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Episode 01: Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire
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00:00:28Transcription by CastingWords
00:00:47Ellie spent most of his life looking for the shadows, seeking out the darkness, in the
00:00:57hope that he could do 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.
00:01:27Then I suddenly I saw my father.
00:01:29He was wearing my grey suit.
00:01:33It looked good on him.
00:01:40We were all there, everyone from before and from now, standing at a river that all at once
00:01:48began to swell, its level rising from moment to moment.
00:01:56It's the flood, someone said quite calmly, it's the flood, but I am not afraid.
00:02:04Just then my father waded into the murky blood-colored water and I said to myself, so rivers of blood
00:02:11do not exist after all.
00:02:14He stayed beneath the water.
00:02:18I began to shout for help, but 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, all I know is that I managed to save him all by myself.
00:02:46I helped him stretch out on the grass, listened to his breathing.
00:02:51In my dream he was alive, my mother too, in my dream.
00:03:01Whether 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.
00:03:10The fears are linked to it.
00:03:13The 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, a teller of tales.
00:03:36The first tale I always tell comes from the darkest hour of my generation.
00:03:43I 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.
00:04:39Now, 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.
00:04:58Shops 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, as we passed the nearby
00:05:12police station or the central prison on the main square.
00:05:15I liked it when he did that, and 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.
00:05:45The whiteness of the tablecloth.
00:05:49The blinking candle flames.
00:05:53Beaming faces around me.
00:05:57The melodious voice of my grandfather, 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 to early Shabbat is the
00:06:20ultimate thing. Shabbat is it's what his home, what is what it meant to him.
00:06:27It was a very happy souvenir at this moment, before the war.
00:06:32It was really, really a beautiful life.
00:06:37Since the age of three or four years, my poor mother and my father,
00:06:55I came 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
00:07:47that they will come a day darker than others, when we too will be going towards the unknown.
00:07:56In 1944, very quickly things happened.
00:08:02Between Passover and Shavuot, several weeks, the ghetto was created.
00:08:11Transports began, and the entire city, from 12,000 to 15,000 Jews, was 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.
00:08:45Others 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.
00:09:09Where you came from.
00:09:14When we arrived in Auschwitz, my father looked through the window and said,
00:09:19scared of Auschwitz.
00:09:21The name meant nothing to us.
00:09:25It immediately separated us from my mother and my sisters.
00:09:30I remained with my father.
00:09:33Everything was so fast.
00:09:35And then something strange happened to me.
00:09:38When I saw these hundreds and hundreds and thousands of Jews coming from all over Europe,
00:09:44speaking all languages, belonging to all cultures, to all conditions,
00:09:49I had the feeling this is a messianic event.
00:09:53The messiah is coming.
00:09:58To a claim both not a messiah, but death as messiah.
00:10:13My mother knew surely that there was no hope, because she told me to stay together with my sister.
00:10:19And she told me to stay together with her.
00:10:24She told me to stay together with her.
00:10:28And she told me to stay together with her.
00:10:29And she told me to stay together with him.
00:10:33Like this.
00:10:34like that.
00:10:35I stayed with my father, and the last words of my mother were to stay together.
00:10:49Then I read the last time my little sister in his red manteau that she received for
00:10:56Pesach, for the PĂąques, and my two grand sisters, my mother and my grand-mĂšre, who
00:11:02have advanced.
00:11:05I entered into a sort of a real dream, a nightmare.
00:11:13I see cars coming, and I see what they get in the flammes in the flammes of babies.
00:11:29I closed my eyes.
00:11:33And for a few moments, I walked with my eyes closed, always m'accrochant to my father.
00:11:43Le bébé était vivant.
00:12:04Auschwitz was the name of a little railroad station.
00:12:08Even inside Auschwitz, they did not believe that Auschwitz was something else.
00:12:15Then a little railroad station.
00:12:18But Auschwitz became a center of Jewish history.
00:12:22Oh yes.
00:12:23At that point, and at that period, Jewish history ran through Auschwitz, and not through New
00:12:31York, or London, 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
00:12:44dead.
00:12:50Everything died in Auschwitz.
00:12:53Ideals died there.
