Holocaust Quotes

The Holocaust was one of the most horrifying and shameful periods in the history of humankind wherein the Jews as a people were systematically persecuted and murdered by the Nazis under Adolf Hitler, resulting in the death of six million of them, from 1941 to 1945. The Nazis believed that the German race was a superior one, and they deemed the Jews as inferior, and a threat to the racial purity of the Germans. They came up with a dastardly plan, known as the ‘final solution’, wherein they incarcerated millions of Jews in concentration camps, where they lived and died in inhuman conditions.

Apart from the Jews, the Nazis also targeted other ethnic groups because they thought them to be racially inferior too, such as the Roma Gypsies, physically and mentally disabled people living in institutions, Slavic people like the Russians, Poles, and so on. Some others were also subjected to persecution on the basis of their behavioral, ideological, and political backgrounds, such as homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Socialists, and Communists. However, it was the Jews that were the primary victims of the Nazis, and the Holocaust is associated with just their plight by many scholars.

Although when the Holocaust occurred it was an unprecedented event of large-scale mass murder, but now we do have the precedent. And one of its terrifying lessons is that this kind of mindless inhumanity can recur again, and in fact has to a certain extent, such as the ugly events in East Timor, Kosovo, Rwanda, the ongoing genocide in Darfur, the horrors being committed in the name of Islam, and so forth. So, here are a few Holocaust quotes, some of them heartrending, since they are from the victims, or their survivors, of that dark period of human history.

"The Nazis victimized some people for what they did, some for what they refused to do, some for what they were, and some for the fact that they were." - John Conway

"The Holocaust was the most evil crime ever committed." - Stephen Ambrose

"Holocaust Memorial Day is intended as an inclusive commemoration of all the individuals and communities who suffered as a result of the Holocaust -- not only Jews, but also Gypsies, Slavs, homosexuals, political prisoners and dozens of ethnic and other minorities." - Jack Straw

"We in the United States should be all the more thankful for the freedom and religious tolerance we enjoy. And we should always remember the lessons learned from the Holocaust, in hopes we stay vigilant against such inhumanity now and in the future." - Charlie Dent

"When I teach about the Holocaust, I use it to try and get people to understand that the values that led to Hitler's election and the theories behind the mass execution of Jews were also prominent and are prominent in American society." - Ralph Leck

"For me the Holocaust was not only a Jewish tragedy, but also a human tragedy. After the war, when I saw that the Jews were talking only about the tragedy of six million Jews, I sent letters to Jewish organizations asking them to talk also about the millions of others who were persecuted with us together - many of them only because they helped Jews." - Simon Wiesenthal

"In Italy, the country where fascism was born, we have a particular relation with the Holocaust, but as a turning point in history it belongs to everybody in the world. It is a part of humanity." - Roberto Benigni

"The Holocaust is a central event in many people's lives, but it also has become a metaphor for our century. There cannot be an end to speaking and writing about it. Besides, in Israel, everyone carries a biography deep inside him." - Aharon Appelfeld

"No one yet knows what awaits the Jews in the twenty-first century, but we must make every effort to ensure that it is better than what befell them in the twentieth, the century of the Holocaust." - Benjamin Netanyahu

"... in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquillity will return again." - Anne Frank

For me, the last Holocaust quote given here, an excerpt from the evocative book by Anne Frank, ‘The Diary of a Young Girl’, is the most resonant and poignant of all.