Elie Wiesel Monologue

Elie Wiesel, a Noble Peace Prize winner and Boston University Professor, presented a speech as part of the Millennium Lecture Series at the White House on April 12, 1999. President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton hosted the formal event. Numerous government officials from a wide order of public, private and foreign office attended the event. Although Elie Wiesel designed his speech to persuade, it actually felt somewhat outside from its orignal intended purpose, as being more different.

The book Night opens in the town of Signet where Elie Wiesel, the author ,

Nobel Prize Winner, Elie Wiesel in his powerful speech, The Perils of Indifference, claims that the greater evils that lay within indifference are far worse than what any anger or hatred could ever accomplish. He develops his message by highlighting past tragedies and where he holds indifference. The meaning of the word as well as where it ranks among other words of war. Wiesel explains that “to be indifferent to that suffering is what makes the human being inhuman.” and that “Indifference is not a beginning, it is an end”. All wrapped in a serious tone throughout the speech to keep us immersed in history. Wiesel’s purpose is to criticize mistakes we’ve made in the past situations like his in order to bring about change in our actions to be a better people. He establishes a serious tone for readers by using stylistic devices(and/or rhetorical devices such as metaphor, hyperbole, and personification in order to develop his message that we have room for improvement and just because we’ve done some honorable deeds doesn’t mean that we should settle at that.

Night is a brutally honest memoir of much of Elie Wiesel’s childhood. When Wiesel was young he was very devoted to his Religion, asking questions and reading scripture. When the trains were loaded Wiesel no longer had the words to express his disdain. After setting foot in Auschwitz Wiesel felt abandoned by god and no longer believed God was not righteous. Rightful decision he watched children burn, men get shot, women disappear to never return. Despite all this Wiesel never truly lost his religion explaining “I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.”(45,Wiesel). As time passes faith was restored and like many Holocaust survivors Wiesel is still Jewish and was proud to tell the world about it to the day he died.

Amel shook his head, sighing. He looked disappointed. I had finally quelled the happiness in him. Or, so I thought, until he gave me a small smile. "I'm sure living here for as long as you have has been taxing. The people here are so sad and violent, but they don't want to listen, Cerin. Hope, joy, and love... they don't have to hide very well here. There are so many distractions, so many fake things they tell themselves, that any virtue is easily covered up. God could give us so much food, we'd never ever starve, or so enough money for absolutely everyone to live in a nice house, or even heal all the sick and raise our dead loved ones, and we still wouldn't believe in Him. But He shouldn't even have to do any of that, He already made us, and

Night by Elie Wiesel is a memoir about the Holocaust, that goes through step by step of the traumatic experiences of Elie Wiesel’s life. Holocaust is a word meaning to sacrifice by fire. It started when the Nazis came to power in january 1933. The Holocaust was a gruesome, brutal, and vicious state-sponsored oppression and killing of six million Jews by the Nazi regime. The Nazis, believed they were rationally superior and the Jews were inferior which cause the murder of millions of people. Since Wiesel’s experiences in the Holocaust were unimaginable, Elie lost his faith in God, himself, and humanity all together.

1.If you were stripped of your freedom and individuality to be held in a camp waiting to die would you feel indifferent. Elie Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Boston University Professor, presented a speech as part of the Millennium Lecture Series at the White House on April 12, 1999 2.(Wiesel 221). President Bill Clinton and his wife Hillary Clinton hosted the formal event. Numerous government officials from a wide order of public, private and foreign office attended the event 2.(Wiesel 221). Although Elie Wiesel designed his speech to persuade, it actually felt somewhat outside from its original intended purpose, as being more different.

Elie Wiesel’s quote is important to me and many of my peers because he lets us know that it does not require a lot to be done for the right thing to happen or the best moral choice to be done. In the quote he says, “... there is always a moment when the moral choice is made. Often because of one story or one book or one person, we are able to make a different choice, a choice for humanity, for life”. For me, my grandmother, a woman who positively contributes to her city, country, and community, has influenced my ethical decision making. Anyone who knows my grandmother knows she is a woman who has strong morals. When I was young she gave me talks about doing the right thing just because it is the right thing to do.

