This picture moves me deeply.. it reminds me of what humanity can become when it loses it's God given humanity. Elie Wiesel is pictured in this photo taken in April 1945 at Buchenwald Concentration Camp five days after the liberation of the camp.Elie (born Eliezer Wiesel in 1928) is a Jewish writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate and Holocaust survivor. He is the author of over 40 books, the best known of which is Night, a memoir that describes his experiences during the Holocaust and his imprisonment in several concentration camps.
Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. The Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind," noting that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps," as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace," Wiesel has delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity.
Here are a few of the things that he has said:
I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.
Peace is our gift to each other.
I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
I write to understand as much as to be understood.
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.
There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else,
by using it for something else.
The picture breaks my heart, but the man makes me stand up in honor and awe.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this reminder of what these dear people suffered.
Read his book, "Night" not too long ago. Very moving story.
ReplyDeleteYou know, it was just over 60 years ago that this nighmare was ended. We have such a short memory, with holocaust deniers like Ahmidinijhad in Iran, I really think that it could happen again in the near future. It took only a couple of years to forget 911.
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