In the concentration camps, we discovered this whole universe where everyone had his place. The killer came to kill, and the victims came to die.

[My approach to the Bible, history does really matter.] Everything matters. But I have priorities. For instance, for me to know whether there were two Isaiahs or one is less important than the text itself. Of course I read the arguments for and against. But it's not my task in life to say there were two or three authors of Isaiah's book, or how many authors there were of Deuteronomy. This is not what I'm doing.

When you listen to a witness, you become a witness.

We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children. Between the ugliness of hate and the will to oppose it. Between inflicting suffering and humiliation on our fellow man and offering him the solidarity and hope he deserves.

Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.

In those dark times, one rose to the very heights of humanity by simply remaining human.

Oh, it is not death that frightens me, but the impossibility of imparting some meaning to my past.