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00:00:00Thank you for listening.
00:00:30Ellie 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.
00:01:13Last night, I saw my mother in a dream.
00:01:17She seemed upset and I realized that something serious had happened.
00:01:22She motioned me to follow her.
00:01:27Then suddenly I saw my father.
00:01:29He was wearing my grey suit.
00:01:33It looked good on him.
00:01:37We were all there, everyone from before and from now, standing at a river that all at once
00:01:48began to swell.
00:01:51Its level rising from moment to moment.
00:01:55It's the flood, someone said quite calmly, it's the flood, but I am not afraid.
00:02:02Just then my father waded into the murky blood colored water and I said to myself, so rivers
00:02:10of blood exist after all.
00:02:13He stayed beneath the water.
00:02:16I 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.
00:02:38I 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.
00:02:52In 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.
00:03:07The language is the language of the Holocaust.
00:03:10The fears are linked to it.
00:03:13The perspectives, unfortunately, are tied to it.
00:03:20The first time we met, I asked Eli, what do you actually do?
00:03:25And he answered me with a smile, he said, I'm a storyteller, a teller of tales.
00:03:37The 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.
00:03:56In my small town, somewhere in the Carpathian mountains, I knew where I was.
00:04:18I knew why I was born.
00:04:25I knew why I existed.
00:04:28I knew why I was born.
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.
00:04:50In Siget, my town, Shabbat began on Friday afternoon.
00:04:59Shops closed well before sundown.
00:05:03After 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.
00:05:22The merchants conducted their businesses.
00:05:26The students studied Talmud.
00:05:30The beggars wandered from house to house to get a bit of food for Shabbat to their families.
00:05:36Life was normal.
00:05:40I would give so much to be able to relieve a Shabbat in my small town.
00:05:45The whiteness of the tablecloth, the blinking candle flames, the beaming faces around me, the
00:05:58melodious voice of my grandfather inviting the angels of the Sabbath to accompany him to our home.
00:06:08It is this Shabbat that I miss.
00:06:12The whole feeling of religious Jewish family celebrating Shabbat to Eli Shabbat is the ultimate
00:06:21thing.
00:06:22Shabbat is it's 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 my poor mother and my father, we took a teacher, who wrote and read in Hebrew as if
00:06:50it was my maternal language, we gave us the religious education.
00:06:56I come from a very religious background, very religious family.
00:07:00My dream was to become a teacher of Talmud.
00:07:06We Jews in Hungary, in our ghetto, we didn't know about Auschwitz.
00:07:15People tried 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
00:07:26all away.
00:07:27How could a town go on functioning without its physicians and businessmen, without its
00:07:34watchmakers 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.
00:07:53In 1944, very quickly, things happened.
00:08:02Between Passover and Shavuot, several weeks, the ghetto was created, transports began, and
00:08:16the entire city, from 12,000 to 15,000 Jews, were sent to Auschwitz.
00:08:22I left my native town in the spring of 1944.
00:08:31It was a beautiful day.
00:08:34The surrounding mountains, in their green light, seemed taller than usual.
00:08:40Our neighbours were out strolling in their shirt sleeves.
00:08:44Some 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.
00:08:55In my study over the table where I work, there hangs a single photograph.
00:09:00It shows my parents for me a cigarette.
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.
00:09:10When we arrived in Auschwitz, my father looked through the window and said, scared of Auschwitz.
00:09:21The name meant nothing to us.
00:09:24It immediately separated us from my mother and my sisters.
00:09:31I remained with my father.
00:09:34Everything was so fast.
00:09:36And then something strange happened to me.
00:09:39When I saw these hundreds and hundreds and thousands of Jews coming from all over Europe,
00:09:45Belonging all languages, belonging to all cultures, to all conditions, I had a feeling this is a messianic event.
00:09:54The Messiah is coming.
00:09:59To a game was not a messiah, but death as messiah.
