Vivien Spitz > Quotes

“In a crime there is always a perpetrator and a victim. If you look the other way, do not get involved, stay neutral, or remain silent, you will always help the perpetrator and never the victim.”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“The term ‘eugenics’ means to establish a connection between the results of the studies in human genetics and practical measures in population policy.”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“We must remain aware that, despite the veneer of civilization and the outward manifestations of culture and refinement, insidious atavistic impulses remain in every country and no nation has a monopoly on atrocity.”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“Each belt buckle that German soldiers wore had embossed upon it 'Got Mitt Uns' (God Is With Us). Over the door of the courthouse in the Palace of Justice complex in Nuremberg were engraved the Ten Commandments. The group that established those commandments was precisely the group that was deprived of citizenship, human rights, and even life, under the laws promulgated in the name of that very city—the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws of 1935.”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors from Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“No nation compared in scale with the meticulously organized, highly prioritized, deliberate atrocities in Germany between 1933 and 1945.”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“I no longer remember which psychiatrist wrote a dissertation demonstrating that the assassins hadn’t lost their moral bearings: they knew how to discern Good and Evil; it was the sense of reality that was missing. In their eyes, the victims did not belong to humankind;”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants today is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow.”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“The past is prologue—and why are the lessons not being learned?”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“I want you, the reader, to realize the infinite capacity for demonic evil and depravity in ordinarily good people with free will who make choices that turn them into unethical, immoral perpetrators with victims at their mercy. What is the culpability of the silent bystander who is indifferent to evil? We are capable of being rescuers; do we have the courage to be rescuers?”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“Witness: (...) This authoritarian leadership interfered with the personality and the personal feelings of the human being. The moment an individuality is absorbed into the concept of a collective body, every demand which is put to that individuality has to be absorbed into the concept of a collective system. Therefore, the demands of society are placed above every individual human being as an entity, and this entity, the human being, is completely used in the interests of that society.”
― Vivien Spitz

“If you look the other way, do not get involved, stay neutral, or remain silent, you will always help the perpetrator and never the victim.”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“We must never forget that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well.”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“It serves a demagogue well to set up a scapegoat or a public enemy to unite the populace behind him and by so doing, enable them to overlook incursions on human rights through fear and ignorance. It serves him well to designate a group as other and, for that reason, treat them as inferior, subhuman, and ineligible for the protection of the laws of civilized society.”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans

“Each generation of Americans has to face circumstances not of its own choosing, by which its character is measured and its spirit is tested. —President Jimmy Carter”
― Vivien Spitz, Doctors From Hell: The Horrific Account of Nazi Experiments on Humans