Oskar Gruener Quotes

“He was my father, and I wanted to believe him, but I wasn’t so sure anymore. It was January 1941. The Germans ruled Kraków. I was twelve years old. And for the first time in my life, I had begun to doubt my father.”

“My father reached up to hold my mother’s hand. ‘We must not lose faith, Moshe.’ ‘See how easy it is to keep your faith when the Nazis take it away along with everything else,’ Moshe told him.”

“Let them take everything. They cannot take who we are.”

“You are now responsible for your own sins, but also for your own goodness. Remember what the Talmud teaches: Life is but a river. It has no beginning, no middle, no end. All we are, all we are worth, is what we do while we float upon it—how we treat our fellow man. Remember this, and a good man you will be.”