P19 -
Hopeless
"My father was crying. It was the first time I saw him cry. I had never thought it possible. As for my mother, she was walking, her face a mask, without a word, deep in thought. I looked at my little sister, Tzipora, her blond hair neatly combed, her red coat over her arm: a little girl of seven. On her back a bag too heavy for her. She was clenching her teeth; she already knew it was useless to complain." P19 -
Optimistic or Denial
"The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion." P12 -- people being optimistic or are they denying the fact -
Lost of Morality
"Our convoy headed toward the main synagogue. The town seemed deserted. But behind the shutters, our friends of yesterday were probably waiting for the moment when they could loot our homes." P22 -
Still Faithful
"I was up at dawn. I wanted to have time to pray before leaving." P18 -
Optimistic
"Annihilate an entire people? Wipe out a population dispersed throughout so many nations? So many millions of people! By what means? In the middle of the twentieth century!
And thus my elders concerned themselves with all manner of things—strategy, diplomacy, politics, and Zionism—but not with their own fate. " P8 -
Implying something bad might happen
I had asked my father to sell everything, to liquidate everything, and to leave.
"I am too old, my son," he answered. "Too old to start a new life. Too old to start from scratch in some distant land ... " P9 -
Optimism
"The news spread through Sighet like wildfire. Soon that was
all people talked about. But not for long. Optimism soon revived: The Germans will not come this far. They will stay in Budapest." P9 -
Mother's love
"Despite her fatigue, my mother began to prepare a meal." P20 -
Save Food- before entering camp
"Our principle was to economize, to save for tomorrow. Tomorrow could be worse yet." P23 -
Foreshadow - mad women
"Fire! I see a fire!" P25 -
Connection to Moishe
"Crouching in her corner, her blank gaze fixed on some faraway place, she no longer saw us.
She remained like that all day, mute, absent, alone in the midst of us. Toward evening she began to shout again:
"The fire, over there!" " P26 -
separates family
"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. P29 -
Seperates Family
"There was no time to think, and I already felt my fa- ther's hand press against mine: we were alone. I didn't know that this was the moment in time and the place where I was leaving my mother and Tzipora forever. I kept walk- ing, my father holding my hand.
P29 -
Questioning God
"God is testing us. He wants to see whether we are capable of
overcoming our base instincts, of killing the Satan within our- selves. We have no right to despair. And if He punishes us merci- lessly, it is a sign that He loves us that much more..." P45 -
Shocked - first in camp seeing people burn
My forehead was covered with cold sweat. Still, I told him that
I could not believe that human beings were being burned in our times; the world would never tolerate such crimes... P33 -
Never shall I forget P2
Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live.
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. p34 -
Father and Son support- death march
My father's presence was the only thing that stopped me. He was running next to me, out of breath, out of strength, desperate. P86 I had no right to let myself die. What would he do without me? I was his sole support.
These thoughts were going through my mind as I continued to run, not feeling my numb foot, not even realizing that I was still running, that I still owned a body that galloped down the road among thousands of others. P87 -
Danger of Death
At every step, white signs with black skulls looked down on us. The inscription: WARNING! DAN- GER OF DEATH. What irony. Was there here a single place where one was not in danger of death? P40 -
Death- Crematory
Do you see that chimney over there? See it? Do you see those flames? (Yes, we did see the flames.) Over there—that's where you're going to be taken. That's your grave, over there. P31 -
Bell symbolises order
The sound of the bell brought us back to reality P69 -
A world without bells
The bell. It was already time to part, to go to bed. The bell regulated everything. It gave me orders and I executed them blindly. I hated that bell. Whenever I happened to dream of a better world, I imagined a universe without a bell. P73 -
Night
T h e night was growing longer, never- ending. P98 -
Mirror
One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me.
The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me. P115 -
Father's death
I WOKE UP AT DAWN on January 29. On my father's cot there lay another sick person. They must have taken him away before day- break and taken him to the crematorium. Perhaps he was still breathing....
No prayers were said over his tomb. No candle lit in his mem- ory. His last word had been my name. He had called out to me and I had not answered. P122 -
Living Dead
But I was out of tears. And deep inside me, if I could have searched the recesses of my feeble conscience, I might have found something like: Free at last! P112