Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate, gave a motivational speech on April 12th, 1999, in Washington D.C., as part of the Millennium Lecture series hosted by President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton. Wiesel was invited because of how his experience was similar to the very recent events of Serbian genocide of ethnic Muslims in the region. Attending his speech were both government officials, and the American public. With the traditional use of rhetoric devices, such as ethos, pathos and logos, Wiesel attempted to persuade the audience not to be indifferent to events around them.
Wiesel, himself a Holocaust survivor, is validated in his interpretation of indifference “no difference.” He shares personal experiences from his past, “A young Jewish boy from…Carpathian Mountains woke up…eternal infamy called Buchenwald.” Who better to relay a message of caring and getting involved, than someone who maintained his character and used his experiences to educate others through his writings and speeches. One could have been transformed to preach hate and the ability to prevent such experiences for others.
Wiesel tugs at the audience’s
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He describes “they, representing the office” as selfish and insensitive to tragedy. For example, during the Holocaust railroad tracks were not bombed, and 1,000 Jewish refugees were turned away. Other modern events he lists also appeal to the logical mind, including assassinations, World Wars, and civil wars, where the listener understands that the impact could have been, if not prevented, at least reduced, if humanity would have become more involved.“Surely they would’ve moved heaven and earth” if they understood the consequence of indifference. Wiesel acknowledges the fact that it is so easy to ignore issues and even rely on others to solve them, but if one is not living to do good, then what is the
Wiesel pinpoints the indifference of humans as the real enemy, causing further suffering and lost to those already in peril. Wiesel commenced the speech with an interesting attention getter: a story about a young Jewish from a small town that was at the end of war liberated from Nazi rule by American soldiers. This young boy was in fact himself. The first-hand experience of cruelty gave him credibility in discussing the dangers of indifference; he was a victim himself.
Being the last sentence of the book, and out of all the passages I highlighted this one stood out to me and described Wiesel’s experience in just a few simple sentence. He looked at himself for the first time in many years, and did not recognize himself he saw a different person. This showed me that the concentration camps changed him he was a different person inside and out. The events that occurred to him had scared him so much that the man he saw in the mirror wasn’t him, but one who had been drained of life that looked lifeless from the events occurred in the concentration camps. He was weak and this whole passage embodies his weakness and the whole point of the concentration camps.
Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, Nobel Laureate and the author of Night, gave the speech “Perils of Indifference” on April 12, 1999 during the Millennium Lecture series which was hosted by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton. According to Bill Clinton “The White House millennium program will guide and direct America's celebration of the millennium by showcasing the achievements that define us as a nation -- our culture, our scholarship, our scientific exploration," going into the new twenty-first century. Wiesel was invited to Lecture to speak about the horrific Holocaust which happened during the years 1933-1945 and to try help move on from the past it as the world goes into a new millennium. In the summer of 1944, Wiesel
The second speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, by Elie Wiesel directly addresses people with a high position in the world of U.S. politics at the time of the speech deliverance: President Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, members of the Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, etc. However, there is an underlying message to people who are bystanders. Evident in multiple points of his speech, Wiesel consistently addresses how being a bystander is an undesirable, negative position. He goes on to use how the Jewish people felt during the Holocaust towards God and their lack of response of any kind from him as an
Elie Wiesel enlightens his audience of the injustice Roosevelt submitted Jewish refugees to. Wiesel exclaims that he doesn't not understand if, "Roosevelt was a good man, with a heart." Wiesel questions the indifference in the president of the free world and why he didn't allow these refugees into the country. If Wiesel had not presented this information to his audience about the root and extreme problem of indifference in the country, do you think people would have realized just how terrible the problem is and how neglectful we are of our
Elie Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor who strongly believes that people need to share their stories about the Holocaust with others. Elie Wiesel was in concentration camps for about half of his teen years along with his father. After being the only member of his family to survive the Holocaust he resolved to make what really happened more well-known. Elie Wiesel wrote dozens of books and submitted an essay titled “A God Who Remembers” to the book This I Believe. The essay focused on Elie Wiesel’s belief that those who have survived the Holocaust should not suppress their experiences but must share them so history will not repeat itself.
Elie Wiesel Rhetorical Speech Analysis Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor and winner of a Nobel peace prize, stood up on April 12, 1999 at the White House to give his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”. In Wiesel’s speech he was addressing to the nation, the audience only consisted of President Clinton, Mrs. Clinton, congress, and other officials. The speech he gave was an eye-opener to the world in his perspective. Wiesel uses a variety of rhetorical strategies and devices to bring lots of emotion and to educate the indifference people have towards the holocaust. “You fight it.
The characterization of Moshie and Mrs. Shachter shows the indifference and denial of the Jews of Sighet. The chilling juxtaposition of a beautiful landscape containing a camp of death illustrates how the world not only was indifferent to the inhumane suffering, but also continued to shine brightly as if nothing really mattered. This timeless theme of denial and its consequences during the Holocaust echoes the struggles of those in our time who are persecuted solely due to their beliefs. The reader takes away the important lesson of never turning away from those who need it greatest, each time one reads Elie Wiesel’s memoir,
In the speech, titled “The Perils of Indifference,” Elie Wiesel showed gratitude to the American people, President Clinton, and Mrs. Hillary Clinton for the help they brought and apprised the audience about the violent consequences and human suffering due to indifference against humanity (Wiesel). This speech was persuasive. It was also effective because it conveyed to the audience the understanding of
As Wiesel gives his speech before receiving his Nobel Peace Prize, he places responsibility on the people who witnesses the Holocaust yet remained silent when he states, “Who would allow such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?” Millions of Jews were burned, beaten, and starved for years without people talking about it. Mothers, sons, uncles, sisters, children, lives all silenced because people were either afraid or ignorant. In addition to the community outside of these horrific places there were also citizens in these countries who also continued to watch in muteness, some also contributing to the suffering of the Jews.
It becomes clear that Elie Wiesel`s commentary on human nature is that, during extreme circumstances, people are selfish and would achieve anything for their own survival. Furthermore, In Wiesel’s novel people strived to survive this injustice. For example, the Holocaust caused countless amount of
Wiesel’s speech shows how he worked to keep the memory of those people alive because he knows that people will continue to be guilty, to be accomplices if they forget. Furthermore, Wiesel knows that keeping the memory of those poor, innocent will avoid the repetition of the atrocity done in the future. The stories and experiences of Wiesel allowed for people to see the true horrors of what occurs when people who keep silence become “accomplices” of those who inflict pain towards humans. To conclude, Wiesel chose to use parallelism in his speech to emphasize the fault people had for keeping silence and allowing the torture of innocent
In his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel strives to inform his audience of the unbelievable atrocities of the Holocaust in order to prevent them from ever again responding to inhumanity and injustice with silence and neutrality. The structure or organization of Wiesel’s speech, his skillful use of the rhetorical appeals of pathos and ethos, combined with powerful rhetorical devices leads his audience to understand that they must never choose silence when they witness injustice. To do so supports the oppressors. Wiesel’s speech is tightly organized and moves the ideas forward effectively. Wiesel begins with humility, stating that he does not have the right to speak for the dead, introducing the framework of his words.
In which millions of Jews were innocently killed and persecuted because of their religion. As a student who is familiar with the years of the holocaust that will forever live in infamy, Wiesel’s memoir has undoubtedly changed my perspective. Throughout the text, I have been emotionally touched by the topics of dehumanization, the young life of Elie Wiesel, and gained a better understanding of the Holocaust. With how dehumanization was portrayed through words, pondering my mind the most.
The entire world was so ignorant to such a massacre of horrific events that were right under their noses, so Elie Wiesel persuades and expresses his viewpoint of neutrality to an audience. Wiesel uses the ignorance of the countries during World War II to express the effects of their involvement on the civilians, “And then I explain to him how naive we were, that the world did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent when and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation” (Weisel). To persuade the audience, Elie uses facts to make the people become sentimental toward the victims of the Holocaust. Also, when Weisel shares his opinion with the audience, he gains people onto his side because of his authority and good reputation.