00:10:04My mother knew surely that there was no hope because she said to my sister in the last minute to stay together, stay together, stay together.
00:10:24And she said, go and say to my father to stay together.
00:10:28And I ran from the other side.
00:10:30To be right away, papa, stay with her, stay with him.
00:10:35Just like that.
00:10:36I stayed with my father.
00:10:37And the last words of my mother, my father and my father were saying to stay together.
00:10:45And I read my mother's last time with my sister in his manteau orange.
00:10:52On his own red light, she received it for Pesach, for Pâques.
00:10:58and my two grand-sœurs and my mother and my grandmother who have advanced.
00:11:02I'm entering into a sort of real dream.
00:11:08It's a nightmare.
00:11:11I see cars coming.
00:11:15And I see what they're doing in the flames
00:11:23of living babies.
00:11:30I closed my eyes.
00:11:33And for a few moments, I walked with my eyes closed,
00:11:37always coming back to my father's arms.
00:11:44The babies were living.
00:11:48My mother was 44 years old.
00:11:55She wasn't coming back, of course.
00:11:58Of course.
00:11:59And my little-sœurs was 10 years old.
00:12:03Auschwitz was the name of a little railroad station.
00:12:08Even inside Auschwitz, they did not believe that Auschwitz was something else than a little
00:12:16railroad station.
00:12:18That Auschwitz became a center of Jewish history.
00:12:21Oh, yes.
00:12:23At that point and at that period, Jewish history ran through Auschwitz and not through New York
00:12:31or London or Stockholm.
00:12:34We didn't know that.
00:12:37I'm sure that many people went to their dead, not even believing afterwards that they were dead.
00:12:50Everything died in Auschwitz.
00:12:53Ideals died there.
00:12:55Men died there.
00:12:56The idea of God, the image of God changed, underwent a horrifying metamorphosis there.
00:13:08It was my father who kept me alive.
00:13:10We saw it together.
00:13:12And I wanted him to live.
00:13:14I knew that if I died, he would die.
00:13:19The Marche de la Mort, that's what we call it.
00:13:23The 18th of January.
00:13:26And suddenly, we told us that we had to evacuate the camp.
00:13:31We were dissipated.
00:13:32We were walking.
00:13:33We were walking.
00:13:34We were walking.
00:13:35We were walking.
00:13:36We were walking.
00:13:37We were walking.
00:13:38We were walking.
00:13:39We were walking.
00:13:41And we arrived to Buchenwald.
00:14:09It was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in one barrack.
00:14:16My father got sick, diarrhea, and one night I heard him call me, and that morning he died.
00:14:35But I felt he wanted to tell me something, but I couldn't.
00:14:42And again, even today I try 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 was the
00:14:56fact that he couldn't help his father.
00:14:59His father was dying, and he asked him to come and help him, and he couldn't.
00:15:06That was a deep, deep wound.
00:15:10One day, really, I saw myself in that mirror.
00:15:15And I saw a person who was ageless, nameless, faceless.
00:15:22A person who belonged to another world, the world of the dead.
00:15:32One of the things that every survivor has to face and does face today is the fact of its
00:15:40his own survival, he somehow is ashamed of still being here and not part of the others
00:15:47who are no longer here.
00:15:54In that place of eternal darkness and silence we lived not only with the dead, we lived in
00:16:01death.
00:16:15I belonged to a group called the Buchenwald children.
00:16:19We were 400 children in Buchenwald.
00:16:22Then the American army liberated camp.
00:16:26The youngest was eight, seven or eight.
00:16:29The oldest was 18 or 19.
00:16:32I was 16.
00:16:37Then 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.
00:16:53The 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.
00:17:24Those homes were very, very special and I remember those homes with great, great affection and
00:17:29tenderness and melancholy and nostalgia.
00:17:34And that was the beginning of the surrogate families they had, of the big bonds of friendship that's
00:17:43more than friendship.