00:12:55Men 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.
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 marches of death, that we call it.
00:13:23The 18th of January.
00:13:26And suddenly, we told ourselves that we had to evacuate the camp.
00:13:31We were dissipated.
00:13:32We were walking, we were walking.
00:13:35We were walking.
00:13:35Those who could not walk, who were sitting in the neck, with a ball in the neck.
00:13:41We heard these bullets of revolvers, these bullets of guns, all the time.
00:14:06And we arrived to Buchenwald.
00:14:10There were 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?
00:14:48The thing that personally touched him the most, of being in a concentration camp,
00:14:56was the fact that he couldn't help his father.
00:14:58His father was dying.
00:15:00And he asked him to come and help him.
00:15:04And he couldn't.
00:15:06That 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, the world of the dead.
00:15:31One of the things that every survivor has to face, and does face today,
00:15:39is the fact of its own survival.
00:15:42He somehow is ashamed of still being here,
00:15:46and 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,
00:16:00we 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, which lasted a few days, 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.
00:17:15But the moment we came to France, in that children's home, I re-became religious.
00:17:23Those homes were very, very special.
00:17:25And I 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, of the big bonds of friendship that's more than
00:17:43friendship.
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, to see in death once more
00:18:31a source of pain.
00:18:40One day, there were journalists who came to do a story about our, after all, children from Buchenwald, it was
00:18:45a good story.
00:18:48I played chess with a friend.
00:18:51They took pictures, all 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 Giselle?
00:19:07I said, yes.
00:19:07He said, I just spoke to your sister.
00:19:12I said, Mr. Director, I 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?
00:19:23He 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 said, that's my brother.
00:19:58And she said, no, that's not possible.
00:20:01I said, yes, that's my brother.
00:20:03My brother, who is with the jacket,
00:20:05it's this photo that I saw in Paris.
00:20:08And it's thanks to this photo that we met.
00:20:16I saw her.
00:20:17I met, I met, I met.
00:20:17My sister and my sister, we were saved.
00:20:25She went home, far away.
00:20:26She was dead from Canada.
00:20:28She's called Beatrice Jackson, Nevisel.
00:20:42Hilda simply saw my picture in the paper.
00:20:45She had met an Algerian Jew in the DP camp immediately after the war, and she followed
00:20:51him to marry him in Paris.
00:20:54After that, I was married to Mr. Amsalem, and four years later, my son was called Sydney.
00:21:07When I was born in Paris, there was a laser, and there was also a baby-sitter.
00:21:17And I remember, even today, when I tell you, there's something here, in the rain, where
00:21:23he was born.
00:21:25How he was born.
00:21:31How he was born.
00:21:32How he was born.
00:21:32How he was born.
00:21:32There's something in the rain.
00:21:36I left the children's home.
00:21:37I 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.
00:21:56Large enough for only one.
00:22:00I looked only at the sand river bearing along its foam.
00:22:04I no longer perceived the sky mirrored in it.
00:22:11And I threw myself immediately into learning.
00:22:16I was looking for myself.
00:22:17I was fleeing from myself.
00:22:20I was fleeing from myself.
00:22:21And always there was this taste of failure.
00:22:30A friend went to visit Elie Wiesel.
00:22:34And he goes into a small little apartment.
00:22:38And 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.
00:23:01I 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.
00:23:16And he starts writing.
00:23:44The act of writing is for me often nothing more than the secret of
00:23:48of conscience desire to carve words on a tombstone.
00:23:53To the memory of all those I loved,
00:23:56and who before I could tell them I loved them,
00:23:59went away.
00:24:18The coffee in which I'm in the moment.
00:24:23The coffee in which I'm in the moment is empty.
00:24:25It's empty, almost as empty as my heart.
00:24:28I'm in the moment.
00:24:30I'm up.
00:24:31I've arrived one hour.
00:24:32Here it's so strange and strange.
00:24:35And then, this feeling of solitude.
00:24:42He had migraine headaches, terrible headaches.
00:24:48The pain that this caused, the torment, the anguish.
00:24:55I 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.
00:25:16I 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.
00:25:29I 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
00:25:58a 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
00:26:13a few years in France, where 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, remained a foreign correspondent
00:26:31in Paris.
