Discovering witnesses is just as important as catching criminals.
Justice for crimes against humanity must have no limitations.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Justice for crimes against humanity should be pursued without time limits or barriers.
This quote highlights the belief that accountability for serious injustices, especially those affecting humanity at large, should not be constrained by time. It emphasizes that individuals and systems responsible for crimes against humanity must be held accountable regardless of when the crimes occurred, as the pursuit of justice is a continuous obligation of society to ensure that such atrocities do not repeat themselves.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech advocating for human rights, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of holding perpetrators accountable regardless of the passage of time.
More from Simon Wiesenthal
All quotes βMy cause was justice, not vengeance. My work is for a better tomorrow and a more secure future for our children and grandchildren.
The schools would fail through their silence, the Church through its forgiveness, and the home through the denial and silence of the parents. The new generation has to hear what the older generation refuses to tell it.
We know that we are not collectively guilty, so how can we accuse any other nation, no matter what some of its people have done, of being collectively guilty?
Human rights is the only ideology that deserves to survive
You're a religious man, ... You believe in God and life after death. I also believe. When we come to the other world and meet the millions of Jews who died in the camps and they ask us, 'What have you done?' there will be many answers. You will say, 'I became a jeweler.' Another will say, 'I smuggled coffee and American cigarettes.' Another will say, 'I built houses.' But I will say, 'I didn't forget you.'
Similar quotes
It is not a charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together
To exclude all jurors who would be in the slightest way effected by the prospect of the death penalty would be to deprive the defendant of the impartial jury to which he or she is entitled under the law.
A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.
Are whisper networks good? That question itself is a little flat. Whisper networks arise in a vacuum of justice. They alleviate an untenable condition; they do not actually address it.
So much of America's tragic and costly failure to care for all its children stems from our tendency to distinguish between our own children and other people's children--as if justice were divisible.
Justice, even if slow, is sure.