- 3 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00:28Satsang with Mooji
00:00:57Satsang with Mooji
00:01:12Last night I saw my mother in a dream
00:01:16She seemed upset and I realized that something serious had happened
00:01:22She motioned me to follow her
00:01:26Then I suddenly I saw my father
00:01:29He was wearing my grey suit
00:01:32It looked good on him
00:01:40We were all there
00:01:42Everyone from before and from now
00:01:44Standing at a river
00:01:47That all at once began to swell
00:01:51Its level rising from moment to moment
00:01:55It's the flood
00:01:57Someone said quite calmly
00:01:59It's the flood
00:01:59But I am not afraid
00:02:04Just then my father waded into the murky blood coloured water
00:02:08And I said to myself
00:02:09So rivers of blood exist after all
00:02:14He stayed beneath the water
00:02:18I began to shout for help
00:02:22But everyone was suddenly gone
00:02:26I don't know how to swim
00:02:28So I panicked
00:02:28Screaming louder and louder
00:02:30But I was all alone
00:02:35And I found him
00:02:39I don't know what power aided me
00:02:41All I know is that I managed to save him all by myself
00:02:46I helped him stretch out on the grass
00:02:48Listen to his breathing
00:02:51In my dream he was alive
00:02:54My mother too
00:02:57In my dream
00:03:01Whether we want it or not
00:03:02We are still living in the era of the holocaust
00:03:06The language is the language of the holocaust
00:03:09The fears are linked to it
00:03:13The perspectives
00:03:16Unfortunately are tied to it
00:03:19The first time we met
00:03:21I asked Elie
00:03:22What do you actually do?
00:03:24And he answered me with a smile
00:03:26He said
00:03:27I'm a storyteller
00:03:29A teller of tales
00:03:36The first tale
00:03:38I always tell
00:03:40Comes from the darkest hour of my generation
00:03:44I was young
00:03:45Almost a child
00:03:47When I saw it
00:03:48When I saw it unfold before my eyes
00:03:52Somewhere in the kingdom of the holocaust
00:03:561944
00:04:13In my small town
00:04:15Somewhere in the Carpathian mountains
00:04:18I knew where I was
00:04:21I knew why I was born
00:04:24I knew why I existed
00:04:39Now I no longer know anything
00:04:44As in a dusty mirror
00:04:45I look at my childhood
00:04:47And I wonder if it is mine
00:04:52In Siget, my town
00:04:54Shabbat began on Friday afternoon
00:04:58Shops closed well before sundown
00:05:02After the ritual bath
00:05:03My father would walk to services
00:05:05Dressed for the occasion
00:05:07Sometimes my father would take my hand
00:05:09As though to protect me
00:05:10As we passed the nearby police station
00:05:12Or the central prison on the main square
00:05:15I liked it when he did that
00:05:17And I like to remember it now
00:05:21The merchants conducted their businesses
00:05:26The students studied Talmud
00:05:28The beggars wandered from house to house
00:05:32To get a bit of food for Shabbat to their families
00:05:35Life was normal
00:05:39I would give so much to be able to relieve a Shabbat
00:05:43In my small town
00:05:45The whiteness of the tablecloth
00:05:49The blinking candle flames
00:05:53Beaming faces around me
00:05:57The melodious voice of my grandfather
00:06:00Inviting the angels of the Sabbath
00:06:03To accompany him to our home
00:06:06It is this Shabbat that I miss
00:06:11The whole feeling of religious Jewish family
00:06:17Celebrating Shabbat
00:06:18To early Shabbat is the ultimate thing
00:06:21Shabbat is what his home
00:06:25What it meant to him
00:06:26C'était une heure de souvenirs très heureux
00:06:30A ce moment
00:06:30Avant la guerre
00:06:32C'était vraiment vraiment une vie magnifique
00:06:37Depuis l'âge de on peut dire 3-4 ans
00:06:39Ma pauvre mère et mon père
00:06:42On nous a pris un professeur
00:06:45D'ailleurs depuis que j'écris et je lis en hébreu
00:06:50Comme si c'était ma langue maternelle
00:06:52On nous a donné l'éducation religieuse
00:06:55I come from a very religious background
00:06:58Very religious family
00:06:59My dream was to become a teacher of Talmud
00:07:07We Jews in Hungary in our ghetto
00:07:09We didn't know about Auschwitz
00:07:15People try to hang on to a fragment of hope
00:07:17In spite of logic
00:07:21They said to one another
00:07:22It's inconceivable after all
00:07:24That the Hungarians would send us all away
00:07:27How could the town go on functioning
00:07:30Without its physicians and businessmen
00:07:33Without its watchmakers and tailors
00:07:37The town needs us
00:07:38Society needs us
00:07:41No one among us
00:07:42And surely not I
00:07:43Still young to possess the sense of reality
00:07:46Could imagine
00:07:47That they will come
00:07:48A day darker than others
00:07:50When we too will be going towards the unknown
00:07:56In 1944
00:07:58Very quickly things happened
00:08:01Between Passover and Shavuot
00:08:05Several weeks
00:08:06The ghetto was created
00:08:11Transports began
00:08:14And the entire city
00:08:16We were from 12,000 to 15,000 Jews
00:08:20Were sent to Auschwitz
00:08:26I left my native town
00:08:28In the spring of 1944
00:08:31It was a beautiful day
00:08:32The surrounding mountains
00:08:35In their green light
00:08:37Seemed taller than usual
00:08:39Our neighbours were out
00:08:41Strolling in their shirt sleeves
00:08:43Some turned their heads away
00:08:45Others sneered
00:08:48At times I tell myself
00:08:49That I have never really left
00:08:50The place where I was born
00:08:54In my study over the table
00:08:56Where I work
00:08:57There hangs a single photograph
00:08:59It shows my parents' home in Siga
00:09:02When I look up
00:09:03That is what I see
00:09:05And it seems to be telling me
00:09:06Don't forget
00:09:08Where you came from
00:09:14When we arrived in Auschwitz
00:09:16My father looked through the window
00:09:18And said
00:09:19Scare of Auschwitz
00:09:20The name meant nothing to us
00:09:25They immediately separated us
00:09:27From my mother
00:09:28And my sisters
00:09:30I remained with my father
00:09:33Everything was so fast
00:09:34And then something strange
00:09:37Happened to me
00:09:38When I saw these hundreds and hundreds
00:09:40And thousands of Jews coming
00:09:42From all over Europe
00:09:44Speaking all languages
00:09:46Belonging to all cultures
00:09:48To all conditions
00:09:49I had the feeling
00:09:50This is a messianic event
00:09:53The messiah is coming
00:09:58To a claim was not the messiah
00:10:00But death as messiah
00:10:02But death as messiah
00:10:03Death as messiah
00:10:30And she had also high
00:10:30As I stayed friends
00:10:33He said
00:10:34So he said
00:10:36I was miles between me
00:10:39And my dad
00:10:41And my mother
00:10:42And my father
00:10:43And would able to stay together
00:10:48And must have been
00:10:50The last time I saw my little sister in his blue manteau that she received for Pesach, for the Pâques.
