Evyn Ringena
Mr. Baker
English 1
5 May 2023 Speak up
In his acceptance speech, Elie Wiesel indicates how neutrality only favors the oppressor.
An example of his central idea, neutrality only favors the oppressor, comes from his book Night. In the book Night when Elie and his dad arrive at Auschwitz, there are people who want to revolt against the armed guards. One of the men's sons says “Let the world learn about the existence of Auschwitz. Let everybody find out about it while they still have a chance to escape.”-(Page 31) After he says this the older men beg their sons not to be foolish, and to have hope. This shows how neutrality stopped the sons from revolting, and how the oppressors were favored in the end, because they weren't revolted against. When the men decided to tell their sons not to revolt, they were choosing to stay quiet. If they would have tried to do something from the beginning things may have turned out a lot differently, and the oppressors wouldn't be favored, by being able to get away with this happening. Because of
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I tried to ask them questions but the only thing they said was, “Line up, line up. Be quiet, don’t say anything.” This piece of evidence shows us how neutrality only favors the oppressor because the guy was telling the people to be quiet and follow the rules. Yes, it is good to follow instructions, but in this situation, if they would not have obeyed the rules, they could have done something about what was happening before it was too far gone. There were a lot of people throughout the holocaust that choose to stay silent about what was happening to them. In Felix Opatowk's circumstance, the neutrality was the men telling him to be quiet, and him listening to them. The neutrality favors the oppressor in this situation because the people followed the rules of the nazis, and the nazis got what they