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:
“I thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on,—s’pose you’d a done right and give Jim up; would you felt better than what you do now? No, says I, I’d feel bad—I’d feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says I, what’s the use you learning to do right, when it’s troublesome to do right and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“I hate Science. It denies a man’s responsibility for his own deeds, abolishes the brotherhood that springs from God’s fatherhood. It is a hectoring, dictating expertise, which makes the least lovable of the Church Fathers seem liberal by contrast. It is far easier for a Hitler or a Stalin to find a mock- scientific excuse for persecution than it was for Dominic to find a mock-Christian one.”
—Basil Bunting (1900–1985)
“One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
“And, “Better defeat almost,
If seen clear,
Than life’s victories of doubt
That need endless talk-talk
To make them out.””
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)