00:10:59And my two grand sister and my mother and my grandmother who went ahead.
00:11:05I entered into a sort of real dream.
00:11:10It's a nightmare.
00:11:13I see cars coming.
00:11:17And I see, in the flames, in the flames,
00:11:25a baby vivant.
00:11:30I closed my eyes.
00:11:33And for a few moments, I walked with my eyes closed,
00:11:37always standing at my father's arms.
00:11:44The babies were alive.
00:11:49My mother was 44 years old.
00:11:55She didn't come back.
00:11:56Of course.
00:11:58Of course.
00:11:59And my little sister at the age of 10.
00:12:11She was not so shy.
00:12:14She was kind of trying to tell her.
00:12:18She was like, okay, she's not falling out of anything.
00:12:29And she was like, okay.
00:12:30She's not the biggest one.
00:12:30through New York, or London, or Stockholm.
00:12:34We didn't know that.
00:12:36I'm sure that many people went to their dead,
00:12:40not even believing afterwards that they were dead.
00:12:50Everything died in Auschwitz.
00:12:53Ideals died there.
00:12:55Man died there.
00:12:56The idea of God, the image of God changed,
00:13:01underwent a horrifying metamorphosis there.
00:13:07It was my father who kept me alive.
00:13:09We saw it together.
00:13:12And I wanted him to live.
00:13:14I knew that if I die, he would die.
00:13:19The Marche de la mort, called the 18th of January.
00:13:26And all of a sudden, we said that we had to evacuate the camp.
00:13:31We were dissipated.
00:13:32We marched.
00:13:33We marched.
00:13:35Those who couldn't march,
00:13:37who sat in the neck,
00:13:40we heard these coups of revolver,
00:13:43these coups of shooting, all the time.
00:14:06And we arrived to Buchenwald.
00:14:10It was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in one bay.
00:14:15My father got sick, diarrhea.
00:14:21And one night, I heard him call me.
00:14:31And that morning, he died.
00:14:35And I felt he wanted to tell me something.
00:14:39But we couldn't.
00:14:42And again, even today, I tried to figure out what was his testament.
00:14:46What did he want to tell me?
00:14:47The thing that personally touched him the most,
00:14:52of being in a concentration camp,
00:14:56was the fact that he couldn't help his father.
00:14:59His father was dying,
00:15:00and he asked him to come and help him.
00:15:04And he couldn't.
00:15:05That was a deep, deep wound.
00:15:10One day, really, I saw myself in that mirror.
00:15:14And I saw a person who was ageless, nameless, faceless.
00:15:21A person who belonged to another world,
00:15:26the world of the dead.
00:15:31One of the things that every survivor has to face,
00:15:37and thus faced today,
00:15:38is the fact of its own survival.
00:15:42He somehow is ashamed of still being here,
00:15:45and not part of the others who are no longer here.
00:15:53In that place of eternal darkness and silence,
00:15:57we lived not only with the dead.
00:15:59We lived in death.
00:16:15I belonged to a group called the Buchenwald children.
00:16:19We were 400 children in Buchenwald.
00:16:21Then the American army liberated camp.
00:16:25The youngest was eight, seven or eight.
00:16:28The oldest was 18 or 19.
00:16:31I was 16.
00:16:36Then France offered us refuge.
00:16:44That train ride in Schloss of the Fibers was very special.
00:16:48We received from the American army, I remember, cookies.
00:16:52And the first thing we did, we shared our cookies.
00:17:00When we arrived, they separated us in two groups.
00:17:04Those who were religious and the others.
00:17:10I had outbursts of anger, of despair too.
00:17:14But the moment we came to France in that children's home,
00:17:18I re-became religious.
00:17:23Those homes were very, very special.
00:17:25I remember those homes with great, great affection and tenderness and melancholy and nostalgia.
00:17:33And that was the beginning of the surrogate families they had.
00:17:39Of the big bonds of friendship that's more than friendship.
00:17:44That's really like brothers, more than brothers, that you still see so today.
00:17:56We didn't cry.
00:17:59Maybe because people were afraid.
00:18:01If they were to start crying, they would never end.
00:18:10Our problem was how to adjust to death.
00:18:14It was normal to go to sleep with corpses and wake up with corpses, wondering whether you are not one
00:18:20of them.
00:18:21After the war, it was difficult once more to see in death a scandal.
00:18:29To see in death once more a source of pain.
00:18:40One day there were journalists who came to do a story about our, after all, children from Buchenwald.
00:18:45It was a good story.
00:18:48I played chess with a friend.
00:18:51They took pictures.
00:18:52All right.
00:18:54And then later I was in the office of the director.
00:18:57And I heard him speak on the telephone, mentioning my name.
00:19:03I said, I heard you mention my name.
00:19:05He said, oh, you are Wiesel?
00:19:07I said, yes.
00:19:07He said, I just spoke to your sister.
00:19:13I don't believe it.
00:19:14What do you mean?
00:19:15It must be a mistake.
00:19:17Even if she remains alive, what does she do in France?
00:19:20If she's in France, how does she know I'm here?
00:19:23But she said, but she has a message for you.
00:19:26She will wait for you tomorrow at the railway station in Paris.
00:19:30I didn't sleep all night, as you can imagine.
00:19:34Then came next day and there she was.
00:19:47One day, one of my beautiful sisters, she brings a journal to the house where I was in Paris.
00:19:55And I looked and I said, that's my brother.
00:19:58She said, no, that's not possible.
00:20:01I said, yes, that's my brother.
00:20:02My brother, who is with the casquette, it's this photo that I saw in Paris.
00:20:08And it's thanks to this photo that we met.
00:20:16Moi et ma soeur, we were saved.
00:20:25Malheureusement, elle est décédée au Canada.
00:20:28Elle s'appelait Beatrice Jackson, née Wiesel.
00:20:38C'est la destinée.
00:20:41Hilda simply saw my picture in the paper.
00:20:45She had met an Algerian Jew in the DP camp immediately after the war.
00:20:51And she followed him to marry him in Paris.
00:20:54Après, je me suis mariée avec ce monsieur Amsalem.
00:21:01Et quatre ans après, enfin, mon fils est né.
00:21:04Qui s'appelle?
00:21:05Qui s'appelle Sidney.
00:21:07Je me suis mariée avec de Paris.
00:21:10Je suis mariée avec de Paris.
00:21:12Ici, leiser, avec mon sonneux.
00:21:14Et c'était mon petit-christ.
00:21:17Et c'est celui qui me vient de ma mère.
00:21:21Je me soube depuis aujourd'hui.
00:21:23Je me disque depuis, on me dit,
00:21:23je me disque ça,
00:21:23ce qu'il me aurite.
00:21:25Juste-ce que nous n'audrions.
00:21:27Je me disque c'est une petite montagne.
00:21:30Je me disque là.
00:21:31Je me disque c'est une montagne dans lesトreurs.
00:21:36I left the children's home and went to Paris.
00:21:40I cut myself off from the city and from life for weeks on end.
00:21:50I lived in a room which was much more like a prison cell, large enough for only one.
00:22:00I looked only at the sand river bearing along its foam.
00:22:05I no longer perceived the sky mirrored in it.
00:22:11And I threw myself immediately into learning.
00:22:16I was looking for myself, I was fleeing from myself and always there was this taste of failure.
00:22:30A friend went to visit Elie Wiesel and he goes into a small little apartment and the room
00:22:38is pitch black and there's just a single candle burning.
00:22:43There's classical music playing.
00:22:47He's not saying anything.
00:22:49My friend said he could tell that he knew I was there.
00:22:55After a bit of time, he just turned around and left.
00:23:02I remember once asking him, how can you write so fluently?
00:23:08And he said, I get up at four in the morning.
00:23:11I just sit in front of the white page and my hand goes to the pen and it starts writing.
00:23:44The act of writing is for me often nothing more than the secret of writing.
00:23:48of conscience desire to carve words on a tombstone.
00:23:52To the memory of all those I loved and who before I could tell them I loved them, went away.
00:24:18The coffee in which I'm still living in the moment is empty.
00:24:23The coffee in which I'm still living in the moment is empty.
00:24:25It's almost as empty as my heart.
00:24:42He had migraine headaches. Terrible headaches. The pain that this caused, the torment, the
00:24:51anguish. I drew away from people. No tie, no liaison came to interrupt my solitude. I lived
00:25:01only in books where my memory tried to rejoin a more immense and ordered memory. And the
00:25:08more I remembered, the more I felt excluded and alone. I had lost my faith and many things,
00:25:19and I had lost my sense of belonging and orientation. And my faith in God was shaken.
00:25:28I found myself living in the ghetto. He told me that he lived or spent a lot of time with
00:25:39the
00:25:39clochard, the homeless in Paris. And he didn't open his mouth for almost a year. And when he opened his
00:25:48mouth, he had French. He had it. I remained with French because I acquired the French language
00:25:54in France. And I needed a new language. I needed it like a home, a new home. His French was
00:26:03fluent,
00:26:04but not perfect. But he did all of his writing in French all along, even though he really had
00:26:12only spent a few years in France, but he spent many more years in this country.
00:26:18I was sent by a French paper to Israel in 1949 to cover the immigration from the DP camps. And
00:26:27I went
00:26:27there for a few months and came back to Paris, remained a foreign correspondent in Paris.
00:26:32I thought it was interesting that he was a reporter because I thought maybe that was part of his way
00:26:40of dealing with it. That if you report on things, you sort of have to learn about them. And then
00:26:49you're
00:26:49telling other people about them. And maybe that was a way back into reality.
00:26:59Things have changed in the world. And perhaps the world itself has changed. Have I?
00:27:20When I write, I have the feeling, literally, physically, that my grandfather and my mother is looking over
00:27:27my shoulder and reading what I'm writing. I want to be sure that the words will be the proper words.
00:27:39At one point, I decided to write my testimony. I had made a vow in 45 to wait 10 years.
00:27:48I wanted my language
00:27:49to be the monument to our people, especially to those who died.
00:27:55How does one overcome trauma? Well, he overcame it through becoming a witness. Night, of course,
00:28:03was the epicenter. He wrote the original book in Yiddish.
00:28:13It was published in Argentina. My manuscript, it was 864 pages. It was called to develop a
00:28:23book in Yiddish. The world was silent. I wrote it for the other survivors who found it difficult to speak.
00:28:34And I wanted really to tell them, look, you must speak.
00:28:44Ten years after Buffalo, I see what the world forgets. The German army has resurrected.
00:28:53World criminals walk in the streets. The past has been erased from God. Germans and anti-Semites tell the world
00:29:04that the story of the six million Jewish that is only a legend,
00:29:08And the naïve world would believe in it, if not today, than tomorrow. The world that was silent yesterday will
00:29:20remain silent tomorrow.
00:29:23The title of the Yiddish is pissed off at non-Jews. It's the world kept silent. This idea that Jews
00:29:36feel unseen, their sorrows unappreciated. And what we have in the Yiddish is the way Holocaust survivors talk.
00:29:45He wrote this for a very specific audience, but it was not written for those who did not read Yiddish
00:29:53or didn't have access to Jewish culture and Jewish languages to access that book.
00:30:00The French is poetic, symbolic. It doesn't stick its finger in anybody's chest. It points at a kind of cosmic
00:30:15catastrophe.
00:30:17This is the original copy that nobody wanted, but it's all falling apart.
00:30:25In Night, which was translated from the Yiddish and shortened, because no publisher would have taken the full version. In
00:30:35fact, they rejected even the shorter version.
00:30:37The book was published. It did not, I think, get a lot of attention at first, but then, you know,
00:30:47had this extraordinary life.
00:30:51The night that is described here still hangs over many parts of the world, and no one nor anything can
00:31:00promise us that it won't threaten us tomorrow.
00:31:05He brings us to Auschwitz with him. It is both this specific account of this boy's traumatic experience, and it's
00:31:16at the same time this kind of eternal, mythical account.
00:31:22I witnessed hangings in the camp. One day, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three victims
00:31:35in chains, and one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel.
00:31:43To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter. The head of the camp
00:31:49read the verdict.
00:31:52All eyes wore on the child. The three victims mounted together onto the chairs. The three necks were placed at
00:32:00the same moment within the nooses.
00:32:03Long live liberty, cried the two adults. But the child was silent. At the sign from the head of the
00:32:12camp, the three chairs stepped over.
00:32:15Total silence throughout the camp. The two adults were no longer alive. But the third rope was still moving. Being
00:32:24so light, so light, the child was still alive.
00:32:31For more than half an hour, he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our
00:32:40eyes. And behind me, I heard,
00:32:43Where is God now? And I heard a voice within me answer him, He is hanging here on these gallows.
00:32:56Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night.
00:33:05Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.
00:33:13If I survive, it must be for some reason.
00:33:18History is vital. You can't understand the Holocaust without knowing the history. But you need more than the history. You
00:33:28have to be able to imagine some of these things.
00:33:30You will never know why. And Ellie said this early on. If you weren't there, you won't know.
00:33:36You have to take students and readers further than that. You have to help them to imagine what is it
00:33:43like, for example, to get up in the morning and you're starving.
