Stand Up For Injustice: Elie Wiesel and The Perils of Indifference
The Holocaust was a time that will forever be marked in history as a tragedy for mankind. Whether someone was a prisoner, a Nazi, or a bystander, every person was affected in some way. Because the Holocaust took place so long ago, many people forget how it could have destroyed an entire race of people. They forget that millions of innocent lives were taken because of hate. Elie Wiesel, a Romanian-born Jew who was taken to Auschwitz at age 15, was an advocate for all Jews who had lost their lives during the Holocaust. On April 12, 1999, Wiesel was invited by President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton to speak at the White House as part of the Millennium Lecture series. Wiesel’s speech, titled “Perils of Indifference,” was meant to persuade the American people to not show
…show more content…
For example, he begins two sentences in a row with the word “gratitude” to express his feelings towards the American soldiers who liberated the concentration camp. Wiesel also started three sentences in a row with the word “indifference.” The use of anaphora cleared up his belief that indifference must not be tolerated. Epistrophe was present as well; “You fight it. You denounce it. You disarm it,” was a way to express how some people deal with hatred and relate it to indifference. Asyndeton is strong in the speech too; when Wiesel defined indifference, he stated a list of differences without a conjunction to imply that differences are all around us. This device was also used when he listed victims of indifference to communicate that there are more types of victims than he could name. Caesura was the most prevalent device throughout the speech and was used to grab attention and bring emotions out of people. By asking frequent rhetorical questions, Wiesel was able to make his audience think about their own actions and question their