Do Not Give Hitler Posthumous Victories
Holocaust survivor Emil Fackenheim created this concept and advocated it as what he believed to be the "614th commandment" or "614th mitzvah." The often paraphrased idea behind that name represents an imperative that people must not act in ways that validate Hitler or his beliefs. He asserted that this should be an addition to Jewish Talmudic Law, a claim that meets strong opposition in some quarters. Despite the controversy over this part of Fackenheim's claim, the content of his message is a subject of serious dialogue both within and beyond the Jewish community. Opposition to the goals of Hitler is a moral touchstone that has implications for several sensitive issues.
Read more about this topic: Emil Fackenheim
Famous quotes containing the words give, hitler, posthumous and/or victories:
“Were that enough, bone, blood, and sinew,
The twisted brain, the fair-formed loin,
Groping for matter under the dog’s plate,
Man should be cured of distemper.
For all there is to give I offer:
Crumbs, barn, and halter.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“All the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown?... U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atomic bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
““... Knowledge he shall unwind
Through victories of the mind,
Till, clambering at the cradle-side,
He dreams himself his mother’s pride,
All knowledge lost in trance
Of sweeter ignorance.””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)