00:33:49And when you go to bed at night, you're still starving. And knowing you're going to get up the next
00:33:55morning, you're also going to be starving. And it may all end and you're being shot or sent to the
00:34:00gas chamber.
00:34:01How do we help people to imagine what that must have been like?
00:34:08But even if you read all the books, all the documents by all the survivors, you would still not know.
00:34:17Only those who were there know what it meant being there.
00:34:26While I write, what else could I do? I write to bear witness.
00:34:44The more I remembered, the more I felt excluded and alone.
00:34:51Whom was I to lean on?
00:34:54I shunned love, aspiring only to silence, aspiring only to madness.
00:35:05I believe that the war was a genius, a universal genius, a human genius, like a fire.
00:35:12And I believe that every one of us who had experienced this war, either as a victim, as a police
00:35:20officer, or even as a witness,
00:35:25will still keep traces of this madness that will come out of one day.
00:35:28Eli had a part of him that was very, very difficult to reach and very tough.
00:35:38I thought he would never have children.
00:35:42The first time I met him was at my friend's.
00:35:45This was at a dinner party in her house, and she was my closest friend.
00:35:50And she said to me, you're meeting Elie Wiesel.
00:35:54I just want you to know he's a very interesting guy, but not somebody you would ever think of marrying.
00:36:03After this dinner, we had one date, and we both knew that it was going to be.
00:36:12Once he met Marian, a switch occurred.
00:36:17She released in him the thirst to live a little bit more normally as a human being.
00:36:26Of what does a man dream when he is 40 years old and has made a decision consecrated by the
00:36:33law of Moses to make a home with a woman he loves?
00:36:38Customs dictates that before his wedding an orphan go to meditate at the grave of his parents.
00:36:45But this groom's parents, like millions of others, had no grave of their own.
00:36:49All creation was their cemetery.
00:36:55He had told me from the beginning he didn't want children.
00:36:58He said, I don't want to bring a child into this world.
00:37:03I convinced him.
00:37:07When Elisha was born, Elie became more religious.
00:37:12He had never stopped being religious.
00:37:16He uncovered it.
00:37:17It was like peeling off layers of non-religion.
00:37:22And his true self emerged, which was religious.
00:37:27At this particular time, Elie did tremendous traveling.
00:37:31He would leave Elisha notes.
00:37:33And he'd say, I'm not here, but I will be back.
00:37:37And tomorrow we shall celebrate again, my son.
00:37:40I would say to myself, I can't believe that he's leaving these notes to this, like, three-year-old.
00:37:46When I see my son, I tell him stories.
00:37:50And I sing him tunes about tales to be told one day by him.
00:37:56And then he smiles.
00:37:59And his smile is not his alone.
00:38:02His smile is my grandfather's, who went to his death, perhaps dancing and singing about my son.
00:38:16My son there is the name of my father.
00:38:19One day he saw the number of my aunt and said,
00:38:22Who will it see you?
00:38:23And why?
00:38:25And who were the wicked people who did that?
00:38:27And why?
00:38:29Did they do it with the entire Jewish people?
00:38:31And why?
00:38:33For the whole power.
00:38:35It's the thing they know.
00:38:37Who knows about?
00:38:40It wasn't easy for Elisha as he went through school.
00:38:44Everywhere he was, Elisha's son, he didn't have a chance to be himself.
00:38:51It was very difficult to be a six- or seven-year-old, and you're out at the playground,
00:38:57talking about, what do your parents do for a living?
00:38:59And one kid is, oh, my dad, you know, he used to be in the Israeli Air Force,
00:39:03and now he flies El Al plane.
00:39:05And the other kid is, oh, my dad's a pharmacy.
00:39:07He gets medicine to help sick people.
00:39:10And I'm like, I think something really bad happened to my dad,
00:39:13and now he writes or talks about it.
00:39:15It was very confusing.
00:39:16How do you ground yourself in your parents' career around that?
00:39:21I don't think I really processed night until I traveled with my father to Seget in 1995 with my cousin
00:39:31Steve.
00:39:34My father almost, I saw him almost as a radio transmitter that could pick up frequencies that no one else
00:39:43was picking up.
00:39:48And it's because he was picking up the ghosts, and he made them real for us.
00:39:57Even if he didn't talk about them, the way it weighed on him made it extremely real.
00:40:04And it really was on that trip that I think it hit in a deep way for the first time
00:40:11that the Nazis had killed a woman who should have grown up to be my aunt.
00:40:21The transformation in, I think, American Jewish awareness of Holocaust and the breakthrough of Ellie's recognition came at the Six
00:40:31Day War.
00:40:33Everybody was convinced the Holocaust is about to occur again.
00:40:37With the success of the Holocaust TV show, suddenly you could teach the Holocaust in schools, right? It could be
00:40:45part of the curriculum.
00:40:47Prior to the 70s, 80s, survivors were not encouraged to talk about what they endured.
00:40:54And Ellie was perhaps the first person to encourage them.
00:41:00No one has taught us more than Ellie Wiesel.
00:41:04His life is testimony that the human spirit endures and prevails.
00:41:09Memory can fail us, for it can fade as the generations change.
00:41:13But Ellie Wiesel has helped make the memory of the Holocaust eternal.
00:41:20Ellie, we present you with this medal.
00:41:24As an expression of our gratitude for your life's work.
00:41:33Ellie was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
00:41:36What happened the week that Ellie was going to receive the medal was the whole uproar about Bidberg.
00:41:42Reagan was going to go to Germany for a state visit.
00:41:45And he was asked by President Kohl to visit a cemetery of German soldiers.
00:41:51And it turns out that there were Waffen-SS soldiers buried in that cemetery.
00:41:56And so this got a tremendous amount of publicity.
00:42:01The Holocaust must never be forgotten by any of us.
00:42:06And in not forgetting it, we should make it clear that we're determined the Holocaust must never take place again.
00:42:16And I think that it would be very hurtful.
00:42:21And all it would do is leave me looking as if I caved in in the face of some unfavorable
00:42:27attention.
00:42:28I think that there's nothing wrong with visiting that cemetery where those young men are victims of Nazism also.
00:42:37Even though they were fighting in the German uniform, drafted into service to carry out the hateful wishes of the
00:42:46Nazis.
00:42:46They were victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.
00:42:52And I feel that there's much to be gained from this.
00:42:58And in strengthening our relationship with the German people who, believe me, live in constant penance.
00:43:06All these who have come along in these later years for what their predecessors did.
00:43:12And for which they're very ashamed.
00:43:15We were in a hotel room in Washington, there for the event.
00:43:22And one after the other, many of the important leaders of the Jewish organizations came to see Elie.
00:43:34They came to the room in a hotel and they pleaded with Elie.
00:43:38They didn't want him to go against the president's wishes.
