Concentration camp Quote by Anonymous
““ANDRÉ: . . . And when I was at Findhorn I met this extraordinary English tree expert who had devoted himself to saving trees, and he’d just got back from Washington lobbying to save the Redwoods. And he was eighty-four years old, and he always travels with a backpack because he never knows where he’s going to be tomorrow. And when I met him at Findhorn he said to me, “Where are you from?” And I said, “New York.” And he said, “Ah, New York, yes, that’s a very interesting place. Do you know a lot of New Yorkers who keep talking about the fact that they want to leave, but never do?” And I said, “Oh, yes.” And he said, “Why do you think they don’t leave?” And I gave him different banal theories. And he said, “Oh, I don’t think it’s that way at all.” He said, “I think that New York is the new model for the new concentration camp, where the camp has been built by the inmates themselves, and the inmates are the guards, and they have this pride in this thing that they’ve built—they’ve built their own prison—and so they exist in a state of schizophrenia where they are both guards and prisoners. And as a result they no longer have—having been lobotomized—the capacity to leave the prison they’ve made or even to see it as a prison.” And then he went into his pocket, and he took out a seed for a tree, and he said, “This is a pine tree.” And he put it in my hand. And he said, “Escape before it’s too late.””
About This Quote
Source Speech: Interview at Findhorn, 2010s
The speaker describes how people can become trapped in their own self‑imposed prisons, unable to see or leave them, likening it to a concentration camp built by its inmates.
In simple terms: People can create mental prisons that keep them stuck.
Recognize and break free from self‑imposed limits.
Themes
Mood
Type
When to use this quote
- personal reflection
- urban planning
- mental health
- community activism
Key Concepts
Questions to Reflect On
- Do you feel trapped by your environment?
- How can you identify your own mental prisons?
The metaphor may over‑simplify complex socioeconomic factors.