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00:00:58do something about it.
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 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, standing at a river
00:01:47that all at once began to swell.
00:01:52It's level rising from moment to moment.
00:01:56It's the flood, someone said quite calmly.
00:01:59It's the flood, but I am not afraid.
00:02:04Just then, my father waded into the murky, blood-colored water.
00:02:08And I said to myself, so 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, so I panicked, screaming louder and louder, but 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, listen to his breathing.
00:02:51In my dream he was alive.
00:02:54My mother too.
00:02:57In my dream.
00:03:00Whether we want it or not, we 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.
00:03:12The perspectives, unfortunately, are tied to it.
00:03:19The first time we met, I asked Eli, what do you actually do?
00:03:24And he answered me with a smile.
00:03:26He said, I'm a storyteller.
00:03:29A teller of tales.
00:03:36The first tale I always tell comes from the darkest hour of my generation.
00:03:44I was young, almost a child, when I saw it unfold before my eyes.
00:03:52Somewhere in the kingdom of the Holocaust, 1944.
00:04:13In my small town, somewhere in the Carpathian mountains, I knew where I was.
00:04:21I knew why I was born.
00:04:25I knew why I existed.
00:04:40Now, I no longer know anything.
00:04:44As in a dusty mirror, I look at my childhood and I wonder if it is mine.
00:04:52In Siget, my town, Shabbat began on Friday afternoon.
00:04:59Shops closed well before sundown.
00:05:02After the ritual bath, my father would walk to services, dressed for the occasion.
00:05:07Sometimes my father would take my hand, as though to protect me,
00:05:11as we passed the nearby police station or 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.
00:05:29The beggars wandered from house to house to 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 in my small town.
00:05:44The whiteness of the tablecloth.
00:05:48The blinking candle flames.
00:05:52The beaming faces around me.
00:05:57The melodious voice of my grandfather inviting the angels of the Sabbath to accompany him to our home.
00:06:07It is this Shabbat that I miss.
00:06:11The whole feeling of religious Jewish family celebrating Shabbat.
00:06:18To Elie, Shabbat is the ultimate thing.
00:06:22Shabbat is what his home, what it meant to him.
00:06:27It was a very happy souvenir, at this moment, before the war.
00:06:33It was really, really a beautiful life.
00:06:37Since the age of 3 or 4 years old, my poor mother and my father,
00:06:42we took a teacher who, since I read and read in Hebrew as if it was my maternal language,
00:06:52we gave us a religious education.
00:06:55I come from a very religious background, very religious family.
00:06:59My dream was to become a teacher of Talmud.
00:07:07We Jews in Hungary, in our ghetto, we didn't know about Auschwitz.
00:07:15People try to hang on to a fragment of hope, in spite of logic.
00:07:21They said to one another, it's inconceivable, after all, that the Hungarians would send us all away.
00:07:27How could the town go on functioning without its physicians and businessmen, without its watchmakers and tailors?
00:07:37The town needs us, society needs us.
00:07:41No one among us, and surely not I, still young to possess the sense of reality, could imagine that they
00:07:48will come a day darker than others, when we too will be going towards the unknown.
00:07:56In 1944, very quickly, things happened.
00:08:01Between Passover and Shavuot, several weeks, the ghetto was created.
00:08:10The transports began, and the entire city, there were from 12,000 to 15,000 Jews, were sent to Auschwitz.
00:08:26I left my native town in the spring of 1944.
00:08:31It was a beautiful day.
00:08:33The surrounding mountains, in their green light, seemed taller than usual.
00:08:39Our neighbors were out strolling in their shirt sleeves.
00:08:43Some turned their heads away, others sneered.
00:08:48At times, I tell myself that I have never really left the place where I was born.
00:08:54In my study over the table where I work, there hangs a single photograph.
00:08:59It shows my parents' home in Siga.
00:09:02When I look up, that is what I see.
00:09:05And it seems to be telling me, don't forget where you came from.
00:09:14When we arrived in Auschwitz, my father looked through the window and said,
00:09:19it's scared of Auschwitz.
00:09:21The name meant nothing to us.
00:09:26Immediately separated us from my mother and my sisters.
00:09:30I remained with my father.
00:09:33Everything was so fast.
00:09:34And then something strange happened to me.
