Elie Wiesel

Three days after the liberation of Buchenwald, I became very ill; some sort of poisoning. I was transferred to a hospital and spent two weeks between life and death.One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto.From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.

There are moments when I think it will never end, that it will last indefinitely. It's like the rain. Here the rain, like everything else, suggests permanence and eternity. I say to myself: it's raining today and it's going to rain tomorrow and the next day, the next week and the next century.

We marched. Gates opened and closed. We continued to march between the barbed wire. At every step, white signs with black skulls looked down on us. The inscription: WARNING! DANGER OF DEATH. What irony. Was there here a single place where one was NOT in danger of death?

I needed to know that there was such a thing as love and that it brought smiles and joy in its wake.

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silent encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking, loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning.

This day I ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused.

Man asks and God replies but we don't understand his replies because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die.

War is like night, she said. It covers everything.

Our backyard looked like a marketplace. Valuable objects, precious rugs, silver candlesticks, Bibles and other ritual objects were strewn over the dusty grounds- pitiful relics that seemed never to have had a home. All this under a magnificent blue sky.

One day I was able to get up, after gathering all my strength. I wanted to see myself in the mirror hanging on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.

Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions. thats all we thought about. No thought of revenge, or of parents. Only of bread.

We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything--death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth.

Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.

My faceless neighbor spoke up:__on__ be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve.__ exploded:__hat do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet?His cold eyes stared at me. At last he said, wearily:__ have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.

At the time of the liberation of the camps, I remember, we were convinced that after Auschwitz there would be no more wars, no more racism, no more hatred, no more anti-Semitism. We were wrong. This produced a feeling close to despair. For if Auschwitz could not cure mankind of racism, was there any chance of success ever? The fact is, the world has learned nothing. Otherwise, how is one to comprehend the atrocities committed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia_

The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes.