Elie Wiesel Speech Analysis

On April 12, 1999, Elie Wiesel went to The Seventh Millennium Evening at the White House to give his speech about indifference. Hillary Clinton wanted Wiesel to give this speech at one of these events for a while, and it was the perfect time to give it then because Hillary started to do work for children in Russia. Elie Wiesel’s speech deals with the struggles he had as a child during the Holocaust. At the young age of fifteen, Wiesel was taken from his home in Hungary and transported to Auschwitz, a concentration camp in Poland. Auschwitz had to be evacuated because the Russian army was coming, so Wiesel was sent to Buchenwald in Germany. The American army came and liberated the camp, which is why he feels so strongly about indifference. Wiesel …show more content…
Wiesel expresses his gratitude for the people who took him out of that terrible camp during the beginning of his speech. The Americans not only witnessed the awful living conditions, but they did something about it. They were just as angry as he was about his current situation. Plenty of people knew what was going on, but they did not care enough to take a stand. The indifferent are the ones who abandon the victim (Wiesel). Wiesel was in concentration camps for almost a year with no one to help him be free. He was forced to help the people who put him in this horrendous situation when he was chosen for slave labor at Buna Rubber Factory. Wiesel had to help the Germans make resources, so they can continue to annihilate his people. Even the victims had to help make the Holocaust more widespread while the indifferent did nothing. He has lived through circumstances where the indifferent have failed him. Elie Wiesel believes that being indifferent is a “sin”(Wiesel). Humans are supposed to be there for each other, and no one was there for him, so Wiesel has a twisted view of mankind. This situation gives Wiesel credibility for the reasoning behind his intolerability to …show more content…
He uses his own traumatic experience to show others how terrible indifference can be. Wiesel starts out his speech by explaining how afraid he was in the concentration camps all alone with no one to help him (Wiesel). People refusing to help you because they are indifferent are worse than the people trying to put you down. It was a small victory when Wiesel finally got liberated from Buchenwald in April of 1945 because he had to start all over again without a family. This all could have been avoided if people were to save them earlier instead of being indifferent to the issue. From Wiesel’s perspective, it seemed like no one would be there for him. There was no hope left because it seemed like the world has given up on him. He is trying to convey to the audience that no one deserves to feel that way. How does a little boy who was put into a concentration camp deserve to feel abandoned? Before the concentration camp, Wiesel had a home, a family, and thought highly of humanity. Leaving Buchenwald, he realized that it is all a facade. People say that they will help others, but it never happens. They become indifferent. One does not think of the fifteen year old boy who had to grow up fast after being tortured because all of his family was dead. Indifference pushes aside the fact that millions of Jews died when they thought they were going to take showers, but it was actually a call from death. There is no