00:09:38When I saw these hundreds and hundreds and thousands perhaps of Jews coming.
00:09:42From all over Europe, speaking all languages.
00:09:46Belonging to all cultures, to all conditions.
00:09:49I had a feeling this is a messianic event.
00:09:53The Messiah is coming.
00:09:58To claim both not a messiah, but death is a messiah.
00:10:13My mother knew surely that there was no hope.
00:10:17Because she told me in the last minute to my sister,
00:10:20always stay together, always stay together.
00:10:24And she told me to stay with her.
00:10:27And I ran from the other side.
00:10:29She told me to stay with her.
00:10:31She told me to stay with her.
00:10:33She told me to stay with her.
00:10:34Like that.
00:10:35I was staying with my father.
00:10:39And the last words of my mother were to stay together.
00:10:49And my father was to stay together.
00:10:59And my mother and mother and grandmother.
00:11:05And I was entering into a sort of real dream.
00:11:10It was a nightmare.
00:11:13And I saw a dream.
00:11:17And I saw a dream.
00:11:20And I saw...
00:11:21In the field of flames,
00:11:24In the flames,
00:11:25Of people,
00:11:27I saw a dream.
00:11:30I closed my eyes, and for a few moments I walked with my eyes closed,
00:11:37always standing at my father's arms.
00:11:43The children were alive.
00:11:48My mother had 44 years old.
00:11:54She didn't come back, of course.
00:11:58Of course, and my little sister at the age of 10 years old.
00:12:04Auschwitz was the name of a little railroad station.
00:12:09Even inside Auschwitz, they did not believe that Auschwitz was something else than a little railroad station.
00:12:17But Auschwitz became a center of Jewish history.
00:12:21Oh, yes. At that point, and at that period, Jewish history ran through Auschwitz, and not through New York, or
00:12:32London, or Stockholm.
00:12:34We didn't know that.
00:12:37I'm sure that many people went to their death, not even believing afterwards that they were dead.
00:12:50Everything died in Auschwitz.
00:12:53Ideals died there.
00:12:55Man died there.
00:12:57The idea of God, the image of God changed, underwent a horrifying metamorphosis there.
00:13:07It was my father who kept me alive. We saw it together.
00:13:12And I wanted him to live. I knew that if I die, he would die.
00:13:19The marches of death, that we called it.
00:13:23The 18th of January.
00:13:24The 18th of January.
00:13:26The 19th of January.
00:13:27The 22nd of January.
00:13:30The 17th of January.
00:13:37We carried out the call from all the crew.
00:13:41We went through the camp to to Outchwitz.
00:13:42We entered theking.
00:13:43This Thursday.
00:13:45The touchier.
00:13:47The front is open in the interior.
00:13:49Two people went through.
00:13:49The walls hit up and stench and saw them at hater.
00:13:53And the Germans roaming around.
00:13:54All the time, we toured.
00:13:54Physoped in the brutalisfcji.
00:14:06And we arrived to Buchenwald, it was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in one barrack.
00:14:16My father got sick, diarrhea.
00:14:22And 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, but I couldn't.
00:14:42And again, even today I tried to figure out what was his testament, what did he want to tell me.
00:14:47The thing that personally touched him the most of being in a concentration camp was the fact that he couldn't
00:14:57help his father.
00:14:59His father was dying and he asked him to come and help him. And he couldn't. That was a deep,
00:15:07deep wound.
00:15:10One day really I saw myself in that mirror. And I saw a person who was ageless, nameless, faceless. A
00:15:22person who belonged to another world, the world of the dead.
00:15:31One of the things that every survivor has to face and does face today is the fact of its own
00:15:40survival.
00:15:42He somehow is ashamed of still being here and not part of the others who are no longer here.
00:15:53In that place of eternal darkness and silence we lived not only with the dead, we lived in death.
00:16:15I belonged to a group called the Buchenwald children.
00:16:19We were 400 children in Buchenwald. Then the American army liberated camp.
00:16:25The youngest was eight, seven or eight. The oldest was 18 or 19. I was 16.
00:16:36Then France offered us refuge.
00:16:44That train ride in Schloss of the Fides 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. Those who were religious and the others.
00:17:10I had outbursts of anger, of despair too. But the moment we came to France in that children's home, I
00:17:19re-became religious.
00:17:23Those homes were very, very special.
00:17:25Those homes were very, very special. And I remember those homes with great, great affection and tenderness and melancholy and
00:17:31nostalgia.
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. Maybe because people were afraid. If 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. To see in death once more
00:18:31a source of pain.
00:18:39One day, there were journalists who came to do a story about our children from Buchenwald. It was a good
00:18:46story.
00:18:48I played chess with a friend. They took pictures. All right.
00:18:54And then later, I was in the office of the director. And I heard him speak on the telephone, mentioning
00:19:00my name.
00:19:03I said, I heard you mention my name. He said, oh, you are a visa? I said, yes. He said,
00:19:07I just spoke to your sister.
00:19:12I said, Mr. Director, I don't believe it. What do you mean? It must be a mistake.
00:19:17Even if she remains alive, what does she do in France? If she's in France, how does she know I'm
00:19:21here?
00:19:23But she said, but she has a message for you. She will wait for you tomorrow at the railway station
00:19:28in Paris.
00:19:30I didn't sleep all night, as you can imagine. Then 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. She said, no, that's not possible.
00:20:01I said, yes, that's my brother. My brother, who is with the jacket, it's this photo that I saw in
00:20:08Paris.
00:20:08And it's because of this photo that we met.
00:20:16Me and my sister, we were saved.
00:20:18Me and my sister, we were saved.
00:20:24Unfortunately, she died in Canada. She was named Beatrice Jackson.
00:20:38It's her destiny.
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.
00:20:55After, I married myself with Mr. Amsalem.
00:21:00And four years later, my son.
00:21:04Who's called?
00:21:05Who's called Sidney.
00:21:07And I was born in Paris.
00:21:10And I was born in Paris.
00:21:11There was a laser.
00:21:14And my son was also a baby.
00:21:17And I remember, even today,
00:21:19I tell you, I have here, in the air,
00:21:22how he sang.
00:21:25How he sang.
00:21:30How he sang.
00:21:31How he sang.
00:21:32How he sang.
00:21:32How he sang.
00:21:32How he sang.
00:21:33How my� connection were we all seen.
00:21:36How he sang.
00:21:36I left the Children's Home.
00:21:37I went to Paris.
00:21:40I cut myself off from the city,
00:21:43and from life,
00:21:43for weeks on end.
00:21:50I lived in a room which was much more like a prison cell, large enough for only one.
00:22:01I 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.
00:22:18I was fleeing from myself.
00:22:20And always there was this taste of failure.
00:22:31A friend went to visit Elie Wiesel.
00:22:34And he goes into a small little apartment and the room is pitch black.
00:22:40And 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.
00:24:05To the memory of all those I loved, and who before I could tell them I loved them, went away.
00:24:42He had migraine headaches.
00:24:44He had migraine headaches.
00:24:44He had migraine headaches.
00:24:44Terrible headaches.
00:24:47The pain that this caused, the torment, the anguish.
00:24:54I drew away from people.
00:24:57No tie, no liaison came to interrupt my solitude.
00:25:00I lived only in books where my memory tried to rejoin a more immense and ordered memory.
00:25:07And the more I remembered, the more I felt excluded and alone.
00:25:15I had lost my faith in many things, and I had lost my sense of belonging and orientation.
00:25:23And my faith in God was shaken.
00:25:28I found myself living in the ghetto.
00:25:34He told me that he lived or spent a lot of time with the clochard, the homeless in Paris.
00:25:43And he didn't open his mouth for almost a year.
00:25:47And when he opened his mouth, he had French.
00:25:50He had it.
00:25:51I remained with French because I acquired the French language in France, and I needed a new language.
00:25:59I needed it like a home, a new home.
00:26:02His French was fluent, but not perfect.
00:26:06But he did all of his writing in French all along, even though he really had only spent a few
00:26:14years in France,
00:26:15where 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.
00:26:26And I went there for a few months and came back to Paris and 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.
00:26:41That if you report on things, you sort of have to learn about them and then you're telling other people
00:26:49about them.
00:26:50And maybe that was a way back into reality.
00:27:00Things have changed in the world.
00:27:03And perhaps the world itself has changed.
00:27:10Have I?
00:27:20When I write, I have the feeling, literally, physically,
00:27:23that my grandfather and my mother is looking over my shoulder and reading what I am writing.
00:27:31I want to be sure that the words will be the proper words.
00:27:39At one point, I decided to write my testimony.
00:27:44I had made a vow in 1945 to wait ten years.
00:27:48I wanted my language to be the monument to our people, especially to those who died.
00:27:55How does one overcome trauma?
00:27:58Well, he overcame it through becoming a witness.
00:28:03Night, of course, was the epicenter.
00:28:08He wrote the original book in Yiddish.
00:28:14It was published in Argentina.
00:28:16My manuscript was 864 pages.
00:28:21It was called when the world was silent.
00:28:26I 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.
00:28:49The German army has resurrected.
00:28:53World criminals walk in the streets.
00:28:56The past has been erased from God.
00:29:01Germans and anti-Semites tell the world that the story of the six million Jewish that is only a legend.
00:29:09And the naive world would believe in it, if not today, then tomorrow.
00:29:16The world that was silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.
00:29:23The title of the Yiddish is pissed off at non-Jews.
00:29:31It's the world kept silent.
00:29:34This idea that the Jews feel unseen, their sorrows unappreciated.
00:29:41And what we have in the Yiddish is the way Holocaust survivors talk.
00:29:45He wrote this for a very specific audience.
00:29:49But it was not written for those who did not read Yiddish or didn't have access to Jewish culture and
00:29:57Jewish languages to access that book.
00:30:01The French is poetic, symbolic.
00:30:06It doesn't stick its finger in anybody's chest.
00:30:10It points at a kind of cosmic catastrophe.
00:30:17This is the original copy that nobody wanted.
00:30:22But it's all falling apart.
00:30:26In Night, which was translated from the Yiddish and shortened.
00:30:31Because no publisher would have taken the full version.
00:30:35In fact, they rejected even the shorter version.
00:30:37The book was published.
00:30:39The book was published.
00:30:40Did not, I think, get a lot of attention at first.
00:30:44But then, you know, had this extraordinary life.
00:30:51The night that is described here still hangs over many parts of the world.
00:30:57And no one, nor anything, can promise us that it won't threaten us tomorrow.
00:31:04He brings us to Auschwitz with him.
00:31:09It is both this specific account of this boy's traumatic experience.
00:31:15And it's at the same time this kind of eternal, mythical account.
00:31:22I witnessed hangings in the camp.
00:31:27One day, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place.
00:31:34Three victims in chains.
00:31:36And 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.
00:31:48The head of the camp read the verdict.
00:31:52All eyes wore on the child.
00:31:55The three victims mounted together onto the chairs.
00:31:58The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.
00:32:03Long live liberty, cried the two adults.
00:32:08But the child was silent.
00:32:10At the sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs slipped over.
00:32:15Total silence throughout the camp.
00:32:17The two adults were no longer alive.
00:32:21But the third rope was still moving.
00:32:24Being so light, so light, the child was still alive.
00:32:31For more than half an hour, he stayed there, struggling between life and death,
00:32:36dying in slow agony under our eyes.
00:32:41And behind me, I heard,
00:32:43Where is God now?
00:32:46And I heard a voice within me answer him,
00:32:49He 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 survived, it must be for some reason.
00:33:18History is vital.
00:33:20You can't understand the Holocaust without knowing the history.
00:33:25But you need more than the history.
00:33:28You have to be able to imagine some of these things.
00:33:30You will never know, 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.
00:33:41You have to help them to imagine what is it like, for example, to get up in the morning and
00:33:48you're starving.
00:33:49And when you go to bed at night, you're still starving.
00:33:53And knowing you're going to get up the next morning, you're also going to be starving.
00:33:57And it may all end and you're being shot or sent to the gas 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?
00:34:31I 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 madness, universal, human madness, like a fire.
00:35:12And I believe that every one of us who had experienced this war,
00:35:18either as a victim, as a police officer, or even as a witness,
00:35:25still remains a trace of this madness that will come out of one day.
00:35:42The first time I met him was at my friend's.
00:35:45This was at a dinner party in her house.
00:35:48And she was my closest friend.
