Part Three

THE KILLING GROUNDS

 

The young are attracted by violence. They see in it an instrument of liberation and progress. And it is true that violence is a form of strength and that one can try to employ it. But it contains the seeds of corruption. It affects all who use it and it degrades the objective which you are seeking to attain. There is no possible argument about this. It is sufficient merely to stand here and listen, in your mind, to the cry uttered by a man or woman at the moment when they were no more than a step away from the door of the extermination chamber and you will be turned away, for ever, from the idea of finding in violence the least spark of light or the least element of justice.

(From an address given by Giscard d’Estaing at the site of the Nazi death camp at Buchenwald)