Holocaust survivor, writer and statesman Elie Wiesel told students at the Hopkins School Monday never to take the role of bystander as evil unfolds in the world.
“Whenever evil shows its face, don’t give it another chance. Remember, the choice is always yours. Bystander is not the role I advise you to adopt,” Wiesel said in an hourlong talk and question-and-answer session at the private school.
Wiesel, author of more than 30 books, survived Auschwitz, and has spent his life teaching and writing about how nations can prevent more genocides. Since the Holocaust, where 6 million Jews, Gypsies and others were killed by Nazis, hundreds of thousands more have perished in Rwanda and Bosnia, and continue to die in Darfur.
Wiesel, 82, who traveled from New York early Monday to give his talk, said the main characteristic of a bystander is indifference. “Nothing is worse to the victim than the indifference of the good person,” Wiesel said.
An American citizen, Wiesel first came to this country in 1956 as a journalist, where he encountered racism in the South that was enmeshed in the law.
“For the first time in my life, I felt shame. I felt shame at being white. I never felt shame at being Jewish,” he told the seventh- through 10th-graders who attended the school assembly. He said he sees the election of a black president as a kind of historical correction to past racial injustice.
Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, Wiesel said psychiatrists have found that children don’t begin to hate until age 3.
“Children learn hatred, but you can also unlearn it. We are also born antiracist,” he said in his emphasis on individual responsibility.
Wiesel told the young audience morality is determined by relationships with other human beings.
“It is what you do that makes you moral or not,” he said, advising them to identify injustice and denounce it.
Asked about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Wiesel said Condoleezza Rice, the former national security adviser, requested that he come to talk to her.
When she told him that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, Wiesel suggested she address it in a “James Bond” manner, using the best stealth troops from the U.S., Israel and other allies, in a surgical operation that would not result in deaths of innocent Iraqis. “You can see how they listened to me,” Wiesel said.
He did not feel he could comment on Afghanistan without more information, only that it was important because of the presence of nuclear weapons in Pakistan.
More than once throughout his talk, Wiesel said he could not bring himself to endorse war as a solution. He said sometimes it might be necessary, but only the fight against Hitler was a “just war.”
Wiesel would not rank any one genocide over the other, and said they should all be studied.
“I don’t compare tragedies. Every one is unique,” he said. The writer said he was encouraged by the interest among young people in stopping the killing in Darfur, mainly because of the example of Rwanda.
Between 600,000 and 800,000 people died in 1994 in Rwanda. “It was foreseen. Everyone knew it was coming. The United Nations behaved despicably,” said Wiesel.
He said it pains him that there is still anti-Semitism in the world. “If Auschwitz couldn’t cure the world of anti-Semitism, what can and what will?” he asked.
Wiesel said his faith in God has been “wounded” by the Holocaust, but he continues to pray. “I did not divorce God,” he said, and did not want to break the connection to his faith going back through generations of his family.
While he could have fallen into nihilism and hatred after the Holocaust, having felt betrayed by God and society, Wiesel said that would have destroyed him. “Accepting despair is not an option,” he said. “We must simply do whatever we can so justice can prevail.”
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Guys, guys… just get this man to MOVE to South Africa.. please..!! :-) He will be cured(or killed)or mugged in no time.. I have seen MANY such likes cured within 2 months in good old SA.
Morons, all that you do is PRAY to G*d that this bastard dies a horrible VIOLENT death.
Pansyasses.
err…SUPPOSED holocaust survivor. I know ALL Jews are holocaust survivors but one of the many ironic feats in Elie Weasels story is that, as Auschwitz was about to be “liberated” by the Russians, the Germans gave the prisoners the choice either to wait for the “liberators” or to flee with them. And guess what, Weasel along with most other Jews PREFERRED to flee with their German exterminators.
I felt shame at being white. I never felt shame at being an ape.
Just another slimy Jew, nothing to see here.
If he believes in fighting evil why isn’t he denoucing Israel, a terrorist state if there ever was one.
This guy, Elie the Weasel, is as disgusting a lying actor as I have ever saw. He is part of the Holohoax industry.
We must get rid off this shame and guilt-culture.
Is Wiesel white? some doubts may be allowed – not at least in terms of conscience.. why doesn’t he talk about the kazar, trotzkist, neocon mishpoke, that were behind the Iraq-war, or talk about the Gulag in Gaza?
Elie Wiesel is an Impostor Says Former Auschwitz Survivor
http://www.eutimes.net/2009/03/elie-wiesel-is-an-impostor-says-former-auschwitz-survivor/
…”Miklos Gruner, 15, was deported from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944,….” even this Gruner is dubious to rely on as the other authors describing those camps. (imo)-
Yes why doesn’t he preach to his kazar, trotzkist, neocon mishpoke, that were behind the Iraq-war, or talk about the Gulag in Gaza?
Elie Wiesel is an Impostor Says Former Auschwitz Survivor
http://www.eutimes.net/2009/03/elie-wiesel-is-an-impostor-says-former-auschwitz-survivor/
…”Miklos Gruner, 15, was deported from Hungary to Auschwitz-Birkenau in May 1944,….” even this Gruner is dubious to rely on as the other authors describing those camps. (imo)-
***He did not feel he could comment on Afghanistan without more information, only that it was important because of the presence of nuclear weapons in Pakistan.***
he feels to comment when it suits him?
if he likes blacks and other colours (except whites),why he does not encourrage his ashkhenazi to intermarry them?
it would a true and pure love.
Wow. A jid freak, a weasel bozo. Since when a jew is “white”? If a jew feel threatened he says: it’s anti-semitism. If anti-jewism means anti-semitism, then the jews are semites. Semite race is NOT White, not even close to Aryan race. Semites are like Arabs, negroids, white and assyrian mixes.
THANK YOU GOD NOT TO MAKE ME A JEW!
Exactly Insurgent. Edomite jews are NOT White. They are Mamzers (Bastards). Always have been and always will be.
THANK YOU GOD NOT TO MAKE ME A JEW!
AMEN!
Notice how the little mamzer sidestepped the attack in Iran? Iran had weapons of “mass destruction” (that just so happens where NEVER found) and yet today, one of the most insidious terrorist nations, IS-A-REAL-LIE has real weapons of mass destruction and has even threatened to use them on ALL the Capitals of Europe!
You cannot fight evil without fighting white people!!!
They are manifesting evil all over the planet…for thousands of years!!
They are going to kill billions more …sooooon!!!
Since when have jews become White?
Jew is a religion white is a race!
A white jew or christian is rare…meaning they love God..truth!
White devils hide behind religion …all of the time!