00:35:50And she said to me,
00:35:52You're meeting Elie Wiesel.
00:35:55I just want you to know,
00:35:56he's very, very difficult to reach.
00:35:57He's a very interesting guy.
00:35:58But not somebody you would ever think of marrying.
00:36:03After this dinner, we had one date,
00:36:07and we both knew that it was going to be...
00:36:12Once he met Marian,
00:36:15a switch occurred.
00:36:17She released in him the thirst
00:36:21to live a little bit more normally as a human being.
00:36:26Of what does a man dream when he is forty years old
00:36:30and has made the decision consecrated by the law of Moses
00:36:33to make a home with the woman he loves?
00:36:38Custom dictates that before his wedding,
00:36:40an orphan go to meditate at the grave of his parents.
00:36:45But this groom's parents, like millions of others,
00:36:47had 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.
00:37:06When Elisha was born,
00:37:09Eli 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, Eli 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
00:37:43to this like three year old.
00:37:45When 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,
00:38:06who went to his death,
00:38:08perhaps dancing,
00:38:11and singing,
00:38:12about my son.
00:38:16My son there is the name of my father.
00:38:20One day he saw the number of my own.
00:38:22He said, who will it do?
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 he knows, who knows about.
00:38:40It wasn't easy for Elisha as he went through school.
00:38:44Everywhere he was,
00:38:46Elisha's son,
00:38:48he didn't have a chance to be himself.
00:38:51It was very difficult to be
00:38:53a six or seven year old
00:38:55and you're out at the playground
00:38:56talking about what do your parents do for a living.
00:38:59And one kid is, oh, my dad,
00:39:01you know, he used to be in the Israeli Air Force
00:39:03and now he flies LL 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 Elie Wiesel.
00:41:03Well, his 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 as an expression of our gratitude for your life's work.
00:41:33Ellie was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
00:41:37What 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, and he was asked by President Kohl to visit
00:41:49a 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.
00:42:15And I think that it would be very hurtful and all it would do is leave me looking as if
00:42:24I caved in in the face of some unfavorable attention.
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,
00:42:47they 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 Ellie.
00:43:34They came to the room in a hotel and they pleaded with Ellie.
00:43:39They didn't want him to go against the president's wishes.
00:43:43And they felt that it was better to leave things unsaid.
00:43:51Well, do we have a...
00:43:53We have about five minutes.
00:43:54Well, why don't we take the chairs over here?
00:43:57Where would you like to sit?
00:44:00You know that we are your friends.
00:44:02Yes.
00:44:03We are your friends.
00:44:04What I've been hoping for.
00:44:05You know, we have been your friends for many, many years.
00:44:11We still are very, very devoted to them.
00:44:13And we came a few days ago.
00:44:17We 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.
00:44:26In our own country.
00:44:28I know that it is difficult.
00:44:29Of course we know that.
00:44:35But we are here to help you.
00:44:38To give you 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 decisions.
00:44:49It's nothing that will change our friendship for you.
00:44:56We are together.
00:44:58Well, I think that we're 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've always believed forgiveness is divine.
00:45:11But I don't think I'm ever going to be able to forgive the press for their handling of this and
00:45:16what they've done.
00:45:17But when the cemetery there was put, Helmut himself did not know the presence of about 30 graves of SS
00:45:25troops.
00:45:26There are 3,000 so long 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.
00:46:05And 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 will draw a
00:46:21distinction 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.
00:46:59Let's first give this medal to my son.
00:47:10I am grateful to you for the medal.
00:47:13But 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.
00:47:29While 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.
00:48:09It 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, how to proclaim faith to
00:48:29a 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.
00:49:26But 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.
00:49:53But 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, for 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, and we must work together with them, and with all people.
00:50:50And we must work to bring peace and understanding to a tormented world that, as you know, is still awaiting
00:51:00redemption.
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, and he will go to Bitburg.
00:51:27So 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.
00:51:49Mr. Wiesel, what you did today was really quite extraordinary.
00:51:53A 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, thinking of yourself as a link in a long, long
00:52:59chain of generations,
00:53:02I think it would be appropriate that your son, with such a precious burden on his shoulders, should follow you
00:53:12up to the podium when you receive the 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.
00:53:51For 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, I don't know what's good.
01:15:49We'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
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