Elie Wiesel, an award winning author, Nobel Prize winner, and Holocaust survivor, delivered a speech to government officials at the White House the year before the new millennia. His speech “The Perils of Indifference” calls on his own personal experience in the Jewish Concentration Camps and other historical events to show the harm feeling indifferent can cause to society. Wiesel succeeded in invoking empathy and understanding in his audience by describing indifference, using every day examples that they can relate to, expressing historical knowledge, and offering a melancholic yet hopeful tone to encourage society to resent indifferent feelings in the new century.
Wiesel delivered his speech to a group of government officials, but his audience …show more content…
Even though his experiences are personal, they took place during a major point in history. His audience is aware of this since Wiesel is a famous survivor. Even those who do not know him know the horrors of Auschwitz thanks to museums, photographs, and tales from survivors. He reflects mid-speech on a belief he and others held while in the camps. Those behind the barbed wire fences believed they had not been liberated because leaders in other countries did not know what was happening only to find out they did know and they had known (3). This is realistic example of indifference, especially to the Jews, because they learned action had not yet been taken. They felt abandoned and hopeless with no knowledge that anyone else knew what was happening. Wiesel mentions that there were people referred to as “Muselmanner” who were so traumatized by the events that they no longer felt emotion (2). These people represented indifference because they had succumbed to their proposed fate. Even Wiesel felt this way after being liberated. When describing himself as a child he states “He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart” (1). The audience he spoke to is unable to doubt his words because they do not share the same experiences and cannot prove them false. Previous knowledge of the Holocaust by the audience also helps add to Wiesel’s ethos in his
Wiesel delivered his speech to a group of government officials, but his audience …show more content…
Even though his experiences are personal, they took place during a major point in history. His audience is aware of this since Wiesel is a famous survivor. Even those who do not know him know the horrors of Auschwitz thanks to museums, photographs, and tales from survivors. He reflects mid-speech on a belief he and others held while in the camps. Those behind the barbed wire fences believed they had not been liberated because leaders in other countries did not know what was happening only to find out they did know and they had known (3). This is realistic example of indifference, especially to the Jews, because they learned action had not yet been taken. They felt abandoned and hopeless with no knowledge that anyone else knew what was happening. Wiesel mentions that there were people referred to as “Muselmanner” who were so traumatized by the events that they no longer felt emotion (2). These people represented indifference because they had succumbed to their proposed fate. Even Wiesel felt this way after being liberated. When describing himself as a child he states “He was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart” (1). The audience he spoke to is unable to doubt his words because they do not share the same experiences and cannot prove them false. Previous knowledge of the Holocaust by the audience also helps add to Wiesel’s ethos in his