Oslo Freedom Forum Heroes: Elie Wiesel

Elie Wiesel

There are two things, in my experience, Elie Wiesel always highlights when he speaks – things he has great authority to speak about because of his experience: silence and indifference. When he tells his story, he speaks of the innocence, the naivety even, he and his family had before they were sent off to the camps. No one had told them what was happening to Jews all over the rest of Europe. They had no way of knowing what was coming, no way to prepare for, or avoid, their unspeakable fate. People were silenced by fear.

I have heard it said that during the Second World War, many people knew what was going on all over Europe but did not say or do anything about it. It was during that war “appeasement” was born. “Appeasement,” according to Wikipedia is “the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and compromise, thereby avoiding the resort to an armed conflict which would be expensive, bloody, and possibly dangerous.” “Appeasement” Wikipedia goes on to state “has been used as a synonym for cowardice since the 1930s and it is still used in that sense today…” Silence is a type of appeasement; “good when used for artistic purposes,” Mr. Wiesel said in his interview “but not when it comes to truth.”

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

I wish I could say things have changed and we have learned from our mistakes. However, as you can read in my previous blog entry, indifference is widespread still, even amongst those of us who call ourselves “humanitarians.” Humans, as I’ve come to understand from my education of the past 6 years, always seek the path of least resistance. Thus, if it is more comfortable to ignore events and circumstances, of course we will do so. It reminds me of a remarkable young man I sat next to at dinner one night during the Oslo Freedom Forum. After watching a video clip of children in dire circumstances, he boldly asked our table, “How many times does someone have to feel this feeling before they actually do something about it?” An important question, I thought, and one I had been asking myself all week. Must one, like Wiesel, have experienced the very worst acts of human violence to feel compelled enough to do something about it? When does it become easier to speak than to remain silent? Easier to care than to remain indifferent?

I think we must each pursue these questions deep within ourselves. The answers lie in our experience and our understanding of our human struggle. What keeps us from speaking up and from exposing injustice? What are we afraid of if we do? What results when we don’t? Elie Wiesel’s story is invaluable and his commitment to share it, speak up and expose other injustices such as he endured commendable. However, I believe we do his story, and the millions like it, an injustice if we don’t seek to learn from them, if we don’t seek to understand ourselves and the darkest aspects of human behavior. I believe without this understanding we cannot evolve beyond it. Just as people’s fear to acknowledge what was really happening in Europe may have kept the Wiesel family from avoiding their fate, it seems our fear of our own capacity for violence and destruction keeps such tendencies in place.

“A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.”
Elie Wiesel