Perfection Belongs To Narrated Events,

I Beg The Reader Not To Go In Search Of Messages. It Is A Term That I Detest Because It Distresses Me Greatly, For It Forces On Me Clothes That Are Not Mine, Which In Fact Belong To A Human Type That I Distrust; The Prophet, The Soothsayer, The Seer. I Am None Of These; I'm A Normal Man With A Good Memory Who Fell Into A Maelstrom And Got Out Of It More By Luck Than By Virtue, And Who From That Time On Has Preserved A Certain Curiosity About Maelstroms Large And Small, Metaphorical And Actual.

Conquering Matter Is To Understand It, And Understanding Matter Is Necessary To Understanding The Universe And Ourselves: And That Therefore Mendeleev's Periodic Table, Which Just During Those Weeks We Were Learning To Unravel, Was Poetry.

It Is Neither Easy Nor Agreeable To Dredge This Abyss Of Viciousness, And Yet I Think It Must Be Done, Because What Could Be Perpetrated Yesterday Could Be Attempted Again Tomorrow, Could Overwhelm Us And Our Children. One Is Tempted To Turn Away With A Grimace And Close One's Mind: This Is A Temptation One Must Resist. In Fact, The Existence Of The Death Squads Had A Meaning, A Message: 'we, The Master Race, Are Your Destroyers, But You Are No Better Than We Are; If We So Wish, And We Do So Wish, We Can Destroy Not Only Your Bodies, But Also Your Souls, Just As We Have Destroyed Ours.

To Accuse Another Of Having Weak Kidneys, Lungs, Or Heart, Is Not A Crime; On The Contrary, Saying He Has A Weak Brain Is A Crime. To Be Considered Stupid And To Be Told So Is More Painful Than Being Called Gluttonous, Mendacious, Violent, Lascivious, Lazy, Cowardly: Every Weakness, Every Vice, Has Found Its Defenders, Its Rhetoric, Its Ennoblement And Exaltation, But Stupidity Hasn't.

Those Who Deny Auschwitz Would Be Ready To Remake It.