Sublime

On en dira du mal, plus tard, de Staline, on le traitera de tyran, on se complaira à dénoncer la terreur qu’il a fait régner, mais pour les gens de la génération d’Édouard il aura été le chef suprême des peuples de l’Union au moment le plus tragique de leur histoire, le vainqueur des nazis, l’homme capable de ce trait, digne de Plutarque : les Alle

when death seems almost certain, one of the most human reactions is a refusal to lie down and let it win.

After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.

Tuvia Bielski was this type of charismatic leader, a man who was obeyed because of his exceptional personal qualities rather than because of official or traditional rights to a position.

The only way to maintain life is resistance.

Typical Layers

The only victory that really counts in prison, an old-timer in the Australian jail once said to me, is survival. But survival means more than simply being alive. It’s not just the body that must survive a jail term: the spirit and the will and the heart have to make it through as well. If any one of them is broken or destroyed, the man whose living