Summary Of Perils Of Indifference By Elie Wiesel

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 (White House Plans Millennium Celebrations). Wiesel was invited 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.

He brings God into his argument claiming that “we” meaning all of the Jews felt abandoned by God since they were being treated so poorly that it was “better an unjust God than an indifferent one” (Wiesel). This quote represents Wiesel's whole philosophy about the Holocaust and how countries knew about the inhumane actions the Germans were doing to the Jews, but they decided to ignore it making them worse than the Germans. Countries like the United States at first ignored the Nazi's which he had proof for in the St. Louis tale. One thousand Jews arrived on the United States shore, wanting to be invited into the United States, but were sent back to Germany where most of them probably died. Another example of the United States indifference was how the United States continued to trade with Hitler's Germany until 1942. Because of America's trade of oil with Germany, Germany was able to invade France and capture more Jews to be put to death. Lastly, he goes through a list of the failures that happened in the twentieth century, such as the World Wars, assassinations of world leaders, Hiroshima and the failure he can connect with the most, the Auschwitz and Treblinka concentration camps. But he also talks about some of the best events that happened in the twentieth century, such as the rebirth of Israel,

When he was describing what the people at Auschwitz as "They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.” (Wiesel) Because of the detail in his description, the audience feels almost uncomfortable because they could never imagine somebody to look like that which makes them show sympathy. In his book Night, the conditions were so inhumane that Wiesel, who had a strong and stable religion and relationship with God before the Holocaust. During the Holocaust, Wiesel began to doubt and hate God, which caused him to question "Why should I bless His name? The Eternal, Lord of the Universe, the All-Powerful and Terrible, was silent. What had I to thank Him for?" (Wiesel 31). If the thirteen year old boy who wanted to learn about the studies of Kabbalah, which was a high level of religious knowledge and was supposed to be achieved around the age of thirty, could not believe in God, since the treatment was unacceptable and something people never thought God would allow on his planet. Later in his speech, Wiesel talks about the children in today's society that everyone ignores and gives the same details of intense loneliness and poverty. He claims "some of them so many of them could be saved" just like how the Jews could have been saved from the Holocaust