00:17:45That's really like brothers, more than brothers, that you still see so today.
00:17:52We didn't cry.
00:18:00Maybe because people were afraid.
00:18:02If 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
00:18:20are not one of them.
00:18:22After the war, it was difficult once more to see in death a scandal.
00:18:29To see in death once more a source of pain.
00:18:40One day there were journalists who came to do a story about our, after all, children from
00:18:45Buchenwald.
00:18:46It was a 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.
00:18:58And I heard him speak on the telephone, mentioning my name.
00:19:03I said, I heard you mention my name.
00:19:06He said, oh, you are Wiesel?
00:19:07I said, yes.
00:19:08He said, I just spoke to your sister.
00:19:10I said, I don't believe it.
00:19:11What do you mean?
00:19:12It must be a mistake.
00:19:13Even if she remained alive, I said, what does she do in France?
00:19:17If she's in France, how does she know I'm here?
00:19:23But she said, but she has a message for you.
00:19:26She will wait for you tomorrow at the railway station in Paris.
00:19:30I didn't sleep all night, as you can imagine.
00:19:34It came next day.
00:19:35And there she was.
00:19:37Another day, one of my nice sisters brought a newspaper to my house.
00:19:53where I was at Paris, and I look at it and I say that it's my brother.
00:19:58She says that it's not possible. I say that it's my brother.
00:20:03My brother who is with the jacket,
00:20:05it's this photo that I saw at Paris, and it's thanks to this photo that we met.
00:20:16Me and my sister, we were saved.
00:20:23Unfortunately, she died in Canada.
00:20:28She's called Beatrice Jackson, named Wiesel.
00:20:39It's her destiny.
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,
00:20:51and she followed him to marry him in Paris.
00:20:54After that, I was married with Mr. Amsalem.
00:21:00And four years later, my family.
00:21:04Who's called?
00:21:05Who's called Sydney.
00:21:07And I was born in Paris.
00:21:11There was a laser there.
00:21:14And it was also my baby-sitter.
00:21:18And I remember, even today, I tell you,
00:21:20I have this in the air,
00:21:22how he sang.
00:21:30How he sang.
00:21:31How are you?
00:21:32How are you?
00:21:33How are you?
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.
00:21:44I 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.
00:22:07And I threw myself immediately into learning.
00:22:16I was looking for myself.
00:22:18I was fleeing from myself.
00:22:21And always there was this taste of failure.
00:22:24A 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.
00:22:44There'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,
00:23:05How can you write so fluently?
00:23:08And he said,
00:23:10I get up at four in the morning.
00:23:12I just sit in front of the white page and my hand goes to the pen.
00:23:17And it starts writing.
00:23:24The act of writing is for me often nothing more than the secret of conscious desire to carve words on a tombstone.
00:23:39To the memory of all those I loved, and who before I could tell them I loved them, went away.
00:23:59And today.
00:24:00I don't care.
00:24:01I don't care.
00:24:02But the idea is another one.
00:24:03.
00:24:04The coffee in which I find at the moment is empty, almost as empty as my heart.
00:24:28I'm here, I'm here for one hour. It's so strange and strange here.
00:24:35And then this feeling of loneliness, we feel alone.
00:24:42He had migraine headaches, terrible headaches.
00:24:47The pain that this caused, the torment, the anguish.
00:24:54I drew away from people. No 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.
00:25:13I 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.
00:25:26I found myself living in the ghetto.
00:25:35He told me that he lived or spent a lot of time with the clochard, the homeless in Paris.
00:25:44And he didn't open his mouth for almost a year.
00:25:47And when he opened his mouth, he had French. He had it.
00:25:51I remained with French because I acquired the French language in France.
00:25:56And I needed a new language. I 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 years 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 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 other people about 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.
00:27:10Things have changed in the world.
