Vida Neuwirthová

"I think it's good, once we are here, to leave something behind, and not just a trace like 'I was here', but that I did something for society or for people, that it had some significance. And that's what I like so much in the works of Viktor Fischl, who writes that we're not just here as the jesters of someone who created us, but that we have some significance here, and that it's good, while we're still here, to enjoy every stone, every flower around us, of course, but also to do something for somebody else. I can't quite agree with what some people say, that if you do something for somebody else, good things will come back to you. I think for a lot of people that's not the case, that maybe they don't do anything for others and they're living pretty well, but I don't know if their life is that fulfilling. So I think that by doing something for somebody else or by realising that they left a footprint here, I think that then fulfills me as well, that we should be able to do something for somebody else and not expect anything in return."

"Up until about the age of fourteen I lived like a lot of other kids, although it was probably a bit harder at the time, you might not realise that until you're fourteen. And even less so for me, because I was in the Kühn Children's Choir from about the age of five, and we went to a lot of festivals abroad, so I even went many times where many other children and adults didn't get to go. So sometimes when I would ask my dad why he had a number on his hand, he would say with a smile that it was a phone number or that it was a number to heaven. It made me a little angry afterwards that I hadn’t seen through it at the time, how could it be that I was so ignorant that I didn't question it somehow more, but when they're your parents, you live together, you simply trust them. And life was great, so you're not ready for that at all. Back in school, Jewish history was barely talked about, so by then I was still a field unplowed."