Comments on: Elie Wiesel’s speech in Buchenwald

By: Wolfgang Leander

Wolfgang Leander — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:14:24 +0000

Unfortunately, there is little hope that the world will ever learn.

Yet, to read Elie Wiesel’s books, to listen to what he has to say allows us at least to see that the few prophetic voices of our times can make themselves heard so that, in the end, there is, perhaps, no reason to completely dispair.

It seems that the human drive to destroy is stronger than those forces that made man create edifices such as the as gothic cathedrals or the lofty works of Socrates, Kant, Spinoza, Buber, and Wiesel.

I read “Night” about 35 years ago, in horror, my heart filled with hate toward the German murderers.

The passage where I could not contain my tears was the painful description of Wiesel’s inability to respond to his father’s last pleas to help him.

That was, to me, the paradigm of what the killers had done to humanity – terrorizing a tortured son into frightful silence as he helplessly witnesses the death of his father.

By: Pete Simonson

Pete Simonson — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:40:41 +0000

Tears welled up in my eyes when heard Mr. Wiesel tell about the day his Father died – it is clear he is still “in the moment” when remembering that day.

At Shabbat a few weeks ago I spoke to a man, a Holocaust survivor, who told of HIS father. In 1936 their family had the opportunity to go to England and escape the looming horrors facing Jews in Germany. His Father felt “where I go, my children go”, so they stayed – untimately, he was the only survivor out of 57 members of his family.

Unfortunatey, as Mr. Wiesel pointed out, history has repeated itself too many times. In Rwanda, in Cambodia, in Bosnia. How many other Fathers have felt and said the same, only to have their families perish?

We still haven’t heard. As Pete Seeger asked:

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

By: Mary Claire

Mary Claire — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:12:03 +0000

How true Brenda! Elie Wiesel’s words are a powerful and urgent call to the world, to learn how to live together, in spite of our differences. We are all bound to this earth we live on and our very survival, and that of our children will depend on the wisdom we show today.

Mary
Miami

By: Nurit Greenger

Nurit Greenger — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 21:33:29 +0000

Elie Wiesel speech is heartfelt. I simply cannot imagine what it was like to be a child in a horror death camp where children like Mr. Wiesel saw emaciated dead bodies each day.
Unfortunately, the world has not learned a thing from the horror of the Holocaust; people keep on killing other people in the millions all around the world, but even more devastating is that there are people who are making long term plans to kill millions more.
Unfortunately, the world has not learned and the endemic anti-Semitic disease is again rampant.
We teach peace and we go to war; we teach morals and morality and much of the world has lost it moral compass; we reach equality and we do not practice it; we teach dignity that we not give each other; we teach honesty and integrity and all we see is dishonesty, corruption, greed and betrayal; we teach love and all we see is hate, jealously and resentment everywhere; we teach civility and humanity yet way too may act like savages. All that we are taught and then teach others is in vain and to oblivion. “When will they ever learn…” as the song goes but the world has not learned a thing!
While forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future the world is still at a miserable state of affairs where those who beat their swords into plowshares will end up plowing the fields for those who did not.

By: Brenda Baskind

Brenda Baskind — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 11:22:29 +0000

A wonderful speech and great sentiments… if only people would listen to those words and realize that war and killing has never solved problems.
We teach children in Nursery school to use their words to work out their problems…we teach them not to use their hands but their words….yet we as adults do not follow this advice ourselves.
We teach children to share their toys to play fair, to be polite and be empathetic to their friends. we teach them to except others into their groups at play …
Why do we go to such lenghts to teach this and yet as adults we dont practice what we teach??

It is shameful the way adults in the world behave and set this bad example to our children!!
WE are so proud to hear the words of Mr Wiezel nad President Obama, as they are the people others can look up to and aspire to

Brenda Baskind
Toronto