Roxanne

“I believe it was Jean Améry who noted that the first to bow to the oppressor’s system and to adopt its doctrines and methods were the intellectuals. But not all of them. Not the rabbis and priests, who, after all, were intellectuals too. With a single exception, no rabbi agreed to become a kapo. All refused to barter their own survival by becoming tools of the hangman. All preferred to die rather than serve death. The lessons of the prophets and the sages became shields for them. On”
― Elie Wiesel, All Rivers Run to the Sea: Memoirs

“One day when we had come to a stop, a worker took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it into a wagon. There was a stampede. Dozens of starving men fought desperately over a few crumbs. The worker watched the spectacle with great interest. YEARS LATER, I witnessed a similar spectacle in Aden. Our ship’s passengers amused themselves by throwing coins to the “natives,” who dove to retrieve them. An elegant Parisian lady took great pleasure in this game. When I noticed two children desperately fighting in the water, one trying to strangle the other, I implored the lady: “Please, don’t throw any more coins!” “Why not?” said she. “I like to give charity …”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“... hatred is never an answer, and ... death nullifies all answers. There is nothing sacred, nothing uplifting, in hatred or in death.”
― Elie Wiesel, Dawn

“Indifference always helps the aggressor, never his victims. And what is memory if not a noble and necessary response to and against indifference?”
― Elie Wiesel, Night