Gerald Green > Quotes

“I never really believed in Satan, or that there was pure evil in the world, until I came here.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“My mother had that talent for endowing any place she was with dignity and charm. She behaved elegantly and politely, and thus hoped to change the world.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“It seemed to me at that moment that the peril hanging over us, the horrors we had seen at Babi Yar and elsewhere, made it all the more vital that we love each other, never hurt each other, always be truthful and gentle with each other. Helena understood that also. I could see it in her eyes, sense it in her sighs, and small cries, and reluctance to let go of me.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“The sight of that stupid boy’s terrorized eyes, the knowledge that he was finished, would never see a sunrise, or a girl’s face, or swim in a clear lake again—all these rattled me, made me wonder if I were the bloodthirsty avenger I’d imagined myself to be.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“I have never been a very brave man," Uncle Moses said.
"Nor I," Zalmann added.
Eva smiled at them. "You are brave enough.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“I ain't inspired any more, Sherm; there was this painting I saw in the museum in Amsterdam. It was called 'Christ Preaching in the House of Mary and Martha.' And the whole foreground of the picture, maybe three-fourths of the canvas, is a kitchen in one of them Dutch houses, and there's a cook plucking chickens. All around her there's dead rabbits, pheasants, turkeys, ducks, sides of beef, six kinds of fish, clams, oysters, potatoes, apples, eggplant, kohlrabi, rutabaga, carrots, Swiss chard, and God knows what else. Food, food, food. And where's Christ? Well, way back in a little alcove off the kitchen, there He is, with the women, preaching. Who cares about Him, when everyone wants to stuff their gut with rabbit and turkey? Who hears His sermon, when there's lots of roast duck and fried oysters?"
"What in the world has that to do with our survey?" asked Wettlaufer.
"Sherman, you and me and this survey and these people like Huguettte Roux and Willem Kruis--we're preaching way back in the corner to two people. But most of the world is in that kitchen drooling over those rabbits and geese!”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“There is a kind of psychotic middle-class hate asserting itself here, exactly the thing that produced Hitler. It strikes out everywhere, at anyone, mindless, cruel, convinced only it is right and that all who disagree are traitors.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“We can't all be like him, or his brother, or Helms, or the rest of those people.'
'No,' she said sadly. 'But I wish to God we could be something else.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“If they want to kill us so desperately, then surely we are worthwhile, valid, of importance to the world.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“I don’t fear anyone, Russians, Americans, any of them. I did a job. I obeyed orders. I am a soldier.”
Kurst shoved me away. “You know, you may just manage to cheat the hangman with that kind of logic. But I hope to God you don’t.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“All the ghettoes were being wiped out. The Germans were killing all the Jews.”
“But why? Why?” Helena asked.
“They don’t need reasons,” I said. “Any excuse works for them, because they have the guns and we don’t.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“Periodically the International Red Cross, or some neutral—the Swedes, for example—will demand an inspection of a concentration camp. They are brought here. And so they are shown the bank, the cinema, the bakery, the shops—and they are asked for their approval. What are those Jews complaining about? The Führer has given them this beautiful city."
"And they get away with it? The inspectors believe them?" Karl felt he was losing his mind.
"Maybe they want to believe," Felsher said.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“There aren't enough people left who get mad, plain mad. Not mad for a cause or a purpose, but just generally mad at all the bitchery and fraud. We take fraud for granted. We accept it. We like it. We want to be had. That's where he was different. He knew he was being cheated and he didn't like it one tiny bit, whether it was some old biddy doing him out of his two dollars or a corporation telling him they made better cathartics. He was the last angry man.”
― Gerald Green, The Last Angry Man

“Whatever God is He's in them.<> Not everyone. But in some people. He sort of doles Himself out a little, and He shows up in people where you'd never expect it. Huguette and Father Latour and Kruis and Mr. Munk. God gave a little piece of Himself to make 'em.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“No, it couldn't all be bad the way Stonebreaker insisted it was. There were people who hid the children from the sanctioned murderers; people who looked the horror in the eye and said, no, no, you can't do it any more, we're against you even if you kill us. Thus had Sweeney's friends acted, and they had redeemed belief and tradition for millions.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“I knew something about myself. Killing was indecent, depraved. I would not get used to it. One killed to survive, to keep one’s loved ones alive. No good attached to ending the lives of others. That Ukrainian kid had parents, a family, hopes. Like the millions of us now dying for no reason.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“I don’t fear anyone, Russians, Americans, any of them. I did a job. I obeyed orders. I am a soldier.”
Kurt shoved me away. “You know, you may just manage to cheat the hangman with that kind of logic. But I hope to God you don’t.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“She pushed a strand of white hair under the scarf. Surely, it seemed to Sweeney and Wettlaufer, she was the essence of the good deed unselfishly performed, the deed that could save the world if the world wanted saving.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“I still did not cry. I tried not to think of her. I had loved her too much, too intensely. In danger all the time, we had clung to one another. We had lived several lifetimes in our years together. Now she was gone.” - Gerald Green, Holocaust”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“They have fooled the world. Or else the world doesn’t give a damn. What confounds me is that no one seems to ask what right they have to put us in prisons at all. The assumption seems to be that it’s all right for Jews to be jailed and treated like dogs, provided they aren’t murdered.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“The Vatican was decent about that sort of thing. Protecting Jews not from oppression, but from too much oppression. Condemn the Jews to degradation, to censure as deicides, well-poisoners, child-killers, yet try to prevent them from being slaughtered entirely.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“They choose not to believe. Or they think we are lying. The crime is so enormous, they won't believe it. That's what the Germans are counting on.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust

“Yes, they were part of him. He hoped he was a little part of them--if only a memory, a fraction of their consciousness. How the Sweeney's of the world needed them. He blinked fiercely, stemming his tears. I am not much of a man, but at least I have known them.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“Whatever God is He's in them. Not everyone. But in some people. He sort of doles Himself out a little, and He shows up in people where you'd never expect it. Huguette and Father Latour and Kruis and Mr. Munk. God gave a little piece of Himself to make 'em.”
― Gerald Green, The legion of noble Christians: Or, The Sweeney survey

“No one will believe a crime that big. People will say, "Impossible, they could not kill that many, torture that many, be so cruel." People will say that there are limits, that human beings stop at some point. But they didn’t stop.”
― Gerald Green, Holocaust