First Quote Added
April 10, 2026
Latest Quote Added
"I am Bielski."
"I thought you were dead."
"If we should die trying to live, at least we live like human beings"
"We're family. We have to stick together"
"We are the Bielski's and we WILL be back!"
"We go here, Lazar. You only say 'halt, who goes there' when you don't know who goes there. We go there."
"[After shooting a rebelling subordinate dead in front of the group and is holding the other rebels at gunpoint] As long as I am leader of this group, you will obey my commands. There will be no complaining, no sitting, no doing nothing. [Turns to the rest of the refugees, who are staring at what just happened] Anyone who wants to leave, leave now! [Turns back to the rebels] Take his body into the woods, leave it for the wolves. Do it now. [The men do as Tuvia orders]"
"Our revenge is to live."
"Nothing is impossible, what we all have done is impossible!"
"What is it we are good for, Viktor? Dying."
"[outside the gas chamber] This process of cleaning and disinfecting is of vital importance to your health! One louse can kill you! Cleanliness brings freedom! The sooner you shower, the sooner you'll be fed and reunited with your families. There'll be a bowl of hot soup waiting for all of you!"
"[talking to the girl who survived the gas chamber] I used to think so much of myself... What I'd make of my life. We can't know what we're capable of, any of us. How can you know what you'd do to stay alive, until you're really asked? I know this now. For most of us, the answer... is anything. It's so easy to forget who we were before... who we'll never be again. There was this old man, he pushed the carts, and on our first day, when we had to burn our own convoy, his wife was brought up on the elevator. Then his daughter... and then both his grandchildren. I knew him. We were neighbors. And in 20 minutes, his whole family, and all its future, was gone from this earth. Two weeks later, he took pills and was revived. We smothered him with his own pillow, and now I know why. You can kill yourself. That's the only choice. I want them to save you. I want them to save you more than I want anything. I pray to God we save you."
"I've seen them strike the ones that are slow getting in (the gas chamber). They steal, lie to each other. I never fully despised the Jews until I experienced how easily they could be persuaded to do the work here. To do it so well. And to their own people! They'll be dead by week's end, every soul. And we'll replace them with others no different. Do you know how easy that will be?"
"After the revolt, half the ovens remain, and we are carried to them together. I catch fire, quickly. The first part of me rises, in dense smoke, that mingles with the smoke of others. Then there are the bones, which settle in ash, and these are swept up to be carried to the river. And last, bits of our dust, that simply float there, in air, around the working of the new group... These bits of dust are grey. We settle on their shoes, and on their faces, and in their lungs. And they become so used to us, that soon they don't cough, and they don't brush us away. At this point, they are just moving, breathing and moving, like anyone else, still alive in that place. And this is how the work... continues."
"For the name of the life, Never say never."
"In life, all the impossible things can change to possible ones. Just by two things: MONEY and POWER."
"The legends are beautiful because they are not real. But the reality is not beautiful."
"[to Fattahi] You can deny the sunlight. You can deny the movement of the moon. But don't deny my love."
"Beautiful woman? Say miserable woman."
"If a man can't live well, then at the aleast he can die well."
"I'll forgive you but I won't forget it."
"I love you instead of all the things I wasn't in love of them."
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.