00:26:32I thought it was interesting that he was a reporter because I thought maybe that was part of his
00:26:40way of dealing with it.
00:26:41That if you report on things, you sort of have to learn about them and then you're telling
00:26:49other people about them and 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, that my grandfather and my mother
00:27:25is 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.
00:28:13It was published in Argentina.
00:28:16My manuscript was eight hundred sixty-four pages.
00:28:21It was called to develop a question and 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.
00:28:45Ten years after Buffalo, I see that the world forgets.
00:28:49The German army has resurrected.
00:28:53World criminals walk in the streets.
00:28:57The 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
00:29:07only 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, but it was not written for those who did not
00:29:52read Yiddish or didn't have access to Jewish culture and Jewish languages to access that book.
00:30:00The French is poetic, symbolic.
00:30:06It doesn't stick its finger in anybody's chest.
00:30:09It points at a kind of cosmic catastrophe.
00:30:17This is the original copy that nobody wanted, but it's all falling apart.
00:30:26In Night, which was translated from the Yiddish and shortened, because no publisher would have
00:30:33taken the full version.
00:30:34In fact, they rejected even the shorter version.
00:30:37The book was published, did not, I think, get a lot of attention at first, but then, you
00:30:47know, had this extraordinary life.
00:30:51The night that is described here still hangs over many parts of the world, and no one,
00:30:58nor 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, and it's at the same time
00:31:17this 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, three victims in chains, and one of
00:31:37them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel.
00:31:43To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter.
00:31:47The head of the camp read the verdict, all eyes wore on the child, the three victims mounted
00:31:56together 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, but the child was silent.
00:32:11At the sign from the head of the camp the three chairs tipped over, total silence throughout
00:32:16the camp.
00:32:18The two adults were no longer alive.
00:32:21But the third rope was still moving, being 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, dying in
00:32:38slow agony under our eyes, and behind me I heard, Where is God now?
00:32:46And I heard a voice within me ask for 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
00:33:03one long night.
00:33:05Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.
00:33:14If 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, but 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 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.
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
00:33:48starving, and when you go to bed at night you're still starving, and knowing you're going to get up
00:33:55the next morning you're also going to be starving, and it may all end and you're being shot or sent
00:34:00to
00:34:00the gas chamber, how 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,
00:34:13you would still not know. Only 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.
00:34:45The 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 war was a folly, a folly universal, a folly human, like a fire.
00:35:12And I believe that everyone of us who had experienced this war,
00:35:27that was very difficult to reach and very tough. I thought he would never have children.
00:35:42The first time I met him was at my friend's. This was at a dinner party in her house. And
00:35:48she was my
00:35:49closest friend. And she said to me, you're meeting Elie Wiesel. I just want you to know he's a very
00:35:57interesting guy, but not somebody you would ever think of marrying. After this dinner, we had
00:36:05one date and we both knew that it was going to be.
00:36:12Once he met Marion, a switch occurred. She released in him the thirst to live a little bit more normally
00:36:24as a human being.
00:36:26Of what does a man dream when he is forty years old and has made the decision, consecrated by the
00:36:33law of Moses, to make a home with the woman he loves?
00:36:38Custom 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. All creation was their cemetery.
00:36:55He had told me from the beginning he didn't want children. He said, I don't want to bring a child
00:37:01into this world.
00:37:03I convinced him.
00:37:07When Elisha was born, Elie became more religious. He had never stopped being religious. He uncovered it.
00:37:17It was like peeling off layers of non-religion. And his true self emerged, which was religious.
00:37:27At this particular time, Elisha did tremendous traveling. He would leave Elisha notes and he'd say,
00:37:34I'm not here, but I will be back. And 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.
00:37:45When I see my son, I tell him stories. And I sing him tunes about tales to be told one
00:37:55day by him.
00:37:56And then he smiles. And his smile is not his alone. His smile is my grandfather's,
00:38:06who went to his death, perhaps dancing and singing about my son.
00:38:16My son there is the name of my father. One day he saw the number of my aunt and said,
00:38:22Who will he do it? And why? And who were the wicked people who did that? And why did they
00:38:29do it
00:38:30with the entire Jewish people? And why? For the whole power. So he knows, who knows about.
00:38:40It wasn't easy for Elisha. As he went through school, everywhere he was, Elisha's son,
00:38:48he 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 talking about,
00:38:58what do your parents do for a living? And one kid is, oh, my dad, you know,
00:39:02he used to be in the Israeli Air Force and now he flies El Al plane. And the other kid
00:39:05is,
00:39:06oh, my dad's a pharmacy. He gets medicine to help sick people. And I'm like, I think something really
00:39:11bad happened to my dad. And now he writes or talks about it. It was very confusing. How do you
00:39:17ground
00:39:17yourself in your parents' career around that? I don't think I really processed night until I
00:39:26traveled with my father to Seaget in 1995 with my cousin Steve.
00:39:34My father almost, I saw him almost as a radio transmitter that could pick up frequencies
00:39:41that no one else was picking up. And it's because he was picking up the ghosts and he made them
00:39:52real
00:39:52for us. Even 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
00:40:12the Nazis had killed a woman who should have grown up to be my aunt.
00:40:22The transformation in, I think, American Jewish awareness of Holocaust and the breakthrough of
00:40:28Ellie's recognition came with the six-day war. Everybody was convinced the Holocaust is about
00:40:36to occur again. With the success of the Holocaust TV show, suddenly you could teach the Holocaust in
00:40:43schools, right? It could be part of the curriculum. Prior to the 70s, 80s, survivors were not encouraged
00:40:51to talk about what they endured. And Ellie was perhaps the first person to encourage them.
00:41:00No one has taught us more than Elie Wiesel. His life is testimony that the human spirit endures
00:41:07and prevails. Memory can fail us, for it can fade as the generations change. But Elie Wiesel has helped
00:41:15make the memory of the Holocaust eternal. Elie, we present you with this medal
00:41:24as an expression of our gratitude for your life's work.
00:41:33Elie was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. What happened the week that Elie was going to receive
00:41:39the medal was the whole uproar about Bidberg. Reagan was going to go to Germany for a state visit.
00:41:46And he was asked by President Kohl to visit a cemetery of German soldiers. And it turns out
00:41:52that there were Waffen-SS soldiers buried in that cemetery. And so this got a tremendous amount of
00:41:59publicity. The Holocaust must never be forgotten by any of us. And in not forgetting it, we should make it
00:42:10clear that we're determined the Holocaust must never take place again. And I think that it would be
00:42:19very hurtful. And all it would do is leave me looking as if I caved in in the face of
00:42:26some
00:42:26unfavorable attention. I think that there's nothing wrong with visiting that cemetery where those young
00:42:34men are victims of Nazism also. Even though they were fighting in the German uniform, drafted into
00:42:41service to carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis, they were victims just as surely as the victims in
00:42:50the
00:42:50concentration camps. And I feel that there's much to be gained from this. And in strengthening our
00:43:00relationship with the German people who, believe me, live in constant penance, all these who have come
00:43:07along in these later years for what their predecessors did and for which they're very ashamed.
00:43:15We were in a hotel room in Washington, there for the event. And one after the other,
00:43:25many of the important leaders of the Jewish organizations came to see Ali. They came to the room
00:43:35in the hotel and they pleaded with Ali. They 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... You only have about five minutes.
00:43:54Well, why don't we take your chairs over here?
00:43:57Where would you like to sit in your own?
00:44:00Do you know that we are your friends?
00:44:03Yes. What 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 very, very devoted to you. And we came a few days ago, tell Don Ligon,
00:44:17I feel the same thing. We are on the same side. We are with you.
00:44:20We are trying simply to help you, to help you stay in your image.
00:44:26Of ours in the country. I know the difficult.
00:44:29Of course, we will. We have to make decisions
00:44:31against empathy and problems. We don't have to make decisions.
00:44:34I know that. But we are here to help you, to gain some background and some understanding
00:44:42of why certain words hurt us, not you, certain words hurt us, and certain expressions.
00:44:50It's nothing that will change our friendship for you or our admiration 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. I have to say that I've always believed forgiveness is
00:45:11divine, but I don't think I'm ever going to be able to forgive the press for their handling of this
00:45:16and what they've done. When the cemetery there was picked, Helmut himself did not know the presence of
00:45:22about 30 graves of SS troops. There 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. I simply meant that I think everyone who died in that war, on all sides, were victims of
00:45:46the
00:45:47Nazi terror, the horror that that man loosed on the world. Even in cold, when that was decided,
00:45:55was not aware. And a matter of fact, he needed a personal visit. And as you know, the tombstones
00:46:01there are flush with the ground. And it had snowed. And he, in good faith, said, no, there are
00:46:10no SS in the cemetery. Well, I think it's safe to say that the President's remarks during his entire
00:46:19trip in Germany will draw a distinction between the German soldier and the SS. And that he will
00:46:27in no way condemn, I mean, approve or say any kind of approving word regarding SS, Nazis, or the Third
00:46:38Reich.
00:46:39In order to diminish the publicity, the White House set the stage in a small room instead of the
00:46:45larger room, because 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. But 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? Small things.
00:47:49I learned the perils of language and those of silence. I learned that in extreme situations when
00:47:57human lives and dignity are at stake, neutrality is a sin. It helps the killers, not the victims.
00:48:05But I have also learned that suffering confers no privileges. It 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
00:48:28to a generation that has seen it shamed and mutilated. We believe that memory is the answer, perhaps the only
00:48:36answer.
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.
00:49:14And therefore, I am convinced, as you have told us earlier when we 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,
00:49:38to find another way, another site.
00:49:42That place, Mr. President, is not your place.
00:49:46Your place is with the victims of the SS.
00:49:49Oh, 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.
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, and we must work together with them,
00:50:49and with all people, and we must work to bring peace and understanding to a tormented world.
00:50:57That, as you know, is still awaiting redemption.
00:51:09And Eli told me that after a speech, Eli 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.
00:51:28So apparently your plea has not at least immediately been answered.
00:51:32Does that surprise you?
00:51:34No.
00:51:35I said earlier, I'm romantic, you know, I'm a big romantic.
00:51:39I thought that since I will make this plea to him, I implore him, that he will get up and
00:51:46say, okay.
00:51:47No.
00:51:48You didn't really expect that.
00:51:50No.
00:51:50Mr. 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.
00:51:59What were your thoughts about doing that?
00:52:00No.
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.
00:52:06I 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.
00:52:18He was able to translate it into terms that touched people.
00:52:33Dear Elie Wiesel,
00:52:36We have been told that you said when your son was born that you felt sorry for him coming into
00:52:45this 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,
00:53:01I think it would be appropriate that your son, with such a precious burden on his shoulders,
00:53:11should follow you up to the podium when you receive the Peace Prize.
00:53:18It was a very, very exciting time.
00:53:21But everybody reacted differently.
00:53:23They 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.
00:53:55Being known further is just an appendage to my 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, I miss you, I never wanted to hurt you, and never will despite whatever I do
00:54:46with 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 One.
00:55:04And 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
00:56:02to ourselves and our centers and our, 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.
00:56:24They don't bite anyone.
00:56:26What memories do you have of your grandfather?
00:56:30Okay.
00:56:30I remember in his study when I, when I was little, he, every morning, uh, he and I would both
00:56:37wake 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 was, I would just stand outside his study opening and closing the doors.
00:56:47Sometimes 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, I, wow, 100%.
00:57:07The two things Ellie asked of Alicia were that he marry
00:57:13a Jewish woman and that he recite Kaddish after he 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,
00:57:46and really did a deep dive into Judaism.
00:57:50So are you ready for a quick one?
00:57:52Chess?
00:57:53All right.
00:57:54Okay, baby.
00:58:01I like the Grand Prix variation.
00:58:07That's a latke?
00:58:08Yes.
00:58:09Doesn't look like a latke.
00:58:11A latke?
00:58:11I know.
00:58:12It's your son made it.
00:58:14Really, you're blaming it on me now?
00:58:18I told Anne that it was your final test before dad would marry you, that you had to make a
00:58:24latke.
00:58:24You wouldn't have married me.
00:58:25You wouldn't exist.
