The Boy on the Wooden Box Quotes

“One time when we were in Płaszów a guard struck my mother on the side of her head with a wood plank. The blow permanently shattered her eardrum. She said that for the rest of her life she could hear her two murdered sons calling to her in that ear.”
― Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible . . . on Schindler's List

“Maybe I hadn’t really been ready to speak about my experiences until so many
years later, or maybe people hadn’t really been ready to listen, or maybe both.”
― Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box

“Through the barbed-wire fences surrounding the camp, I could look out and sometimes see the children of the German officers strutting back and forth, wearing their Hitler Youth uniforms and singing songs praising the Führer, Adolf Hitler. They were so exuberant, so full of life, while just a few yards away from them I was exhausted”
― Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible . . . on Schindler's List

“At the beginning of December 1939, the Nazis decreed Jews could no longer attend school.”
― Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible . . . on Schindler's List

“As a Jewish kid during those times, I fought to live every day. I didn't have a choice. As an influential Nazi, Schindler did have a choice. Countless times he could have abandoned us, taken his fortune, and fled. He could have decided that his life depended on working us to death but he didn't. Instead, he put his own life in danger every time he protected us for no other reason than it was the right thing to do. I am not a philosopher, but I believe that Oskar Schindler defines heroism. He proves that one person can stand up to evil and make a difference. I am living proof of that. I recall a television interview I once saw with scholar and writer Joseph Campbell. I've never forgotten his definition of a hero. Campbell said that a hero is an ordinary human being who does "the best of things in the worst of times". Oskar Schindler personifies that definition.”
― Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box

“- No puedes sentarte ahí -dijo-. Los asientos traseros son para los negros. Tienes que cambiarte a la parte delantera.
Sus palabras me golpearon como una bofetada. De repente retrocedí en el tiempo hasta Cracovia, cuando los nazis ordenaron que los judíos nos sentáramos en los asientos traseros de los tranvías (antes de prohibirnos directamente viajar en transporte público). El contexto era muy diferente, pero de todos modos casi hizo explotar mi cabeza. ¿Por qué existía algo así en los Estados Unidos? Yo habría creído, erróneamente, que esa clase de discriminación estaba destinada únicamente a los judíos durante el régimen nazi. Ahora descubriría que la inequidad y el prejuicio existía también en ese país que yo habría aprendido a amar”
― Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box

“The Nazi businessman whose safe he cracked, who had just hired him, was Oskar Schindler.”
― Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible . . . on Schindler's List

“Cand veti creste mari, copii
Veti intelege
Cate lacrimi ascund literele
Si cat bocet”
― Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box

“Eu nu sunt filozof, dar cred că Oskar Schindler reprezintă definiția eroismului. El este dovada că un singur om poate da piept cu raul și poate produce o schimbare. Eu sunt dovada vie a acestui lucru.”
― Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box

“Nunca olvidé su definición de héroe. Campbell dijo que un héroe es 'un ser humano común y corriente que hace lo mejor en las peores circunstancias'.”
― Leon Leyson, Marilyn J. Harran, Elisabeth B. Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box

“MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF PŁASZÓW as hell on earth never changed. I only needed one look to see that this was an entirely foreign place. No matter how difficult life had been in the ghetto, at least outwardly it had appeared a familiar world. Yes, we were packed like sardines into too few rooms, but those rooms were in normal apartment buildings. There were streets and sidewalks and the sounds of a city beyond the walls.”
― Leon Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box: How the Impossible Became Possible . . . on Schindler's List

“Yo, un chico judío, tenia que luchar para vivir todos los días en aquellos tiempos. No tenia otra opción. Él, un nazi con mucho poder, sí tenía opciones. Pudo habernos abandonado incontables veces, pudo haber huido llevándose su fortuna. Pudo haber decidido que su vida dependía de hacernos trabajar hasta morir, pero no lo hizo. En cambio, puso su propia vida en peligro cada vez que nos protegía, sin otra razón que porque era lo correcto. No soy un filósofo, pero creo que Oskar Schindler es la definición del heroísmo, Demostró que una persona puede hacer frente al mal y hacer la diferencia.”
― Leon Leyson, Marilyn J. Harran, Elisabeth B. Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box

“(...) que tenía una inscripción del talmund en hebreo 'Aquel que salva una vida, salva al mundo entero'.”
― Leon Leyson, Marilyn J. Harran, Elisabeth B. Leyson, The Boy on the Wooden Box