Neutrality And Silence In Elie Wiesel's The Night

Elie Wiesel was a victim in the holocaust, and was one of the few survivors. He was sent in the concentration camp and so was all the other jews in Germany. He was sent to the camp called Auschuitz with his father, mother, and sister. Elie Wiesel was 15 years old when he got sent to the concentration camp in Auschuitz. He wrote a speech that talks about his life and the other people in the camps even the dead. Elie Wiesel also wrote a book called The Night. In his 1986 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Wiesel makes two strong statements towards the end of his speech. The two statements at the end show the regardance of neutrality and silence in the face of adversity: “Neutrality helps the oppressor never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor never the tormented”. These statements mean being neutral never helps the victim. In this case it helps Hitler and his men because they are getting what they want, and if they have to do neutral things to get what he wants he will do it. The other part of the quote means that being silent just encourages the tormentor (Hitler) to make more pain on you just to see the pain in the eyes

And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering humiliation”. This quote that Elie Wiesel uses in his speech shows that the world was silent after the war. He knew that nobody would know what the holocaust was like, so he told the world about it in his speech and in his book. Wiesel decided since he was one of the last survivors that he will not be silent about it. This is one main reason he wrote the speech and the story The Night, and well deserved the Nobel Peace Prize award. At first Wiesel was not so sure about writing the speech because he knew it would be hard to speak for the dead, but he took acceptance of it. He states that “No one can speak for the dead, and now we know what he is saying in the