A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis. CHAPTER 1: INDIFFERENCE (Part 30). This blog is a speech by Elie Wiesel
A SPEECH THAT CHANGED THE WORLD: ELIE WIESEL
In Speeches That Changed the World: The Stories and Transcripts of the Moments That Made History Elie Wiesel spoke at the 7th White House Millennium Evening on 12 April 1999.
In 1944 the Nazis arrived and ‘cleansed’ Sighet of its Jews
Elie Wiesel is a writer famous for his witness to the sufferings suffered by Jews in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. He was born in 1928 in Sighet, Transylvania, now part of Romania, and grew up in a Jewish community where Yiddish was his first language. Elie studied classical Hebrew from a very early age and religion was central to his life. In 1944 the Nazis arrived and ‘cleansed’ Sighet of its Jews, deporting them en masse to concentration camps. On arrival at Auschwitz, he was separated from his mother and younger sister and never saw them again. He and his father managed to stay together but suffered terrible hardship, being used as slave labor, and starved and beaten. They were moved to Buchenwald where Elie’s father perished from malnutrition, exposure and dysentery just before Buchenwald was liberated by the allies in 1945.
An accident changed the course of his life
Elie was taken to Paris, where he studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and worked as a Hebrew teacher and choirmaster. He became a professional journalist, writing articles for French and Israeli newspapers. For ten years he wrote nothing about the war but eventually he drew on the experiences of his early life in his writing. In 1956 an accident changed the course of his life. Wiesel was knocked down by a taxi in New York and suffered injuries that confined him to a wheelchair for nearly a year. He applied for American citizenship and stayed in New York, becoming a feature writer for Der Forverts, a Yiddish newspaper. His first book, La Nuit,published in 1958, recounts his experience of life in the concentration camps. Other books were to follow: L’Aube (‘Dawn’), Le Jour (translated as ‘The Accident’), and La Ville de la Chance (‘The Town Beyond the Wall’). He also published plays, several other novels, essays and short stories.
In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Elie Wiesel is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Boston University and has served as Chairman of the US Holocaust Memorial Council. In 1986, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. With his wife Marion he founded the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. ‘The Perils of Indifference’ was given to an invited audience at the White House. Hillary Clinton, wife of President Bill Clinton, introduced Wiesel, saying, ‘You have taught us never to forget. You have made sure that we always listen to the victims of indifference, hatred and evil.’
He addressed President Clinton and the US Congress in April 1999
as well as being a devoted supporter of Israel, Elie Wiesel has spoken out for oppressed minorities elsewhere, including the Soviet Jews, the ‘disappeared’ of Argentina, refugees from Cambodia, the Kurds, native Indians in Nicaragua and famine victims. In this speech, addressing President Clinton and the US Congress in April 1999, he drew on his own experiences to highlight the plight of oppressed and disadvantaged people throughout the world.