I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.

That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.

I have to be self-conscious of what I'm trying to do with my life.

I've given my life to the principle and the ideal of memory, and remembrance.

Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.

I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction.