“Society was composed of three simple categories: the killers, the victims, and the bystanders,” Elie Wiesel stated in his “The Perils of Indifference” speech given on April 12, 1999, at the White House. In his speech, Wiesel discusses the indifference that the Jewish people experienced during the Holocaust. Weisel was taken by the Nazis in 1944 at the age of 15 and spent about a year in various concentration camps, including Birkenau, Auschwitz, Buna, Gleiwitz, and Buchenwald. Throughout his time in concentration camps, Elie witnessed the cruelty between strangers, and even sometimes between friends and family. Elie explains to the audience the dangers of being indifferent in “The Perils of Indifference”.
First, Wiesel’s speech explains that …show more content…
Wiesel recounts how ignorance is worse than a negative emotion. He states, “Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred.” Being ignorant does nothing to resolve a conflict, whereas putting an emotion towards a problem, tends to make people fight back. Indifference allows the enemy to just walk all over the people that they are harming, because no one is willing to recognize the terrible actions towards the Jewish people. In relation,Wiesel also notes in his speech, “Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.” Ignorance of those who are not being affected makes the enemy stronger and the victim weaker, because even if people don’t mean to, silence is often interpreted as support to the enemy. If no one is stopping Hitler and the Nazis, how would there be an end to the persecution of the Jewish people? No one can stop Hitler if not a single person is willing to truly recognize what was truly happening. Lastly, in The Voices of the Holocaust, the poem “First they came...” by Martin Niemöller explains the attitude of the bystanders watching their friends and neighbors being taken away. The poem explains how the Nazis came for specific groups at a time, and no
First, Wiesel’s speech explains that …show more content…
Wiesel recounts how ignorance is worse than a negative emotion. He states, “Indifference, after all, is more dangerous than anger and hatred.” Being ignorant does nothing to resolve a conflict, whereas putting an emotion towards a problem, tends to make people fight back. Indifference allows the enemy to just walk all over the people that they are harming, because no one is willing to recognize the terrible actions towards the Jewish people. In relation,Wiesel also notes in his speech, “Indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor- never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.” Ignorance of those who are not being affected makes the enemy stronger and the victim weaker, because even if people don’t mean to, silence is often interpreted as support to the enemy. If no one is stopping Hitler and the Nazis, how would there be an end to the persecution of the Jewish people? No one can stop Hitler if not a single person is willing to truly recognize what was truly happening. Lastly, in The Voices of the Holocaust, the poem “First they came...” by Martin Niemöller explains the attitude of the bystanders watching their friends and neighbors being taken away. The poem explains how the Nazis came for specific groups at a time, and no