“Auschwitz cannot be explained.”

— Imre Kertész, book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

And yet, it doesn’t take a Wittgenstein to notice that the sentence is faulty even from the point of pure linguistic logic;
Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update May 22, 2020. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Auschwitz cannot be explained." by Imre Kertész?

Imre Kertész61

Hungarian writer 1929–2016

Related quotes

“By way of that wretched sentence "Auschwitz cannot be explained" is the wretched author explaining that we should be silent concerning Auschwitz, that Auschwitz doesn’t exist, or, rather, that it didn’t, for the only facts that cannot be explained are those that don’t or didn’t exist.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“"Auschwitz cannot be explained." And yet, it doesn’t take a Wittgenstein to notice that the sentence is faulty even from the point of pure linguistic logic;”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“The sentence "Auschwitz cannot be explained" is faulty simply from a formal point of view, for anything that is has an explanation, even if by necessity a merely self-serving faulty, so so explanation.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“Paradoxes explain everything. Since they do, they cannot be explained.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Volume 1, Ch. 9
Fiction, The Book of the Short Sun (1999–2001)

“Someday I will understand Auschwitz. This was a brave statement but innocently absurd. No one will ever understand Auschwitz.”

William Styron book Sophie's Choice

Source: Sophie's Choice (1979), Ch. 16

“It seemed as impossible to conceive of Auschwitz with God as to conceive of Auschwitz without God. Therefore, everything had to be reassessed because everything had changed. With one stroke, mankind's achievements seemed to have been erased. Was Auschwitz a consequence or an aberration of "civilization"? All we know is that Auschwitz called that civilization into question as it called into question everything that had preceded Auschwitz. Scientific abstraction, social and economic contention, nationalism, xenophobia, religious fanaticism, racism, mass hysteria. All found their ultimate expression in Auschwitz.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

“Gravity explains the motions of the planets, but it cannot explain who sets the planets in motion.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

“Auschwitz, I told her, appears to me in the image of a father; yes, the two terms, Auschwitz, and father, resonate the same echoes in me, and if the observation is that God is an exalted father, then God, too is revealed to me in the image of Auschwitz.”

Imre Kertész book Kaddish for an Unborn Child

Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)

“If something has an explanation, you can explain it. If it has no explanation, you should explain why you cannot explain it.”

Carlos Gershenson (1978) Mexican researcher

Source: Artificial Societies of Intelligent Agents (2001), p. 19

“Death cannot explain itself. The earnestness consists precisely in this, that the observer must explain it to himself.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Pap VI B 120:13 1845
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s