Inside the Gas Chambers Quotes

“Everything’s going fine and then, all of a sudden, I’m in despair. As soon as I feel a little joy, something inside me closes up immediately. It’s like an inner flaw; I call it “the survivors’ disease.” It’s not typhus, tuberculosis, or the other diseases that people sometimes caught. It’s a disease that gnaws away at us from within and destroys any feeling of joy. I have been dragging it about with me ever since I spent that time suffering in the camp. This disease never leaves me a moment of joy or carefree happiness; it’s a mood that forever erodes my strength.”
― Shlomo Venezia, Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz

“people who suffered in their childhood and had to learn to get by on their own had more of a chance of adapting to life in camp and surviving than did people from privileged backgrounds.”
― Shlomo Venezia, Inside the Gas Chambers: Eight Months in the Sonderkommando of Auschwitz