How we cite our quotes: (Sentence)
Quote #1
In the place that I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders. (67)
Sure, the killers were obviously the really guilty, and the victims were the innocent party—but what about the bystanders? It becomes clear throughout his speech that Elie Wiesel sees the folks who stood idly by as being part of the problem. Wiesel believes that indifference is on par with what the Nazis did—sure, the bystanders might not have killed anyone, but they also didn't try and stop it.
And he wasn't the only person who feels that way. In fact, after the Americans liberated Buchenwald in 1945, they forced locals to march through the camp to see what had happened there and what they'd ignored. It's pretty powerful footage, so take a look at it here.
Quote #2
And our only miserable consolation was that we believed that Auschwitz and Treblinka were closely guarded secrets; that the leaders of the free world did not know what was going on behind those black gates and barbed wire; that they had no knowledge of the war against the Jews that Hitler's armies and their accomplices waged as part of the war against the Allies. If they knew, we thought, surely those leaders would have moved heaven and earth to intervene. They would have spoken out with great outrage and conviction. (70-72)
Millions of people, including Elie Wiesel, were forced to endure hellish, inhumane treatment at the hands of the Nazis. And throughout it all, they believed the rest of the world had no idea what was going on. Imagine their collective sense of betrayal when they realized that world leaders had known what was going on…and did nothing.
Quote #3
Roosevelt was a good man, with a heart. He understood those who needed help. Why didn't he allow these refugees to disembark? A thousand people—in America, the great country, the greatest democracy, the most generous of all new nations in modern history. What happened? I don't understand. (86-91)
Elie Wiesel is talking about FDR's response to the St. Louis (which we discuss in the "Timeline" section). When the ship of Jewish refugees arrived in Cuba and was turned away, the captain turned to the United States for help. But FDR and his government didn't help, and while the passengers were eventually granted refuge in various countries in Europe, some 200 were murdered at the hands of the Nazis.
America was built by folks searching for religious freedom, and Wiesel doesn't understand how such a place could turn its back on 1,000 people looking for that same freedom—especially when they'd heard whispers about the kinds of horrors happening in the Nazi-controlled parts of Europe.