Limor Regev > Quotes

“Part of the loss of our humanity was also a loss of values. The Germans had managed to get many of us to act like animals and not as human beings in the struggle for survival.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“the 405,000 about 65,000 had so far survived.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“substantial,”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Young people, who had been educated in the morals of enlightened Western culture, who had learned manners and civility were now murdering hundreds of thousands of people who could have been their own parents, grandparents, brothers, and sisters.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“During the war, Buchenwald housed prisoners from dozens of nations, including several future European leaders: one prisoner was Dr. Konrad Adenauer, an anti-Nazi who was mayor of Cologne. After the war, he would become West Germany’s first Chancellor. Prisoner Leon Blum later became Prime Minister of France. The mayor of Prague, Petr Zenkl, was also among the Buchenwald prisoners.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Information about what to expect next was concealed in a way that dispelled our suspicions. It is possible that if someone had hinted to the Jews of our city that we were being led to our deaths, many of us would have gone into hiding to try to save our lives. Also, most of the Jews obeyed the orders because no information about extermination camps had reached us at that point. It is important to understand that facts that seem clear after the Holocaust were seen as impossibilities at the time. We felt we were doing everything possible to stay alive until the imminent defeat of Germany.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“We Jews also spoke Yiddish and in fact, from a young age I spoke three languages on a daily and regular basis.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“The question of why this did not happen is an enigma to this day…”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Unity is the basis of our continued existence and the foundation of our future. It is the most significant motif for the future of the State of Israel.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“It was there I saw how the good in man defeats the evil, and how one person’s courage can affect the fate of hundreds of children.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“If only we had weapons then, they would not have been able to lead one third of the Jewish people to extermination.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“The State of Israel has been a restorative haven for many survivors. A sense of belonging, self-worth, collective defense, and security gradually healed our wounded souls. Many times during this period, when I was holding a weapon, the question crossed my mind: what would have happened if we had had weapons in those days, when we were helpless in the face of abuse, humiliation and slaughter. How different would our lives have been if we’d had the opportunity to defend ourselves”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“The house was wrecked, and we had to move in with friends who came to us as soon as they heard about the missile falling on our street. We returned home only after the state had repaired our apartment”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Among the Hungarian people, only a few agreed to conceal Jews and help them in their time of great suffering. Most Hungarians actively cooperated with the Germans.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Even the brainwashing that the Germans succumbed to, and the labeling of Jews as subhuman, cannot explain the capability of normal people to murder in cold blood without a shred of human”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“One time we brought garlic cloves to heder and when the rabbi wasn’t looking, we smeared garlic on the stick. When the rabbi banged the desk, the stick fell apart and we all burst out laughing. The rabbi’s interrogations didn’t work; no one would confess. The fact that these were childish pranks did not ease the teacher’s anger.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Only in November 1944 did the Germans stop operating the extermination apparatus in Birkenau, because the Russian army was approaching and evidence of the atrocities that took place in the camp had to be destroyed. In October 1944, they held the last selection at Buna, following which the Birkenau gas chambers were dismantled because the Russians were advancing from the east and the Nazis wanted to destroy evidence of the atrocities they carried out there. In this final selection, they sent 850 victims for extermination. It is”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“expansive”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Looking back, the question arises: why did we go along with it? Why didn’t we rebel against the orders to leave our home? This is a complex question in retrospect, but the answer is simple if we examine it through the perspective of those days. The German methods prevented insurrection or refusal very simply. The authorities took local Jewish leaders - community officials and rabbis - and held them hostage. They were placed under heavy guard and word spread throughout the city that if the Jews refused to evacuate their homes, the hostages - whom we all knew - would be killed immediately.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Our former lives, before we were expelled from our homes, had taught us mutual support, concern for others, and acceding to another. We had a vision of the interrelationship among human beings, and the strength of community and togetherness. We grew up on the precepts of the Torah, and the concept that all Israel are as one, intertwined with each other. Some of us lost the battle to maintain this tradition. For many of the camp inmates the rules of love for others and mutual concern had disappeared as useless baggage. Here the rules were different. The Holocaust taught us that indeed, each man has his own destiny.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“The fate of the Jews was not a major concern for the United States, Britain, or their allies in its waging of the war. Just a few miles from where they were bombing on a regular basis, the killing factories churned on uninterrupted. To this day I do not understand why the planes did not bomb Birkenau. This is one of the greatest stains on the Allies’ conduct during the Nazi campaign of genocide of the Jews the Holocaust.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Horthy was openly anti-Semitic and encouraged discriminatory decrees against the Jews.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Even the brainwashing that the Germans succumbed to, and the labeling of Jews as subhuman, cannot explain the capability of normal people to murder in cold blood without a shred of human compassion.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Years later, I learned that Laser, the boy who smuggled the prayer book out of Auschwitz, was Nobel Peace Prize laureate Eli Wiesel.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“I heard a mocking voice behind me, “Look, little Kessler is back.” It was the Hungarian woman neighbor in the house next to ours, the Kudebitz family. She glared at me scornfully and pointed her finger. A shiver went through my body. The insult washed over me. I walked away in silence, her cynical laughter echoing.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“I realized that the way we grow up as children is deeply etched into the human psyche. Our values are at the heart of the education we receive.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“The war had taken my grandmother, my grandfather, my little cousins, uncles and aunts… …my little brother …and my father And it had taken my belief in man and in God. It had stripped me of my childhood innocence”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“The almost total collaboration of the Hungarian people and its contribution to the fate of the Jews of Hungary is one of the ugliest stains on the human race in the history of World War II.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“Unity is the basis of our continued existence and the foundation of our future.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story

“After long months and sometimes even years of malnutrition, the freed prisoners’ stomachs were unable to digest the fatty meat and they came down with typhus and died a few days later. About 60% of the inmates liberated at Buchenwald died as a result.”
― Limor Regev, The Boy From Block 66: A WW2 Jewish Holocaust Survival True Story