Protecting the Excluded From the Horrors of Genocide
The crime of genocide is a horrible, despicable crime, though many have fallen victim to it throughout the years.Their voices silenced forever, leaving the world with few records of their experiences. Elie Wiesel, author and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, survived the Holocaust. His family members and friends were victims of this genocide. He captures in his memoir, Night, the grim feeling of suffering during the Holocaust when he reports, “Not a sound of distress, not a plaintive cry, nothing but a sound of mass agony and silence.” (89) At the time of the Holocaust, genocide had not been defined, but when the definition came out, it became apparent that the definition only protected
Wiesel is effective with his speech by connecting exaggeration within his revelation. He questions the guilt and responsibility for past massacres, pointing specifically at the Nazi’s while using historical facts, such as bloodbaths in Cambodia, Algeria, India, and Pakistan to include incidents on a larger level such as Auschwitz to provide people with a better idea (Engelhardt, 2002). He is effective in putting together the law and society’s need for future actions against indifference by stating, “In the place I come from, society was composed of three simple categories: the killer, the victims, and the bystanders” 7.(Wiesel 223).
The Horrific Events of the Holocaust The Holocaust was one of the most notorious acts of genocide in modern history. Wiesel tells the reader about all the these acts that he went through his book Night. During Wiesel’s trials and suffering that he endured through the genocide, Wiesel had to have hope that he would make it out alive and tell his story: “Don’t lose hope...have faith in life, a thousand times faith...help each other.
The mass killings of entire races are important events to recognize and understand so that history won't repeat itself. One genocide that was clearly documented was the Holocaust. Ellie Wiesel was a survivor of the Holocaust who wrote a fluent account of his experience in the camps in his memoir Night. In the memoir, Wiesel creates an articulate style with the use of a few style devices which help portray his narrative clearly.
As we all know, genocide is a ruthless thing that we have in this world. You may question yourself and say why would anyone ever want to hurt a mass amount of people based on their differences, well I am going to tell you why. In Elie Wiesels Night, we follow the story of a young Elie and his father living in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. In this essay, I will be comparing the Holocaust and my chosen genocide I have researched the Rwandan genocide. “Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.”
To inaugurate, the author’s speech has had such an extraordinary impact on the audience of 1999, Wiesel's words still leave people in awe in the 21st century. Furthermore, eighteen years earlier from The Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide occurred in 1915, which was considered one of the most gruesome and brutal genocide of the century. One and a half million Armenians were killed between the span of eight years. Additionally, similar to The Holocaust it was a bloodbath, many innocent were left for dead. In 1915, leaders of the Turkish government set in motion a plan to expel and massacre Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire. According to Armenian National Institute, “Armenian Genocide” The Young Turk government took precautions and imposed restrictions on reporting and photographing, there were lots of foreigners in the Ottoman Empire who witnessed the deportations. This profound statement highlights Wiesel's key message, that indifference is dangerous. They did not want to publish any information about the matter, many were told to not take photos nor speak about it; hence, leads to the fact that the matter was kept incognito. This continues to Wiesel's point of indifference because they ignored what was happening, which made violence grow. Consequently, “[N]o strong actions were taken against the Ottoman Empire either
He was finally free, no joy filled his heart but abandonment was drowning it. How dangerous is indifference to humankind as it pertains to suffering and the need for conscience understanding when people are faced with unjust behaviors? Elie Wiesel is an award winning author and novelist who has endured and survived hardships. One of the darkest times in history, a massacre of over six million Jews, the Holocaust and Hitler himself. After the Holocaust he went on and wrote the internationally acclaimed memoir “Night,” in which he spoke out against persecution and injustice across the world. In the compassionate yet pleading speech, ¨Perils of Indifference,¨ Elie Wiesel analyzes the injustices that himself and others endured during the twentieth century, as well as the hellish acts of the Holocaust through effective rhetorical choices.
