Bearing Witness

All writings after Night, including those that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear its stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works, just as the past lingers in the ________.

The author questions whether he wrote to avoid madness or to embrace it, seeking to understand the 'immense, terrifying madness' that had erupted in history and in the ________ of mankind.

The author reflects on whether his survival was a result of a miracle, but ultimately concludes it was likely ________, and that he needed to give some meaning to that survival by writing.

The author says that his life as a writer would not have become what it is without his ________, which led him to feel morally obligated.

The Nazis' goal shifted from excluding Jews from society to erasing their existence from memory, leading to actions like the ________ disinterment and burning of corpses in Eastern Europe.

The author observed language becoming an ________, making it necessary to invent a new way to articulate the horrors he witnessed because the existing words had been 'betrayed and perverted by the enemy'.

The journey in sealed cattle cars and the discovery of a demented universe transformed the author's understanding of humanity, making ________ seem human.

The author felt that his testimony would not be fully received because it deals with events that sprang from the 'darkest zone of ________'.

The author notes that any one of the fields of ashes in ________ carries more weight than all the testimonies about it.

Despite numerous cuts, the original Yiddish version was long; ________ edited and further cut the French version because the author worried that some things might be superfluous; substance alone mattered.

The author realized the ordeal was underpinned and influenced by their belief in God, trust in man, and the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark from the ________ flame.

The author expresses deep regret that he didn't respond to his father's cries for help, remaining deaf to his calls due to ________ of the blows.

The author says without his testimony his life as a writer would not have become what it is, that of a ________ who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory.

The Nazis decided to leave behind a world in ruins in which ________ would seem never to have existed.

The war which Hitler and his accomplices waged was a war not only against Jewish men, women, and children, but also against Jewish ________, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, therefore Jewish memory.

Painfully aware of my limitations, I watched helplessly as language became an ________.

Writing in my mother tongue, close to ________, I would pause at every sentence, and start over and over again.

All the ________ had to offer seemed meager, pale, lifeless.

The author asks if men and women who consider it normal to assist the weak, to heal the sick, to protect small children, and to respect the wisdom of their elders understand what ________ there.

For despite all attempts to articulate the unspeakable, 'it' is still not ________.

The manuscript was rejected by every major publisher, despite the tireless efforts of ________.

In the original Yiddish texts there were passages that had more on the ________ of the author's father and on the Liberation.

The author heard his father's voice, grasped the ________ dimension of the moment, yet I did not move.

The author was afraid of the ________ in the camp.

The author was angry with his father for having been ________, for having cried, for provoking the wrath of the SS.

The author says he will never forgive himself for his actions, nor shall he ever forgive the world for having pushed him against the wall, for having turned him into a ________.

The author needed to give some ________ to his survival.

Special units would then ________ the corpses and burn them.

Would they be able to comprehend how, within that cursed universe, the masters ________ the weak and massacred the children, the sick, and the old?

Knowing all the while that any one of the fields of ashes in Birkenau carries more ________ than all the testimonies about Birkenau.