00:27:13Till ten years I taught
00:27:25when I write, I have a feeling, literally, physically that my grandfather and my mother
00:27:27is looking over my shoulder and reading what I'm writing
00:27:30I want to be sure that the words will be the proper words.
00:27:36at one point i decided to write my testimony i had made a vow in 45 to wait 10 years
00:27:48i wanted my language to be the monument to our people especially to those who died
00:27:54how does one overcome trauma well he overcame it through becoming a witness
00:28:01night of course was the epicenter
00:28:06he wrote the original book in yiddish
00:28:11it was published in argentina with manuscript that was 864 pages
00:28:20it was called to develop a geschwink and the world was silent
00:28:24i wrote it for the other survivors who found it difficult to speak
00:28:33and i wanted really to tell them look you must speak
00:28:38ten years after buffalo i see but the world forgets the german army has resurrected
00:28:52war criminals walk in the streets the past has been erased from god germans and antisemites
00:29:03tell the world that the story of the six million jewish that is only a legend
00:29:10and the naive world would believe in it if not today than tomorrow
00:29:17the world that was silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow
00:29:24the title of the yiddish is pissed off um at non-jews
00:29:31um it's the world kept silent um this idea that that 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
00:29:51for those who did not read yiddish or didn't have access
00:29:55to jewish culture and jewish languages to access that book the 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
00:30:16and this 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
00:30:31because no publisher would have taken the full version
00:30:34the book was published did not i think get a lot of attention at first but then
00:30:46you know had this extraordinary life
00:30:51the night this is that is described here still hangs over many parts of the world
00:30:58and no one nor anything can promise us that it won't threaten us tomorrow
00:31:05he brings us to auschwitz with him it is both this specific account of this boy's traumatic
00:31:14experience and it's at the same time this kind of eternal mythical account
00:31:19i witnessed hangings in the camp
00:31:28one day we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place
00:31:34three victims in chains and one of them the little servant the sad-eyed angel
00:31:43to hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter
00:31:47the head of the camp read the verdict all eyes wore on the child the three victims mounted together onto the chairs
00:31:59the 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 stepped over
00:32:14total silence throughout the camp the 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
00:32:36dying in slow agony under our eyes and behind me i heard where is god now
00:32:46and i heard a voice within me answer him he is hanging here on these gallows
00:32:52never 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
00:33:13the last night if i survived it must be for some reason history is vital you can't understand the
00:33:21holocaust without knowing the history but you need more than the history you have to be able to imagine
00:33:29some of these things you will never know why and ellie said this early on if you weren't there you won't
00:33:35no you have to take students and readers further than that you have to help them to imagine what is it like
00:33:45for example to get up in the morning and you're starving and when you go to bed at night you're still
00:33:51starving and knowing you're going to get up the next morning you're also going to be starving and it
00:33:58may all end and you're being shot or sent to the gas chamber how do we help people to imagine what that
00:34:05must have been like but even if you read all the books all the documents by all the survivors you would
00:34:13still not know only those who were there know what it meant being there
00:34:21why i write what else could i do i write to bear witness
00:34:33the more i remembered the more i felt excluded and alone whom was i to lean on
00:34:53i shunned love aspiring only to silence aspiring only to madness
00:35:05je crois que la guerre est une folie une folie universelle une folie humaine comme un fléau et
00:35:12je crois que chacun de nous qui a traversé cette guerre soit en victime soit en bourreau ou même en témoin
00:35:24garde encore des traces de cette folie qui un jour éclatera
00:35:28ellie had a part of him that was very very difficult to reach and very tough
00:35:36i thought he would never have children the first time i met him was at my friend's this was at a
00:35:46dinner party in her house and she was my closest friend and she said to me you're meeting elie
00:35:53wiesel i just want you to know he's a very interesting guy but not somebody you would ever think of
