Concentration Camp Quotes

“My wish for you... is that your skeptic-eclectic brain be flooded with the light of truth.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The First Circle

“I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

“War was funny like that: one minute you could try and block it and have the most wonderful thoughts, the next you were back in the nightmare.”
― Mark A. Cooper, The Edelweiss Express

“Taran. We go down fighting.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Rose Under Fire

“Julie would have died there.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Rose Under Fire

“It's not unreal to me yet, though it might get that way soon. It still feels very real. And not even horrible -- the dead are just the dead. I am convinced that the living people they once were would have been proud of their protective bodies hoodwinking their murderers to save someone else. [..]

But it's not civilized. There is something indecent about it -- really foully indecent. The civilized Rose-person in me, who still seems to exist beneath the layers of filth, knows this. [..]

I have become so indifferent about the dead.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Rose Under Fire

“I look around and think: Good God, what kind of hell is this?”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“All were expecting to die, and every day of their life was a day of suffering and torment. All had witnessed terrible crimes, and the Germans would have spared none of them; the gas chambers awaited them. Most, in fact, were sent to the gas chambers after only a few days of work, and were replaced by people from new contingents. Only a few dozen people lived for weeks and months, rather than for days and hours; these were skilled workers, carpenters and stonemasons, and the bakers, tailors and barbers who ministered to the Germans' everyday needs. These people created an Organizing Committee for an uprising. It was of course, only the already-condemned, only people possessed by an all-consuming hatred and a fierce thirst for revenge, who could have conceived such an insane plan. They did not want to escape until they had destroyed Treblinka. And they destroyed it.”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“The camp inmate was frightened of making decisions and of taking any sort of initiative whatsoever. This was the result of a strong feeling that fate was one's master, and that one must not try to influence it in any way, but instead let it take its own course. In addition, there was a great apathy, which contributed in no small part to the feelings of the prisoner. at times, lightning decisions had to be made, decisions which spelled life or death. The prisoner would have preferred to let fate make the choice for him. This escape from commitment was most apparent when a prisoner had to make the decision for or against an escape attempt. In those minutes in which he had to make up his mind-and it was always a question of minutes-he suffered the tortures of Hell. Should he make the attempt to flee? Should he take the risk?”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

“I wish I could be built so that stupidity and dullness wouldn't bother me as much, but I just can't help it. It may sound paradoxical, but with time one wishes to be a hermit instead of always being around people. - Doctor Doris Maza”
― Sarah Helm, Ravensbrück: Life and Death in Hitler's Concentration Camp for Women

“For a moment David was tempted to think that perhaps there were no good people at all outside concentration camps, but then he reminded himself of the sailor and Angelo and the English people who might have been ignorant but were certainly not bad.”
― Anne Holm

“You are in a concentration camp. In Auschwitz..."

A pause. He was observing the effect his words had produced. His face remains in my memory to this day. A tall man, in his thirties, crime written all over his forehead and his gaze. He looked at us as one would a pack of leprous dogs clinging to life.

"Remember," he went on. "Remember it always, let it be graven in your memories. You are in Auschwitz. And Auschwitz is not a convalescent home. It is a concentration camp. Here, you must work. If you don't you will go straight to the chimney. Work or crematorium--the choice is yours.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night

“No one is Sighet suspected that our fate was already sealed. In Berlin we had been condemned, but we didn't know it. We didn't know that a man called Adolf Eichmann was already in Budapest weaving his black web, at the head of an elite, efficient detachment of thirty-five SS men, planning the operation that wold crown his career; or that all the necessary means for "dealing with" us were already at hand in a place called Birkenau.”
― Elie Wiesel, All Rivers Run to the Sea

“Adeline is Battered & Threatened

Not knowing the title of this bureaucrat, I addressed him incorrectly as Meine Herrschaften. With this silly fabricated title, I simply tried to explain to him that the corporal was a brave Frontsoldat. My efforts were in vain since he was intent on finding out the corporal’s name, and my stalling only made matters worse. “What’s his name?” he shouted again and again, this time hitting my breasts and punching me in the stomach, which caused me to vomit all over the floor. It didn’t matter to him that my husband was a German soldier fighting for das Vaterland. He continued to beat me and threatened to put me into the terrible prison camp at Schirmeck. Having passed by there recently, the crying and moaning sounds from inside the gates of this prison were still very vivid in my mind. He reached for his telephone and said, “With one call you’ll be there if you don’t answer me!” “Please, I won’t be able to live with myself if I’m the cause of an innocent person’s death,” I sobbed. I remember him saying, “I remember you! You’re the woman from Bischoffsheim who helped with the kindergarten class and did the art work there. You have two little girls, don’t you?” How could this man know so much about me? He continued his threats by saying that he would beat my little girls at 3 o’clock every afternoon in the Village center, until I gave him the names he wanted. I formed a mental image of this cruel act, however in spite of this, I firmly told him that I would never talk and that the only Etappenhase was the man standing in front of me. The last thing I can remember was him using the telephone to hit me. His last blow struck me above my right eye…. With this I fell down into my own vomit and lost consciousness!”
― Captain Hank Bracker

“On May 21, 1941, Camp de Schirmeck, Natzweiler-Struthof, located 31 miles southwest of Strasbourg in the Vosges Mountains, was opened as the only Nazi Concentration Camp established on present day French territory. Intended to be a transit labor camp it held about 52,000 detainees during the three and a half years of its existence. It is estimated that about 22,000 people died of malnutrition and exertion while at the concentration camp during those years. Natzweiler-Struthof was the location of the infamous Jewish skeleton collection used in the documentary movie “Le nom des 86” made from data provided by the notorious Hauptsturmführer August Hirt. On November 23, 1944, the camp was liberated by the French First Army under the command of the U.S. Sixth Army Group. It is presently preserved as a museum. Boris Pahor, the noted author was interned in Natzweiler-Struthof for having been a Slovene Partisan, and wrote his novel “Necropolis,” named for a large, ancient Greek cemetery. His story is based on his Holocaust experiences while incarcerated at Camp de Schirmeck.”
― Captain Hank Bracker, "Suppresed I Rise"

“I am as if paralysed: over there in the chamber the gas people and we are supposed to sing!”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“I have no notion of barbering and no idea what will happen if I cannot do the work. But I tell myself that after all it cannot be worse than dying…”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“We are at once put to work sorting. My friend Leybl stands next to me. We inspect every garment as carefully as possible. On the other side of me stands a worker who has already been here for several days. I want to find out from him what happened here, since, despite the fact that I can see the clothes left behind by the victims, I still cannot grasp what is going on.”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“First night in the barracks. Moyshe Ettinger tells us how he saved himself and cannot forgive himself. The evening prayer is recited and Kaddish is set for the dead.”
― Chil Rajchman, The Last Jew of Treblinka

“I bend over more deeply and ask him again what happens here.
— Don't you see? Here they take the lives of our nearest and dearest. Don't you see that these are the close of the poor wretches who come here?”
― Chil Rajchman

“Să închizi între fire de sârmă ghimpată mii de indivizi de vârste, condiții, origini, limbi, culturi și obiceiuri diferite și să-i supui unui regim de viață constant, controlabil, identic pentru toți și mai prejos de orice necesitate e cel mai diabolic experiment pentru a stabili ce este esențial și ce este dobândit în comportamentul animalului-om în lupta pentru existență.”
― Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

“Vai de cel ce visează: momentul conştient care însoţeşte trezirea este cea mai grea suferinţă. Dar nu ni se întâmplă des şi nici visele nu sunt lungi: nu suntem decât nişte animale obosite.”
― Primo Levi, Survival in Auschwitz

