Ethics & Religion
Column #1,819
July 7, 2016
Elie Wiesel: Conscience of the World
By Mike McManus
Recalling
his first night at Auschwitz at age 15, Elie Wiesel wrote a decade
later, "Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small
faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a
silent sky.
"Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith,
forever...Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my
soul and turned my dreams to ashes."
These words are from his book, "Night," which he originally called "And
The World Remained Silent." He waited for ten years after the war for
perspective before writing it. However it was rejected by every major
publisher though Nobel laureate Francois Mauriac worked hard to market
it.
When it was finally published, it sold only about 1,000 copies in its
first year - but 10 million since! In a new edition, published 47 years
after the original version, Wiesel wrote a new Preface with added
perspective:
"For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear; his duty is to
bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive
future generations of a past that belongs in our collective memory. To
forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead
would be akin to killing them a second time."
Indeed, for a time he lost his faith, which had been deeply nurtured as
a child. He reports in "Night" what happened on one Rosh Hashanah. He
hears thousands of fellow Jewish prisoners cry out in unison, "Blessed
be the Almighty!" They are kneeling and worshipping. But this day he
does not kneel, but stands and recalls in "Night:"
"I no longer pleaded for anything. On the contrary, I felt very strong.
I was the accuser. God the accused. My eyes had opened and I was alone.
Without love or mercy. I was nothing but ashes now, but I felt myself to
be stronger than this Almighty to whom my life had been bound for so
long. In the midst of these men assembled for prayer, I felt like an
observer, a stranger."
The crowd chanted, "Blessed be God's name."
"But why should I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He
caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves. Because He kept
six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy
Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau,
Buna and so many other factories of death?"
Of course, God did not create Auschwitz. The Nazis did. In time, America
and the allies defeated Germany. And Wiesel regained his faith. In
accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, he opened by saying, "Blessed
be Thou...for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to
reach this day."
Author of more than 40 books, Wiesel made it his life's mission to speak
out about evils of the present as well as the past. He inspired the
building of the U.S. Holocaust Museum, and at its dedication, he
challenged President Bill Clinton: "Mr. President I must tell you
something I have been in the former Yugoslavia last fall. I cannot sleep
since what I have seen. As a Jew I am saying that. We must do something
to stop the bloodshed in that country."
Clinton accepted Wiesel's challenge, leading NATO in two bombing
campaigns in the Balkans, first against the Bosnian Serbs and four years
later to stop ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. Wiesel later criticized
Clinton for not doing anything to stop the genocide in Rwanda. "I think
we could have prevented that massacre. Why didn't we?"
Wiesel also gave voice to the millions of Jews living behind the Iron
Curtain. He first traveled to the Soviet Union in 1965, and was shocked
that Jews were too "afraid to recount Soviet persecution, terrified of
reprisals, but their eyes implored him to tell the world about their
plight," wrote Natan Sharansky, a former Soviet political prisoner.
Wiesel wrote a book, "The Jews of Silence," in which he made an
impassioned plea for Jews around the world "to shed their indifference
and speak out for those who could not." The major American Jewish
organizations were unresponsive. Therefore he and Sharansky organized a
March for Soviet Jewry in 1987, and visited scores of universities,
galvanizing activists to participate. That prodded all big Jewish groups
to finally get behind it.
The result? Millions of Soviet Jews were allowed to emigrate. Many went
to Israel.
As a voice for the voiceless, Wiesel became known as "the conscience of
the world."
_____________________________________
Copyright (c) 2016 Michel J. McManus, President of Marriage Savers and a
syndicated columnist. For previous columns go to
www.ethicsandreligion.org. Hit Search for any topic.
|
|
Since 1981...
2000+ Columns |
|
LATEST ARTICLE |
|
January
12, 2021: Column 2057: Trump Impeached a Second Time |
|
Recent Columns |
|
Trump is Corrupt |
|
Christian Choices Matter |
|
Who Was Mary? |
|
2020 Was A Terrible Year |
|
Suicides Rates Are Rising |
|
The Biblical Sexual Standard |
|
Thankful for Thanksgiving |
|
How to Cut the Divorce Rate in Half |
|
Divorce Rate Is Falling |
|
Latinos Deserve More Help |
|
How To Defeat Covid - 19 |
|
How To Save Marriages |
|
55 Years of Marriage |
|
How To Cut America's Divorce Rate |
|
Suicide Rate Rising |
|
Overcoming Porn Addiction |
|
The Devastation of Pornography |
|
Marriages Are Falling - But Improving |
|
Divorce Rates Are Falling |
|
Cohabitation: the Enemy of Marriage
|
|
How To Reduce Suicide |
|
How To Stop Drug Addiction |
|
Cut Federal Funds for Planned Parenthood |
|
The Horror of Soaring Suicides |
|
Make
Adoption More Appealing |
|
The Addictive Nature of Pornography |
|
Abortion Becoming Illegal |
|
Protecting Girls from Suicide |
|
The Worst Valentine:
Cohabitation |
|
Pornography: A Public Health Hazard |
|
Sextortion Kills Teens |
|
Cohabitation: A Risky Business |
|
Recent Searches |
|
gun control,
euthanasia,
cohabitation,
sexting,
sextortion,
alcoholism,
prayer,
guns,
same sex marriage,
abortion,
depression,
islam,
divorce,
polygamy,
religious liberty,
health care,
pornography,
teen sex,
abortion and infanticide,
Roe+v+Wade,
supreme court,
marriage,
movies,
violence,
celibacy,
living+together,
cohabitation,
ethics+and+religion,
pornography,
adultery,
divorce,
saving+marriages |
|