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Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Books are the perfect conduit to convey a message to the world. It could be an idea that blossoms into a way of life. It could be a new theory for mankind to explore. It could be a journey of life that few have trod. When you have something to tell, it will simply burst from you and you won’t be able to stop it.”
“I want to be enraged by injustice and let myself mourn for those who are lost. How can we see wrong if we let ourselves go numb?”
After all, they were not only reading books that should be destroyed; they were discussing ideals that Hitler was determined to pull out by the roots, to stamp out of existence until minds were left without free thought.
She wanted to stay in those memories forever, those everyday moments that she had taken for granted. They had been boring then, her thoughts fixed on faults rather than love. It had all been so simple. So perfect.
It whispered to her in the silence, a promise only a book can make to a reader, to offer a journey unique to them, tailored to the path that life had led them.
There was power in literature. Brilliant and undeniable. Books inspired free thought and empathy, an overall understanding and acceptance of everyone. In the pages of books that were burned and banned and ripped apart for pulping, Zofia had found herself. These were the parts of her that were human and strong and loving, parts that understood lives she had never led.
We cannot let the atrocities and persecution of the Jews slip between the cracks of history. We cannot allow education to be stifled or cultures to be erased or books to be banned. Nor can we let the memory of those brave men and women who fought for freedom and what is right disappear in the turning pages of time.
The world also needs to remember to never take for granted what has been gifted to us through the sacrifice of others: the right to an education and learning, the power and luxury of freedom, and the beauty to appreciate the routine of simple, everyday life.