00:43:44And they felt that it was better to leave things unsaid.
00:43:52Well, do we have a...
00:43:53We have about five minutes.
00:43:54Well, why don't we take some chairs over here?
00:43:57Where would you like to sit?
00:44:00You know that we are in France.
00:44:02Yes.
00:44:03We are in France.
00:44:04What I've been hoping for is that you know I am yours.
00:44:07But we know that we have been your friends for many, many years.
00:44:11We still are.
00:44:12We are very, very devoted to you.
00:44:13And we came a few days ago.
00:44:15We are on the same side.
00:44:19We are with you.
00:44:20We are trying simply to help you.
00:44:24To help you stay in your image of our own country.
00:44:28I know that it is a good one.
00:44:29Of course we will.
00:44:30We have to make decisions in stability in Poland.
00:44:33We don't have any decisions.
00:44:35I know that.
00:44:35But we are here to help you.
00:44:38To gain some background and some understanding of why certain words hurt us.
00:44:45Not you.
00:44:46Certain words hurt us.
00:44:47And certain expressions.
00:44:50It's nothing that will change our friendship for you.
00:44:54Or our admiration for you.
00:44:56We are together.
00:44:57We are together.
00:44:58Well, I think that we are all the victims right now of a lack of understanding.
00:45:03Let me make clear what is taking place.
00:45:06I have to say that I have always believed forgiveness is divine.
00:45:11But I don't think I am ever going to be able to forgive the press for their handling of this.
00:45:16And what they have done.
00:45:18When the cemetery there was put.
00:45:20Helmut himself did not know the presence of about 30 graves of SS troops.
00:45:26There are 3,000 so long told there.
00:45:30And I did not mean, when I said they were victims too, that their experience in any way was parallel
00:45:37to yours.
00:45:39I simply meant that I think everyone who died in that war, on all sides, were victims of the Nazi
00:45:47terror, the horror that that man loosed on the world.
00:45:51Even in cold, when that was decided, was not aware.
00:45:56As a matter of fact, he needed a personal visit.
00:45:59And, as you know, the tombstones there are flush with the ground.
00:46:04And it had snowed.
00:46:07And he, in good faith, said, no, there are no SS in the cemetery.
00:46:14Well, I think it's safe to say that the president's remarks during his entire trip in Germany.
00:46:20Will draw a distinction between the German soldier and the SS.
00:46:26And that he will in no way condemn, I mean, approve or say any kind of approving word regarding SS,
00:46:36Nazis, or the Third Reich.
00:46:39In order to diminish the publicity, the White House set the stage in a small room instead of the larger
00:46:46room.
00:46:46Of course, they didn't want the publicity of Ellie receiving the medal and what he might say.
00:46:51It turns out, their plans didn't work out because NBC broadcast Ellie's speech live.
00:47:00Let's first give this medal to my son.
00:47:10I am grateful to you for the medal.
00:47:12But this medal is not mine alone.
00:47:15It belongs to all those who remember what SS killers have done to their victims.
00:47:21It was given to me by the American people for my writings, teaching, and for my testimony.
00:47:28While I feel responsible for the living, I feel equally responsible to the dead.
00:47:36Their memory dwells in my memory.
00:47:40Forty years ago, a young man awoke and he found himself an orphan in an orphaned world.
00:47:45What have I learned in the last 40 years?
00:47:49Small things.
00:47:50I learned the perils of language and those of silence.
00:47:54I learned that in extreme situations when human lives and dignity are at stake, neutrality is a sin.
00:48:01It helps the killers, not the victims.
00:48:05But I have also learned that suffering confers no privileges.
00:48:08It all depends what one does with it.
00:48:11And this is why survivors of whom you spoke, Mr. President, have tried to teach their contemporaries
00:48:17how to build on ruins, how to invent hope in a world that offers none,
00:48:25how to proclaim faith to a generation that has seen it shamed and mutilated.
00:48:33We believe that memory is the answer, perhaps the only answer.
00:48:38Mr. President, I wouldn't be the person I am and you wouldn't respect me for what I am.
00:48:46If I were not to tell you also of the sadness that is in my heart for what happened during
00:48:52the last week,
00:48:53and I am sure that you too are sad for the same reasons.
00:48:59Our tradition commands us, quote, to speak truth to power.
00:49:05So may I speak to you, Mr. President, with respect and admiration.
00:49:10For I know of your commitment to humanity, and therefore I am convinced, as you have told us earlier when
00:49:18we spoke,
00:49:18that you were not aware of the presence of SS graves in the Bidberg Cemetery.
00:49:23Of course you didn't know, but now we all are aware.
00:49:29May I, Mr. President, if it's possible at all, implore you to do something else, to find a way, to
00:49:38find another way, another site.
00:49:41That place, Mr. President, is not your place.
00:49:46Your place is with the victims of the SS.
00:49:50All we know there are political and strategic reasons.
00:49:52But this issue, as all issues related to that awesome event, transcends politics and diplomacy.
00:50:01The issue here is not politics, but good and evil.
00:50:06And we must never confuse them.
00:50:08For I have seen the SS at work, and I have seen their victims.
00:50:13But, Mr. President, I know and I understand, we all do, that you seek reconciliation.
00:50:19And so do I, so do we.
00:50:22And I, too, wish to attain true reconciliation with the German people.
00:50:28I do not believe in collective guilt, nor in collective responsibility.
00:50:34Only the killers were guilty.
00:50:38Their sons and daughters are not.
00:50:41And I believe, Mr. President, that we can.
00:50:46And we must work together with them.
00:50:49And with all people.
00:50:51And we must work to bring peace and understanding to a tormented world.
00:50:56That, as you know, is still awaiting redemption.
00:51:09And Elie told me that after a speech, Elie thought that he might have convinced Reagan.
00:51:17Until George Bush came up to him and said, so you'll, so you'll go with us.
00:51:23He speaks just now that the president would go to Bergen-Belsen.
00:51:26And he will go to Bitburg.
00:51:28So apparently your plea has not at least immediately been answered.
00:51:31Does that surprise you?
00:51:34No.
00:51:35I said earlier, I'm romantic.
00:51:37You know, I'm a big romantic.
00:51:39I thought that since I will make this plea to him, implore him that he will get up and say,
00:51:46okay.
00:51:48You didn't really expect that.
00:51:50Mr. Wiesel, what you did today was really quite extraordinary.
00:51:52On nationwide television, in effect, giving the president something of a moral lecture here.
00:51:58What were your thoughts about doing that?
00:52:00I am not a moralist.
00:52:01I'm a teacher.
00:52:02I'm not a politician.
00:52:03That's my strength.
00:52:04You were giving him a lesson.
00:52:06No.
00:52:07I told him a story.
00:52:08I'm a storyteller.
00:52:09He made people think about what they were here for and what was important and what was not.
00:52:17He was able to translate it into terms that touched people.
00:52:32Dear Elie Wiesel, we have been told that you said when your son was born that you felt sorry for
00:52:43him coming into this ugly and evil world.
00:52:49After a second thought, however, you drew a different conclusion.
00:52:54Thinking of yourself as a link in a long, long chain of generations, I think it would be appropriate that
00:53:05your son, with such a precious burden on his shoulders, should follow you up to the podium when you receive
00:53:15the peace prize.
00:53:18It was a very, very exciting time.
00:53:21But everybody reacted differently.
00:53:24They asked Alicia at the time, in 1986, he was 14.
00:53:30They said, how does it affect you?
00:53:33And his answer was, my allowance will increase.
00:53:37That's it.
00:53:38I had realized, as a young person, at age 14, that my identity was very much viewed as being in
00:53:49the shadow of my father.
00:53:50For me, it was just the epitome of everything I didn't want, being known further as just an appendage to
00:53:57my father.
00:53:59It's 3.35 in the morning on his birthday, 1990.
00:54:03Dear Dad, I'm writing this letter at a rather late hour.
00:54:06I went with a friend to see a hardcore band, the Circle Jerks, play at the Ritz.
00:54:10The slam dancing was rough, and there were some people who got hurt, nothing too serious.
00:54:15All the injuries were unintended.
00:54:16The dance is a violent one, and these things happen.
00:54:19I know you don't want to accept any such analogy, but to some extent I feel it is applicable to
00:54:23us.
00:54:24We are driven in different directions, as no two dancers can ever be going in the exact same direction.
00:54:31We both get injured from time to time, even by each other, and yet we both get up a bit
00:54:35dazed and rejoin the dance.
00:54:37Our love is stronger than the occasional injuries which occur.
00:54:40I love you always.
00:54:41I miss you.
00:54:42I never wanted to hurt you.
00:54:44I never will, despite whatever I do with my life.
00:54:47Alicia.
00:54:52So here's one that he wrote to me in 1991.
00:54:57He wrote this in an Israeli bunker, as the scuds were falling, during Gulf War I.
00:55:03And this letter was actually in a sealed envelope at the time that he passed.
00:55:08My mom discovered it.
00:55:10These were his sort of last words to me, in case he never got another chance to tell me what
00:55:15was on his mind.
00:55:16And he says,
00:55:17My dear Alicia, if you promise not to be angry, I will tell you something.
00:55:22I love you.
00:55:24Should anything happen to me in Israel, I hope you will remember at least some of the things I tried
00:55:29to share with you.
00:55:32Remember my father after whom you have been named.
00:55:37Remember that you are a Jew.
00:55:40Remember that even within the doubt there is a God, the God of Israel.
00:55:45Take care of yourself.
00:55:47You have been and remain the center of my life.
00:55:51With infinite love, your father.
00:55:54For Alicia, and for me as well, having babies has been that process of coming back to ourselves and our
00:56:05centers and our upbringings, our faith.
00:56:13The friendly bees are ladybugs.
00:56:16The ladybugs.
00:56:18Yeah.
00:56:20They don't bite.
00:56:21They don't bite.
00:56:22They don't bite anyone.
00:56:26What memories do you have of your grandfather?
00:56:29Okay, I remember in his study when I was little, every morning he and I would both wake up early.
00:56:39And in the mornings he'd go up to his study and he'd put on his to fill him.
00:56:43And I would just stand outside his study, opening and closing the doors.
00:56:48Sometimes it feels like there's so much pressure on me to be like my dad and my grandpa.
00:56:57I definitely agree.
00:57:00Um, pssh.
00:57:02I...
00:57:03Wow.
00:57:04Wow, so...
00:57:06100%.
00:57:06The two things Ellie asked of Alicia were that he marry a Jewish woman and that he recite Kaddish after
00:57:18he passed.
00:57:19So Alicia did just that.
00:57:21But somewhere in that journey, Alicia realized it was a gift for himself.
00:57:36And then, gradually, Alicia started to reintroduce more tradition into our lives, into his life, and really did a deep
00:57:48dive into Judaism.
00:57:50So are you ready for a quick one?
00:57:52Chess?
00:57:54Chess?
00:57:54All right.
00:57:54Okay, baby.
00:58:01I like the Grand Prix variation.
00:58:03Ooh.
00:58:07That's a latke?
00:58:08Yes.
00:58:09It doesn't look like a latke.
00:58:11It's a latke?
00:58:11I know.
00:58:12It's just unmated.
00:58:14Really?
00:58:14You're blaming it on me now?
00:58:18I told Anne that it was your final test before Dad would marry you.
00:58:23That you had to make a latke.
00:58:24You wouldn't have married me.
00:58:25You wouldn't exist.
00:58:26If this was the latke?
00:58:28Yeah.
00:58:30It's time to light the candles.
00:58:40I've always been a little afraid of religion of any kind.
00:58:45I know that I was always afraid of anything that compromised one's will and relegated it to an inferior position,
00:58:56to something else, which was religion.
00:59:01So I was a pagan in the family.
00:59:04My faith is a wounded faith.
00:59:08But it's not without faith.
00:59:10My wife is not without faith.
00:59:11I didn't divorce God.
00:59:12What I think was special about him was that he saw the trauma as something that has to lead to
00:59:24moral action.
00:59:26I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.
00:59:37Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.
00:59:44And in spite of what some extreme critics have said about me, that principle applies in my life also to
00:59:58the Palestinians, to whose plight I am sensitive,
01:00:03but whose methods I deplore when they lead to violence.
01:00:10Violence is not the answer.
01:00:14Both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people have lost too many sons and shed too much blood.
01:00:24But this must stop.
01:00:26He didn't want to criticize Israel under any circumstance.
01:00:31He didn't want to criticize the occupation.
01:00:34He didn't want to criticize the settlers.
01:00:38He may not have agreed with them.
01:00:41He may not have agreed with them.
01:00:41But he didn't want to criticize them.
01:00:43Ever.
01:00:46And we have learned that when people suffer, we cannot remain indifferent.
01:00:51And Mr. President, I cannot not tell you something.
01:00:55I have been in the former Yugoslavia last fall.
01:01:01I cannot sleep since we must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country.
01:01:09The number one lesson that I learned from him was your suffering is not what defines you, but it informs
01:01:20you.
01:01:20It can shape you.
01:01:22And then it's your job to make it the best tool that you can.
01:01:28If you had to summarize the greatest offering that you've been able to give your students, what would that be?
01:01:38I came up with a formula.
01:01:40I'm not sure it's always good, but I said simply, look, whatever you do in your life, remember, think higher
01:01:49and feel deeper.
01:01:50The last day of a semester, a student asked Professor Riesel,
01:01:53Professor, can you show us the number on your arm?