00:36:01marrying after this dinner we had one 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 what does a man dream when he's 40 years old and has made a decision
00:36:32consecrated by the law of moses to make a home with the woman he loves
00:36:38custom dictates that before his wedding can orphan go to meditate at the grave of his parents
00:36:45but this groom's parents like millions of others had no grave of their own
00:36:49all creation was their cemetery
00:36:55he had told me from the beginning he didn't want children
00:36:59he said i don't want to bring a child into this world
00:37:03i convinced him
00:37:07when elisha was born
00:37:09ellie became more religious
00:37:13he had never stopped being religious
00:37:15he uncovered it it was like peeling off layers of non-religion and his true self emerged which was
00:37:26religious
00:37:27at this particular time ellie 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
00:37:39i would say to myself i can't believe that he's leaving these notes to this like three-year-old
00:37:46when i see my son i tell him stories
00:37:50and i sing him tunes about tales to be told one day by him
00:37:55and then he smiles and his smile is not his alone his smile is my grandfather's
00:38:07who went to his death perhaps dancing and singing about my son
00:38:14my son there is the name of my father one day he saw the number of my house he said who will
00:38:22it do and why and who were the wicked people really dead and why did they do it with the entire
00:38:30jewish 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
00:38:44everywhere he was at least son he didn't have a chance to be himself
00:38:51it was very difficult to be a six or seven year old and you're out of the playground talking about
00:38:57what do your parents do for living and one kid is oh my dad
00:39:01you know he used to be in the israeli air force and now he flies ll plane the other kid is oh my
00:39:06dad'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 yourself in your parents career around that i don't think i really processed night
00:39:25until i traveled with my father to see get in 1995 with my cousin steve
00:39:34my father almost i saw him almost as a radio transmitter
00:39:40that could pick up frequencies that no one else was picking up
00:39:44and 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
00:40:02and 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
00:40:22the transformation in i think american jewish awareness of holocaust and the breakthrough of ellie's
00:40:28recognition came at the six-day war everybody was convinced the holocaust is about to occur again
00:40:38with the success of the holocaust tv show
00:40:41suddenly you could teach the holocaust in in schools right it could be part of the curriculum
00:40:48prior to the 70s 80s survivors were not encouraged to talk about what they endured
00:40:54and ellie was perhaps the first person to encourage them
00:41:00no one has taught us more than ellie wiesel
00:41:04his life is testimony that the human spirit endures and prevails
00:41:09memory can fail us for it can fade as the generations change
00:41:14but ellie wiesel has helped make the memory of the holocaust
00:41:17eternal ellie we present you with this medal
00:41:24as an expression of our gratitude for your life's work
00:41:33ellie was awarded the congressional gold medal
00:41:37what happened the week that ellie was going to receive the medal
00:41:40was the whole uproar about bidberg reagan was going to go to germany for a state visit
00:41:46and he was asked by president call to visit a cemetery of german soldiers
00:41:51and it turns out that there were waffen ss soldiers buried in that cemetery
00:41:57and 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
00:42:14again and i think that i think that it would be very hurtful and all it would do is leave me looking
00:42:23as if i caved in in the in the face of some unfavorable attention i think that there's nothing wrong
00:42:31with visiting that cemetery where those young men are victims of nazism also
00:42:36even though they were fighting in the german uniform drafted into service to carry out the hateful
00:42:44wishes of of the nazis they were victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps
00:42:51and i feel that there's much to be gained from this and in strengthening our relationship with the german
00:43:01people who believe me live in constant penance all these who have come along in these later years for
00:43:09what their predecessors did and for which they're very ashamed we were in a hotel room in washington
00:43:18there for the event
00:43:20and one after the other many of the important leaders of the jewish organizations came to see ellie
00:43:33ellie they came to the room in the hotel and they pleaded with ellie they didn't want him to go
00:43:40against the president's wishes and they felt that it was better to