00:58:26If it was, if this was a latke?
00:58:28Yeah.
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, I didn't, I didn't divorce God.
00:59:13What I think was special about him was that he saw the trauma as something that has to lead to
00:59:25moral action.
00:59:26I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings and you're suffering and humiliation.
00:59:38Human 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,
00:59:59the Palestinians, to whose plight I am sensitive, but whose methods I deplore when they lead to violence.
01:00:11Violence is not the answer.
01:00:14Both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people have lost too many sons and shed too much blood.
01:00:24This 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, but he didn't want to criticize them, ever.
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,
01:01:19but it informs you. It 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,
01:01:36what 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 life,
01:01:47remember, think higher and feel deeper.
01:01:50The last day of the 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. There 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
01:02:15and said, next question.
01:02:17I do not believe that there are, that there could be or even there should be novels about
01:02:24the Holocaust. Either a novel is a novel or it is not. And when it is about the Holocaust,
01:02:33it is not.
01:02:34And I have to tell you that I have never been so angry,
01:02:39never been so aware of my responsibility as a teacher,
01:02:43that when I am in front of these children.
01:02:47Because I am responsible for the world,
01:02:51that I have to leave them,
01:02:53and that I have destroyed for them,
01:02:55that we have destroyed for them,
01:02:57and now it is for them to rebuild them in 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
01:03:14the list of texts that you're reading, and you would present,
01:03:20you 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, I 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,
01:03:46right, and the talk about things like trauma.
01:03:51People 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
01:04:06torture, look, you can do whatever you want,
01:04:09but I will remember you.
01:04:13This is what frightens the enemy most, usual.
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.
01:04:38And never again means something to me.
01:04:43Right?
01:04:43It's that is that I have a responsibility that goes beyond myself and my beliefs and that I'm a part
01:04:51of this
01:04:54global community.
01:04:55I grew up in the very southwest part of Germany and all my classmates and myself were very much
01:05:04interested in 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 so I said to myself, I have to know Elie Wiesel.
01:05:26And I packed my pocket and I was at the Boston University and studied there with her.
01:05:31The first time a professor said to me, Reinhold, it is good that you are here.
01:05:37That had me no one before said.
01:05:40As much as you will learn from me, I will learn from you.
01:05:45And we have talked a lot, a lot of talked a lot.
01:05:50And then I opened up the conversations and then translated and published later.
01:05:56And that has somehow given my life a different direction.
01:06:03I hope that there are more and more young people your kind in Germany, not only for me, but for
01:06:11Germany.
01:06:12That is the hope.
01:06:13You 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.
01:06:38The fact that Elie 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.
01:07:00And 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.
01:07:12If you are not, I am not.
01:07:15My God.
01:07:16My God, I just want to say that really.
01:07:18To say that and to accept it as part of belief.
01:07:22I give up, which means what Heschel said, you know, God in quest of man, in search of man.
01:07:28You 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.
01:07:46I 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.
01:08:11It is the basis for all the other books, the foundation.
01:08:18Good afternoon.
01:08:19Good afternoon.
01:08:19Good afternoon.
01:08:24I'm going to start chapter one of Night by Elie Wiesel.
01:08:28We'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
01:09:14and 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
01:09:34due to the fact that 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?
01:09:59Can we imagine it?
01:10:00Most of us cannot.
01:10:01How did normal people get to this point where a tragedy like this could happen?
01:10:06The 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,
01:10:19oh, since he's doing it, 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, the 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 care for his father.
01:10:58I kind of disagreed when Isabel said that made him stronger.
01:11:01In the end, he was still broken down emotionally.
01:11:03This is dehumanization because one of the main things that makes a human human is them having
01:11:09the right and the ability to choose.
01:11:12I feel like freedom is being able to choose life or death.
01:11:16And I feel like freedom is being able to have an option.
01:11:18And I feel like you cannot define freedom.
01:11:20Some people define freedom for themselves.
01:11:23God hasn't given up on Ellie yet, but Ellie is trying to give up on God.
01:11:28But God is still giving him chances and still letting him survive.
01:11:34It's not God.
01:11:35I 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
01:11:43choose.
01:11:43So it wasn't really his fault that the Holocaust happened.
01:11:46Maybe God is putting him through this to make him understand that
01:11:50God is not just there to make you happy.
01:11:53God 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.
01:12:05And I don't know what to expect because I'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.
01:12:23So he won'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 we Sel was in when he was younger.
01:12:34Because we even see that change in his name throughout the book, he's called Eliezer.
01:12:39But as an author, and when we're talking about him in a present tense before he passed, we say,
01:12:46Ellie, that just shows that he's now in a different world.
01:12:49So even though Ellie is free, Eliezer was never freed from his past.
01:12:54Ellie we Sel is free, Eliezer is not.
01:12:59I love you.
01:13:00I love you too.
01:13:01I'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.
01:13:29In 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.
01:13:53And 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?
01:14:36Or do they just come here 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.
01:15:05Everything is the same.
01:15:06Furniture.
01:15:09Even the wallpaper.
01:15:11And it is so much the same, that at times I'm afraid that perhaps the door might open
01:15:23and the young boy that used to look like me will come out and he will ask me very innocently,
01:15:32tell me, tell me, what are you doing here, stranger? What are you doing in my dream, in myself?
01:15:48We're looking for Eliezer, right? Because your grandfather was named after his grandfather.
01:16:13I think that's a meme.
01:16:14Benjamin. It's Yehuda Benjamin. You see?
01:16:16This is the wrong one, then.
01:16:17Yeah, it's not this one.
01:16:24Oh.
01:16:24Possibly.
01:16:25I think that's a meme.
01:16:27Oh, wait.
01:16:29Oh, that is a meme.
01:16:31Eliezer.
01:16:31This is Eliezer, yes.
01:16:34Ben.
01:16:34Okay, it should be Ben.
01:16:36It should be Ben.
01:16:36Shimcha.
01:16:37Shalom.
01:16:38Halevi.
01:16:39Halevi.
01:16:40Halevi.
01:16:40Yeah, this is it.
01:16:41We found it.
01:16:42This is my great-great-grandfather.
01:16:44Eliezer Lazar Wiesel Halevi.
01:16:52That's my Turkish, Omer.
01:16:53Yeah, it's my Turkish, Omer.
01:16:54I'm a Turkish, I'm a Turkish, I'm a Turkish.
01:17:03I know.
01:17:05Wow.
01:17:16Rav Eliezer, uh, Wiesel.
01:17:18Well, 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.
01:18:07I lit them, placing one wherever I found a familiar name.
01:18:14The wind blew them out.
01:18:17And suddenly, tears strangled me.
01:18:22A terrible certainty overcame me.
01:18:26For the town that had once been mine, never was.
01:18:41My 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.
01:18:58And I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a communist.
01:19:03Then they came for the Jews.
01:19:05And I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew.
01:19:10Then they came for the trade unionists.
01:19:17And 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 we have never used before.
01:19:44Hello, Dr. Lange speaking.
01:19:46I had a phone call with his son, Alicia.
01:19:50And talking to him for the first time wasn't that easy.
01:19:57Giving the life of his father into hands of a German doctor.
01:20:03A 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.
01:20:27But after a year, the treatment stopped working.
01:20:30So, Elijah said, if there is nothing else we can do, then I want to take him home.
01:20:36I remember in the moments after my father passed, there was this rush.
01:20:43Like my blood rushing in my head.
01:20:45I had to sit down because there was this voice in my head saying that my father hadn't gone anywhere.
01:20:57That he was with me and always would be.
01:21:05I 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, with my mother and my little sister, I feel their presence.
01:21:26It means that death have their own presence.
01:21:31It's up for me to accept it, and I do.
01:21:35It doesn't mean I don't believe, I don't know.
01:21:38But between belief and knowledge, there is an abyss.
01:21:42But what would one be without the other?
01:21:57I really don't know.
01:22:03My father's father and the son but the son of the son of the son of the son of the
01:22:10son of the son of the son of the son.
01:22:10So, Jesus is a kaboom.
01:22:39Shabbat Shalom
01:22:45Al yom sheyo
01:23:32ORGAN PLAYS
01:23:52ORGAN PLAYS
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