“Să distrugi omul e greu, aproape tot atât de greu cât să-l creezi: n-a fost uşor, n-a durat puţin, dar voi, hitleriştii, aţi reuşit s-o faceţi. Iată-ne docili sub privirile voastre: din partea noastră nu mai aveţi de ce vă teme, nu vor mai fi acte de revoltă, nici cuvinte de sfidare şi nici măcar o privire de condamnare.”
― Primo Levi

“He might all the same do a little something for us. We’re
on our backs, doesn’t He see?'
'I’m doing my best, I tell you,' said Father Julien. 'I pray and I pray and I pray . . .'
'Even we find a way of doing something for the may- beetles.’
'You don’t give a damn about the may-beetles, you bastards,' said Father Julien. 'You do it out of pride. If you weren’t in a forced labor camp you’d step on may-beetles without even noticing their existence. This is something that happens in the head, not in the heart. You’re bursting with pride, that’s what it is.”
― Romain Gary, The Roots of Heaven

“Memory, come tell a fairy tale
About my girl who's lost and gone.
Tell, tell about the golden grail
And bid the swallow, bring her back to me.
Fly close to her and ask her soft and low
If she thinks of me sometimes with love,
If she is well? Ask too before you go
If I am still her dearest, precious dove.
And hurry back, don't lose your way,
So I can think of other things.
But you were too lovely, perhaps, to stay.
I loved you once. Good-bye, my love.”
― Celeste Raspanti, I Never Saw Another Butterfly: A Play

“Closed minds lead to the opening of concentration camps and gulags.”
― Dean Cavanagh

“The Omarska geological region is rich in iron ore and has been historically lucrative for mining companies. After the Bosnian Genocide, The Mittal Steel Company bought the rights to extract iron ore from the camp site. In 2005, they announced plans to build a memorial replacing one of the camp buildings. Due to active political hostility from Serbs against building a memorial, the idea was abandoned. Bosniaks argue that the bodies of all victims should first be extracted and respectfully cremated before the memorial construction to avoid desecrating dead bodies. 20 years after the Omarska genocidal nightmare, there was no progress for building a memorial.”
― Aida Mandic

“Bosniak civilians were forced to flee their homes due to the constant shelling and army attacks by May 1992. Most of the civilians were taken as prisoners or surrendered to the Serb forces. The residents were then gathered and moved to the prison camps operated by the Serb forces in the surrounding area. Within 3 weeks of the hostile takeover of the government entities, the Serb forces mounted large scale military offense and subsequently started rounding up civilians and moving them to the Omarska camp.”
― Aida Mandic

“The Bosnian Serb forces operated the Omarska concentration camp to torture, murder, rape, and abuse captured Bosnian civilians, intellectuals, and politicians in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina (Prijedor municipality). The camp held over 7,000 innocent Bosnian civilians as prisoners for more than five months during 1992. Several hundred people died due to constant abuse by the Serb forces including mass executions, starvation, beatings, repeated sexual abuse, and horrifying living conditions. The camp guards frequently cut the throats of the Bosniak captives. Prisoners ate spoiled food found by scavenging for it.”
― Aida Mandic

“My mother personally knew Nusreta Sivac, who was held, tortured, and raped at the camp for two months. I admire Nusreta’s extraordinary courage and fortitude in enduring the horror of genocide and speaking boldly about her experiences. She is a champion for women’s rights and a hero of the Bosnian people. She motivated and vehemently advocated for justice by persuading other Bosniak rape victims to come forward and take legal action against their perpetrators.
Thanks to Nusreta’s efforts, rape in the context of war is categorized as a war crime under international law. She was instrumental in helping convict her rapist and bringing him to justice. She was continually raped for two months in captivity. Sivac also spent years collecting evidence and testimonies from rape survivors and constructing legal cases which were presented to the ICTY. For centuries, rape was considered a byproduct of war. Are women just considered spoils of war? Her contributions are a powerful achievement because they mark the first time in history that an international court convicted war crimes solely for sexual violence. I applaud Nusreta for being a pioneer.”
― Aida Mandic