00:43:47leave things unsaid well do we ever doing about five minutes well why don't we take your chairs over
00:43:56here where would you like to sit in the room you know that we are your friends yes
00:44:03yeah what i've been hoping for you are you know lasers that you know i am yours but we know that
00:44:08we have been your friends for many many years we still are very very devoted to us and we came a few
00:44:14days ago then don't leave them i feel the same thing we are on the same side we are with you we are
00:44:21trying simply to to help you to help you stay in your image of ours and countries i know the
00:44:28difficult of course we know that we have to make decisions in safety and problems we don't have
00:44:35i know that but we are here to help you to give you some background and then some understanding of
00:44:42why certain words hurt us not you certain words for us and certain experience it's nothing that will
00:44:51change our friendship for or our admiration we are we are together well i think that we're all the
00:45:00victims right now a lack of understanding let me make clear what has taken place i have to say that
00:45:07i've always believed forgiveness is divine but i don't think i'm ever going to be able to forgive
00:45:14the press for their handling of this what they've done when the cemetery there was quick helmet himself
00:45:20did not know the presence of about 30 graves of ss troops there's three thousand so all there and
00:45:30uh i did not mean when i said they were victims too that their experience in any way was parallel to
00:45:38yours i 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 even in cold when that was decided
00:45:54and was not aware and another that gave me the personal visit and as you know the tombstones there
00:46:01are flush with the ground and it had snowed and he in good faith said no there are there are no ss
00:46:12in the cemetery well i think it's safe to say that the president's remarks during his entire trip
00:46:19in germany will draw a distinction between uh the german soldier and the ss and that he will in no way
00:46:28condemn uh i mean uh approve or say any kind of approving word regarding ss nazis uh or the third reich
00:46:40in order to diminish the publicity the white house set the stage in a small room instead of the larger
00:46:46room because they didn't want the publicity of ellie receiving the medal and what he might say it turns
00:46:52out their plans didn't work out because nbc broadcast ellie's speech live let's first give this medal to my son
00:47:02i am grateful to you for the medal but this medal is not mine alone it belongs to all those who remember
00:47:18what ss killers have done to their victims it was given to me by the american people for my writings
00:47:26teaching and from my testimony while i feel responsible for the living i feel equally responsible
00:47:34to the dead their memory dwells in my memory 40 years ago a young man awoke and he found himself an
00:47:44orphan in an orphaned world what have i learned in the last 40 years small things i learned the perils of
00:47:51language and those of silence i learned that in extreme situations when human lives and dignity are
00:47:58at stake neutrality is a sin it helps the killers not the victims but i have also learned that suffering
00:48:07confers no privileges it all depends what one does with it and this is why survivors of whom you spoke mr
00:48:14president have tried to teach their contemporaries how to build the ruins how to invent hope in a world
00:48:23that offers none how to proclaim faith to a generation that has seen it shamed and mutilated
00:48:33we believe that memory is the answer perhaps the only answer mr president
00:48:40i wouldn't be the person i am and you wouldn't respect me for what i am if i were not to tell you also of
00:48:48the sadness that is in my heart for what happened during the last week and i am sure that you too
00:48:56are sad for the same reasons our tradition commands us quote to speak truth to power so may i speak to you
00:49:06mr president with respect and admiration for i know of your commitment to humanity and therefore i am
00:49:15convinced as you have told us earlier when we spoke that you were not aware of the presence of ss graves in
00:49:22in the bidberg cemetery of course you didn't know but now we all are aware may i mr president if it's
00:49:32possible at all implore you to do something else to find a way to find another way another site
00:49:42that place mr president is not your place
00:49:45your place your place is with the victims of the ss oh 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 and we must never confuse them for i have seen the
00:50:09ss at work and i have seen their victims but mr president i know and i understand we all do that you
00:50:17seek reconciliation and so do i so do we and i too wish to attain true reconciliation with the german people
