Elie Wiesel's The Perils Of Indifference

In Elie Wiesel’s speech, “The Perils of Indifference,” Wiesel uses a variety of devices to convey the powerful feeling of how immoral the circumstances of the Holocaust were. He expresses how ignoring the suffering of others only leads to worse outcomes, the dangers of acting with “no difference.” It is worse than to act with hatred. His argument leads with sharing his experience with being at a concentration camp himself as a young boy (1). The horrors that no one could possibly imagine. This issue turns to Wiesel's description of apathy, and the different circumstances in which it can occur. Indifference can be subtle and tempting, because it is easier (6). Wiesel uses this to show the gravity of what the Holocaust was. People would assume that it was in the hands of someone else, so they did not have any reason to do anything about it. Indifference is vicious. The final act of America intervening with the end of the Holocaust correlates to how they were no longer acting with the mindset of how someone else could change or fix it

To emphasize the severity of his claim, he asks “Why didn’t he allow these refugees to disembark? A thousand people - In America, the great country, the greatest democracy, the most generous of all new nations in modern history. What happened? I don’t understand” (16). The use of a rhetorical question illustrates the simple answer, why? Why would people choose to act with such carelessness while millions of people were fighting to stay alive. Again, he asks “Why were there so few? Why was there a greater effort to save SS murderers after the war than to save their victims during the war? It has been suggested, and it was documented, that the Wehrmacht could not have conducted its invasion of France without oil obtained from America sources. How is one to explain their indifference?” (18). These all add to the rational argument that Wiesel is