Neutrality In Elie Wiesel's Night

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“Neutrality helps to oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented,” Elie Wiesel stated in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech. Elie Wiesel, the author of the memoir Night, was a victim of the Holocaust. At the age of fifteen, in May of 1944, he and his family were deported from his hometown to Auschwitz. Auschwitz was one of the largest concentration and death camps in which political prisoners experienced forced labor, cramped living conditions, and food deprivation, along with harsh punishments for disobeying officers or refusing to work. This was part of a larger event known as the Holocaust, initiated by Hitler and his Nazi political party, which was the mass murder of Jewish people, LGBTQ people, Roma people, Polish people, Slavic people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and other members of the political opposition. Hitler’s goal was to ‘purify the human race,’ and he vowed to eliminate anyone who was not his standard for the perfect human. Consequently, Hitler and his Nazi party were responsible for the murder, torture, and dehumanization of an estimated 17 million people. The acts they committed are so severe and so intense that people who went through those terrible experiences and survived are discouraged from sharing their stories, yet, there are still some brave souls who venture out to talk about their experience. In writing the memoir Night, Elie Wiesel broke the silence that had been cast over the victims of the Holocaust. The avoidance of topics that challenge people or make people uncomfortable is a common occurrence, as exhibited in Wiesel’s difficulty in getting his memoir published.Wiesel stated in the foreword of his memoir, “For, despite all my attempts to articulate the unspeakable, it is still not right. …show more content…
Is that why my manuscript was rejected by every major publisher?” (Wiesel x). Publishers wanted to stay away from intense topics that are difficult to write about, read about, and understand, let alone experience it. Even attempting to comprehend the cruelty human beings are capable of is terrifying, yet that is the reason it must be talked about. If one distances oneself from the horrors humans are capable of commiting and transforms people into caricatures of the worst parts of themselves, then one is able to refuse to acknowledge what people are capable of. This leaves people, especially those with less societal and political power, vulnerable. Wiesel, despite resistance, shared his story. The horrors of the Holocaust, while difficult to read about, must have awareness raised for it, which Wiesel contributed to in writing his memoir. This is vital to understand the trauma that the victims went through and, as Wiesel states, “for the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future” (Wiesel xv). This statement sums up the importance of sharing one’s experience. Additionally, understanding the historical context of such events is important as well. For example, Nazis heavily used propaganda to quell the public’s protests about the treatment of their fellow citizens, creating promotional videos depicting peaceful scenes of Jewish people in concentration camps. These films were far from the truth. Also, the author states, “‘Auschwitz.’ Nobody had ever heard that name” (Wiesel 27) This emphasizes the lack of information the public

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