Unfortunately, although Elie Wiesel and much of the world hoped nothing like the Holocaust would ever happen again, there have been other cases of genocide later after the Holocaust. For example, in the year 1991, the “The Bosnian War and Srebrenica Genocide” took place (“The Bosnian War”). In 1991, “Yugoslavia began to break up along ethnic lines,” causing a surge of ethnic groups trying to seize the power in government (“The Bosnian War”). When the republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared their independence in 1992 the region quickly became the center of the fighting. In the article “The Bosnian War and Srebrenica Genocide” the “Serbs” were a group who rapidly rose to power by taking up “90 percent” of the military, and by also oppressing any other ethnic group that to them “posed a threat to their rights” In addition the article “The Bosnian War and Srebrenica Genocide” it states that the height of the killing took place in July 1995. When 8,000 Bosniaks were killed in what became known as the Srebrenica genocide, the largest massacre in Europe.” Despite, all the mass killings, most of the world
During this time, the people of Germany were trained to believe that there are other human beings that were of lesser quality than them. People like Adolf Hitler, wanted all the Jews eradicated. He was able to convince enough people that Jewish people are to blame for Germany’s loss of World War I. Hitler enlisted the help of men from Germany to help persecute all the Jewish people. The Jews got treated like their life was worthless and insignificant compared to the Christian Germans. The discrimination done to the Jewish people was more than just simple acts of violence. The Germans truly believed that the Jews deserved this punishment. The dehumanization done during the Holocaust affected the life of many people. One life in particular is Eliezer Wiesel. In his frightening novel Night, Eliezer Wiesel shows how the Nazis degraded millions of innocent people. He shares his experiences in a Jewish death camp called, Auschwitz. In this best selling novel he tells how he was demoralized into something that was less than human. He did not even recognize himself by the end of his journey. “When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy… Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion or political views, that place must-- at that moment-- become the center of the universe” (Nobel Peace Prize). Through his book and his participation in the Jewish community he wants to ensure that
The Holocaust was not only a way for the Nazis to purge the Jews, it was also a movement for a new way of thinking, that as long as the person in front of you holds a military-grade firearm there is nothing you can do to change your fate. In the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel recounts his journey through life in nazi concentration camps. Elie struggles with his faith and morality as he and his father witness the horrors of the Holocaust. Night reveals that it’s in human nature to hope for survival through religion and faith, however it can also fail in the most trying of circumstances when you have to relent to authoritarianism.
Although the world continues to face tragedy, little compares to that of the horrors millions of innocent Jews like Elie Wiesel faced, as they were deported from their homes, separated from their families and pushed around into different concentration camps where they were brutally tortured, killed, and discarded of by Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany Army beginning in 1941. It wasn’t until April of 1945 that Elie along with the limited number of other survivors were finally liberated. This mid 20th century atrocity has come to be known as the Holocaust, a tragic part of history that will never be forgotten. It was because of that experience, that Elie Wiesel extensively depicted the events he faced through written and verbal accounts including the speech he gave entitled “The Perils of Indifference” on April 12, 1999. The speech was given at the 7th Millennium Evening at the White House, with an intent to create a kairotic moment with the public including the audiences it was broadcasted to, as an opportunity to explain a darker side of history, while also hopefully enlightening them for the future.
Writer, Elie Wiesel in his metaphorical speech “The perils of Indifference” argues that the future will never know the agony of the Holocaust and they will never understand the tragedy of the horrific terror in Germany. Wiesel wants people to not let this happen but at the time many modern genocides that are occurring and people shouldn’t be focused on just the Holocaust, they should focus on making this world a better place; moreover, Wiesel expresses his thoughts about all the genocides that has happen throughout the years. He develops his message through in an horrifying event that took place 54 years ago the day “ The perils of Indifference” was published. Wiesel illustrates the indifferences of good vs evil. He develops this message
The Holocaust is widely known as one of the most horrendous and disturbing events in history that the world has seen; over six million lives were lost, in fact the total number of deceased during the Holocaust has never been determined. The footage of concentration camps and gas chambers left the world in utter shock, but photos and retellings of the events cannot compare to being a victim of the Holocaust and living through the horror that the rest of the world regarded in the safety of their homes. Elie Wiesel recognized the indifference that the
In the world during the time of the Holocaust, there was indifference towards the suffering of millions of Jews. When individuals reflect about the Holocaust, the majority of the time the responsibility of the terrible events is placed upon the perpetrators. However, bystanders and witnesses indirectly affected the victims of the Holocaust as well. The silence of these people played one of the largest roles in the Holocaust, they influenced it by avoiding any type of involvement and by becoming blinded towards the suffering of others. In his Academy Award acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel says, “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference”. This exert from his speech reveals the importance
Genocide is the destruction of an ethnic, racial, or religious group. The most famous genocide, conducted by the Germans, is the extermination of the Jewish population known as the Holocaust. There are other genocides such as the Armenian or Darfur genocide, but the Holocaust is the one talked about and studied the most around the world today. Museums exist in Washington D.C, Los Angeles, and parts of Europe that focus primarily on this dark time in history. Vast amounts of books, movies, and documents concentrate on the Holocaust. Why is this chapter, between 1939 and 1945, discussed and examined? The answer lies within people who experienced the Holocaust such as Elie Wiesel, Jay Frankston, and Franks Shatz. These men have gone through hell and back, but they believe in one thing. That is, the notion of never again. The goal is to educate future generations on what really happened, so history does not repeat itself. Never again should people of any race, religion, or ethnicity, go through the horrific past of the Holocaust. In their writing, Wiesel, Frankston, and Shatz do a great job using pathos, logos, and ethos to convey their message of never again for future generations.
Genocide, a dire event, has been recurring time and time again throughout history. In the past, there was the Holocaust, where Hitler exterminated over six million Jews based on his anti-semitic views. Elie Wiesel, a Jewish author, has become a very influential man in educating the world of the true events of the Holocaust due to his involvement in the disaster. Presently, a genocide is occurring in the Darfur region of southern Sudan, in which according to Cheryl Goldmark, “a systematic slaughter of non-Arab residents at the the hands of Arab militiamen called Janjaweed” has been taking place since 2003. (1) Not only is genocide a tragic historical event, it also continuously occurs today.