01:01:57And there was dead silence in the room.
01:02:00And without a word, he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve and showed the number on his
01:02:05arm to the class.
01:02:06There were about 65 or 70 students in the class.
01:02:09And in silence, he rolled his sleeve back down and buttoned it and put his jacket back on and said,
01:02:16next question.
01:02:17I do not believe that there are, that there could be or even there should be novels about the Holocaust.
01:02:26Either a novel is a novel or it is not.
01:02:31And when it is about the Holocaust, it is not.
01:02:34And I have to tell you that I have never been so angry, never so aware of my responsibility as
01:02:42a teacher,
01:02:43that when I am in front of these children.
01:02:47Because I am responsible for the world that I have laid them,
01:02:53and that I have destroyed for them, that we have destroyed for them,
01:02:57and now it is for them to rebuild them on ruins.
01:03:01He developed very strong relationships with all of his students.
01:03:07I saw them being transformed.
01:03:09Part of what we had to do each semester was you would choose a book from the list of texts
01:03:16that you are reading,
01:03:18and you would present, you would give a little wee presentation on the book, you know, that week.
01:03:23And everybody was always super nervous about it.
01:03:25When I got up to give the presentation and I was talking about this character who had very dark skin
01:03:32and those things,
01:03:33I realized how much it, like, affected me.
01:03:38And in the moment that I was in the class, I broke out into tears.
01:03:42Because that space was open to talk about memory, right, and to talk about things like trauma, people were open.
01:03:55Remember the enemy.
01:03:58And that is an attitude which is a very strong attitude.
01:04:04Imagine the victim simply saying to the torture,
01:04:07look, you can do whatever you want, but I will remember you.
01:04:13This is what frightens the enemy most usually.
01:04:17Nothing frightens the enemy more.
01:04:19To be vanquished, okay, vanquished today, come back tomorrow.
01:04:25But the idea that the victim will remember the enemy, the memory will remain, that is a real punishment.
01:04:33Memory is what makes us civilized.
01:04:35You know, like, that is what makes us human.
01:04:39And never again means something to me, right?
01:04:43That is, that I have a responsibility that goes beyond myself and my beliefs,
01:04:50and that I'm a part of this global community.
01:04:55I grew up in the very southwest part of Germany, and all my classmates and myself were very much interested
01:05:04in political questions.
01:05:07One day, I met somebody, and he said, read the book Night by Elie Wiesel.
01:05:13I couldn't manage more than one or two pages a day, because it moved me so much.
01:05:20And that's how I said, I have to know Elie Wiesel.
01:05:26And I packed my pocket and went to Boston University and studied there with her.
01:05:31First time, a professor said to me, Reinhold, it is good that you are here.
01:05:37That had me no one said before.
01:05:40As much as you will learn from me, I will learn from you.
01:05:45And we talked a lot, talked a lot, talked a lot.
01:05:49And then I recorded the conversations and then translated and published later.
01:05:56And that gave my life a different direction.
01:06:03I hope that there are more and more young people your kind in Germany.
01:06:09Not only for me, but for Germany.
01:06:12That is the hope.
01:06:13And you must strengthen that hope.
01:06:16And therefore, you become not only educators, but with your own lives.
01:06:20You are living examples for others to follow.
01:06:24No.
01:06:26Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp.
01:06:29Everyone has to fight for himself.
01:06:31And don't think about others.
01:06:34Not even about his father.
01:06:36Neither father nor brother nor friend.
01:06:39The fact that he said, I'm not going to be silent.
01:06:44And so much of my life, people tell you, this tall, dark skinned black man to shut up.
01:06:54That what you have to say is not that important.
01:06:57Who you are is not important.
01:06:59And that 100 page book says, no, I got a story.
01:07:04The commentary in the Talmud is, if you are my witnesses, I am God.
01:07:11If you are not, I am not.
01:07:15My God.
01:07:17That's what I want to say, you know, really.
01:07:18To say that.
01:07:19And to accept it as part of belief.
01:07:22I give up.
01:07:23Which means what Heschel said, you know, God in quest of man, in search of man.
01:07:27You need, God needs human beings, us, little specks of dust, to be God.
01:07:35The mystical teaching tells us that it is possible for any person to bring the Messiah to the whole world.
01:07:43And I believe in it.
01:07:45I no longer believe in it.
01:07:48I believe today that it's possible for you or me or anyone to bring a moment, a messianic moment to
01:07:58each other.
01:07:59If I, if I could simply bring a messianic moment into the life of one person, I think that my
01:08:05life would have been justified.
01:08:09Night is to me, of course, a very special book.
01:08:12It is the basis for all the other books.
01:08:15The foundation.
01:08:18Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Good afternoon.
01:08:24I'm going to start chapter one of Night by Elie Wiesel.
01:08:27We're going to learn about Elie's family and sort of his introduction to Judaism, like who he is as a
01:08:34person.
01:08:34And we're going to slowly transition into this like ominous mood of the Holocaust sort of brewing in the background.
01:08:40Let's open up to chapter one.
01:08:42This is our five to six weeks to really focus on Elie Wiesel.
01:08:47I met him in 1941.
01:08:49I was almost 13 and deeply observant.
01:08:53Raise your hand if you're 13 in here.
01:08:55Look at you.
01:08:57So in a lot of ways this is a story that could relate to us.
01:09:00Let's keep going.
01:09:01Kids know that six million people who are Jewish died and were killed.
01:09:06And so they have some context about like how Hitler came to power.
01:09:10They have some context about what it means to practice Judaism.
01:09:13And some general ideas about what the world was going through around World War II.
01:09:19Regular, normal Germans that were sophisticated and intelligent, they conformed with Hitler.
01:09:27Six million Jews were murdered because of the fact that they were deemed as genetically inferior due to the fact
01:09:34that maybe they weren't fully German or that they had disabilities.
01:09:38How is a mood of being in the ghettos different from the mood of children playing in the street?
01:09:43How did the mood change in ghettos?
01:09:45Back then, ghettos also described something negative that still, they still mean something negative to this day.
01:09:54They're really trying to see, are we similar to Wiesel?
01:09:57Would we react in that way? Can we imagine it? Most of us cannot.
01:10:00How did normal people get to this point where a tragedy like this could happen?
01:10:07The Nazi, they controlled everything, everybody hearing the same thing all at the same time.
01:10:14So, if everybody hears the same thing all at the same time, they would all think, oh, since he's doing
01:10:20it, I should do it.
01:10:21People were ignorant to the idea that they were just killing innocent people that they didn't know.
01:10:26Most of our students are from Newark, live in Newark.
01:10:29They come from backgrounds that are not, they've never experienced anything like the Holocaust.
01:10:35But the context, those sort of underbrewing tones of violence, in a lot of ways, the undertones are similar.