World War II, one of the largest conflicts in human history took the lives of approximately six million Jews. Those who were fortunate enough to survive walked away as changed human beings. They walked away questioning their very being and struggling with the memories of what they had experienced. Elie Wiesel, the narrator and author of the novel Night, was one of few Jews who survived the war; however, the atmosphere and the horrors of the concentration camps make Elie question his religious teachings, and slowly deteriorated his belief in god. In time this conflict slowly undermines everything Elie has learned from his community which in result causes him to ask questions and more importantly ask the right questions.

Suffering. Pain. Misery. Death. All the negative thoughts in human minds, many that we never want to face. Pain can take a toll on you, physically and mentally. Yet, imagine someone facing those hardships in reality, what if it was reality that we never wanted to face; so we pushed it to its limits? Elie Wiesel was one of the many to face this tragic reality in Auschwitz, in the Concentration Camps, during the Holocaust...The pain of the Holocaust, the suffering of being ripped apart from your loved ones, to the mental and physical scars left by not only the S.S officers; but the horrors seen from the eyes of the purest souls. In the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, Elie opens up the locked chest in his heart to tell us the horrifying experience that brought many to tears, otherwise known as The Concentration Camps and how it completely transformed Elie into a new person.

I believe that Rebecca Skloot included this quote from Elie Wiesel as it represents how important each person really is. This quote says that every person is different and inside of them is something special, their own personal hopes and fears. This quote comes from a man who spent time in a concentration camp as a number, and being labeled doesn't make you feel very special, such is the case with the HeLa cells. The cells, which came from a real person, were labeled in such a way that whose they were didn't matter, the same as the number given to the Jewish people in the Holocaust. The quote also goes on to mention how each person wants to triumph, to succeed in whatever their goal may be. For Elie this may have been to survive and help

In Elie Wiesel's speech he touches on the topics of the causes, effects, and lessons from the holocaust, our duties as a human being, and finally how we can achieve peace for ourselves and everyone around the globe. In paragraph eight he states that, “…the world did know and remain silent.” Wiesel is referring to the general public of Germany as a whole. Wiesel also says that, “And action is the only remedy to indifference: the most insidious danger of all.” Which simply says by not doing anything this was allowed to happen. You can link that to how German citizens not spreading the word or opposed Hitler. How was Hitler so effective in getting all the Jew and other “undesirables”? German citizens would point the authorities to the Jews, homosexuals,

“For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify his name? The almighty, eternal and terrible master of the universe chose to be silent. What was there to thank him for?”. (Wiesel 33) “Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity of the desire to live.” (Wiesel 22). These quotes from Elie Wiesel’s book “Night” directs us into a theme about being stripped of faith and exposed to the evil of this world. He and his father are sent to Hitler’s concentration camp “Auschwitz-Birkenan” with many other prisoners. During the beginning, Elie Wiesel prayed to God every night, but after the holocaust, he was shaken by evil and started to think God has left everyone, even after all they prayed to him. In Jewish mysticism, God is everywhere in the world and everything reflects his goodness. If God is good, then that means the whole world is also

Over six million Jews were killed in the brutal events of the Holocaust. Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the horrible event, has recalled his story in his memoir Night. Elie and his father are Jewish, meaning, they practice the religion of Judaism. Judaism is a monotheistic religion based off the teaching of the Torah. In Night, there is a shift in Elies religious beliefs throughout the memoir. The change in his beliefs had a lasting effect on Elie and his survival though the Holocaust. Throughout the many concentration camps Elie and his father lived in, many other prisoners faced the same dilemma of keeping their faith.

The role of witnesses like Elie Wiesel is to remind us the he saw how cultured the Europeans degradedand murdered so many. Also he showed us to fight the amoral indifference in this world. That others stood bydoing nothing. They did nothing to combat the suffering of those being persecuted. If we don’t remember thosewho died being tortured and still alive after it and we don’t try to prevent it from happening again we risk becomingguilty of collaboration with the