01:10:41Our beliefs in God, how does his relationship with his father shift?
01:10:45He's probably going to be feeling anger for being like having to take care of his father at 16 in
01:10:50a situation like this.
01:10:51I feel like everything bad that happened made Wiesel stronger since now he has to take care for his father.
01:10:58I kind of disagree when Isabel said that made him stronger, in the end that he was still broken down
01:11:03emotionally.
01:11:04This is dehumanization because one of the main things that makes a human human is them having the right and
01:11:10the ability to choose.
01:11:12I feel like freedom is being able to choose life or death, and I feel like freedom is being able
01:11:17to have an option, and I feel like you cannot define freedom. Some people define freedom for themselves.
01:11:23God hasn't given up on Ellie yet, but Ellie is trying to give up on God. But God is still
01:11:30giving him chances and still letting him survive.
01:11:33It's not God. I feel like it's more like fate.
01:11:37I feel as if God didn't create the Holocaust because I feel as if he gives us a choice to
01:11:42choose, so it wasn't really his fault that the Holocaust happened.
01:11:46Maybe God is putting him through this to make him understand that God is not just there to make you
01:11:52happy, God is there to just lead you through life in general.
01:11:55What was the most impactful part of the book for you?
01:11:58The most impactful part was when his father died.
01:12:02This is powerful to me because this is like a different situation, and I don't know what to expect because
01:12:07I've never experienced it.
01:12:08But I feel like if I did, and I had to let go of my mom, I don't even know
01:12:15what I would do with myself.
01:12:17I feel as if when he wrote this book, he was trying to let go of his pain so he
01:12:23won't have to feel the pain of having to relive those moments over and over and over again.
01:12:30This isn't the same world Wiesel was in when he was younger, because we even see that change in his
01:12:36name throughout the book.
01:12:37He's called Eliezer, but as an author, and when we're talking about him in a present tense before he passed,
01:12:45we say Elie.
01:12:46That just shows that he's now in a different world, so even though Elie is free, Eliezer was never freed
01:12:52from his past.
01:12:54Elie Wiesel is free, Eliezer is not.
01:12:59I love you.
01:13:00I love you too. I'll see you in eight days.
01:13:13Why is it that my town still enchants me so?
01:13:18Is it because in my memory it is entangled with my childhood?
01:13:24Evil remains hidden and time suspended.
01:13:28In my fantasy, I still see myself in it.
01:13:38In a tiny place like Siget, until 1944, people lived together.
01:13:44Hungarian gendarmerie was here present all the time.
01:13:47They even lived in Jewish homes.
01:13:52And suddenly, overnight, they became the perpetrators.
01:14:01I saw them with their bundles on their shoulders.
01:14:04The Hungarian gendarmes were driving them mad with fear.
01:14:09My sisters and myself, we went to the wells and brought them water.
01:14:20Then, three days later, I was myself among them.
01:14:27Still am.
01:14:31Are most of the people who visit Siget, as tourists, aware of the Jewish history or do they just come
01:14:37here because...
01:14:37Most of them are not.
01:14:39Yeah.
01:14:39Most of them are not.
01:14:40I would say that 90% of them are amazed that Siget was actually a Jewish town.
01:14:47Mm-hmm.
01:15:04Everything is the same.
01:15:06Furniture.
01:15:09Even the wallpaper.
01:15:11And it is so much the same.
01:15:15That at times, I'm afraid that perhaps the door might open and the young boy that used to look like
01:15:26me will come out.
01:15:29And he will ask me very innocently, tell me, what are you doing here, stranger?
01:15:36What are you doing in my dream, in my tale?
01:15:48Well, we're looking for El Diezze, right?
01:15:52Because your grandfather was named after his grandfather.
01:16:09where this one is huge that's a benyamin it's yehuda benyamin you see this is the wrong one
01:16:16yeah it's not this one
01:16:23oh possibly i think that's a mem oh wait oh that is eliezer this is eliezer yes
01:16:34okay it should be ben shimkhah shalom halevi this is it yeah this is it we found it this is
01:16:42my
01:16:42great-great-grandfather eliezer lazar vizel halevi
01:17:03wow
01:17:15rov eliezer uh vizel i've never seen it spelled like that but that's how it's pronounced
01:17:40i visited all the places which had once filled my landscape
01:17:45i searched for the people out of my path but i did not find them
01:17:51the only place where i felt at home was the jewish cemetery
01:17:57this was the only place in siget that reminded me of siget
01:18:02i wandered from one grave to another i had bought some candles i lit them placing one
01:18:11wherever i found a familiar name the wind blew them out
01:18:16and suddenly tears strangled me a terrible certainty overcame me
01:18:26for the town that had once been mine
01:18:30never was
01:18:42my hometown is only famous for the concentration camp sachsenhausen
01:18:49unfortunately there were no jews left
01:18:55they came first for the communists and i didn't speak up because i wasn't a communist
01:19:03then they came for the jews and i didn't speak up because i wasn't a jew
01:19:10then they came for the trade unionists and i didn't speak up because i wasn't a trade unionist
01:19:17then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up
01:19:28i learned that elie wiesel had a type of blood cancer
01:19:36he was sent to us to participate in a clinical trial with a drug
01:19:41we have never used before hello dr nance speaking i had a phone call with his son alicia and talking
01:19:50to him
01:19:51for the first time
01:19:54wasn't that easy giving the life of his father into hands of a german doctor
01:20:04a drug that has never been tested in new york
01:20:09he said if there is a chance and if we have an option even if it is an experimental treatment
01:20:17maybe we give it a chance but the final decision has to be made by my father
01:20:23elie wiesel responded very nicely but after a year the treatment stopped working elijah said
01:20:32if there's nothing else we can do then i want to take him home
01:20:35i remember in the moments after my father passed there was this this rush um
01:20:43like my blood rushing in my head i had to sit down because
01:20:50there was this voice in my head
01:20:54saying that my father hadn't gone anywhere that he was with me and always would be
01:21:04i believe that life does not end with death
01:21:12i feel the presence of my father all the time
01:21:20the same is of course my mother and my little sister i i feel their presence
01:21:26which means the death had their own presence
01:21:31it's up for me to accept it and i do
01:21:33it doesn't mean i don't believe i don't know but between belief and knowledge there is an abyss
01:21:42but what would one be without the other
01:21:53i
01:21:55i
01:21:57i
01:21:59i
01:21:59i
01:22:07V'viyyat ha-mashiyah chani ma-min
01:22:18V'viyyat ha-mashiyah v'yaf al-pi shayit ma-me-cha
01:22:35V'viyyat ha-mashiyah v' State future
01:22:39V' RAW a-hey haqe ilo ho ho
01:22:44V'cheul yom v'vom she yavo'
01:23:20ORGAN PLAYS
01:23:44ORGAN PLAYS
Comments