00:50:28i do not believe in collective guilt nor in collective responsibility only the killers were guilty
00:50:37their sons and daughters are not and 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 ellie told me that after a speech ellie thought that he might have convinced reagan
00:51:17until george bush came up to him and said so you so you'll go with us
00:51:22he speaks just announced the president would go to bergen belson and he will go to bitburg so
00:51:28apparently your plea has not at least immediately been answered does that surprise you no
00:51:35i said earlier i'm romantic you know i'm a big romantic i saw that uh since i will make this plea to him
00:51:42i implore him that he will uh get up and say okay no
00:51:47you didn't really expect that mr weisel what you did today was really quite extraordinary
00:51:53a nationwide television in effect giving the president something of a a moral lecture here
00:51:58what were your thoughts about doing that i am not a moralist i'm a teacher
00:52:02i'm not a politician that's my strength you're giving him a lesson no i i i i told him a story i'm
00:52:08a storyteller he made people think about what they were here for and what was important and what was
00:52:16not he was able to translate it into terms that touched people
00:52:33dear eli weissel we have been told that you said when your son was born that you felt sorry for him
00:52:44coming into this ugly and evil world after a second thought however you drew a different conclusion
00:52:55thinking of yourself as a link in a long long chain of generations i think it would be appropriate that
00:53:05your son with such a precious burden on his shoulders should follow you up to the podium when you receive
00:53:15the peace prize it was a very very exciting time but everybody reacted differently they asked alicia at the time
00:53:25in 1986 he was 14 he said how does it affect you and his answer was my allowance will increase that's it
00:53:38i had realized as a young person at age 14 that my identity was very much
00:53:48viewed as being in the shadow of my father for me it was just the epitome of everything
00:53:53i didn't want being known further as just an appendage to my father it's 3 35 in the morning on his
00:54:01birthday 1990 dear dad i'm writing this letter at a rather late hour i went with a friend to see a
00:54:07hardcore band the circle jerks play at the ritz the slam dancing was rough and there were some people who
00:54:13got hurt nothing too serious all the injuries were unintended the dance is a violent one and these
00:54:18things happen i know you don't want to accept any such analogy but to some extent i feel it is
00:54:23applicable to us we are driven in different directions as no two dancers can ever be going
00:54:29in the exact same direction we both get injured from time to time even by each other and yet we both
00:54:34get up a bit dazed and rejoin the dance our 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 with my life
00:54:46alicia
00:54:52so here's one that he wrote to me in 1991 he wrote this in an israeli bunker as the scuds were falling
00:55:01during gulf war one and this letter was actually in a sealed envelope at the time that he passed my mom
00:55:08discovered it these were his sort of last words to me in case he never got another chance to tell me
00:55:15what was on his mind and he says my dear alicia if you promise not to be angry i will tell you something
00:55:22i love you should anything happen to me in israel i hope you will remember at least some of the things
00:55:29i tried to share with you remember my father after whom you have been named
00:55:37remember that you are a jew remember that even within the doubt there is a god the god of israel
00:55:44you are a jew remember that you are a jew remember that you have been and remain the center of my life
00:55:51with infinite love your father
00:55:55for 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 the ladybugs
00:56:18yeah they don't hide they don't bite they don't bite anyone
00:56:24what memories do you have of your grandfather okay i remember in his study when i when i was little
00:56:35he every morning uh he and i would both wake up early and in the mornings he'd go up to his study
00:56:41and he'd put on his to fill him and i was i would just stand outside his study opening and closing the
00:56:47doors sometimes it feels like there's so much pressure on me to be like my dad and my grandpa
00:56:58i definitely agree um i wow wow 100 100 the two things ellie asked of alicia were that he marry
00:57:13a jewish woman and that he recite kaddish after he passed so alicia did just that but somewhere in
00:57:22that journey alicia realized it was a gift for himself
00:57:28and then gradually alicia started to reintroduce more tradition into our lives into his life
00:57:46and really did a deep dive into judaism so are you ready for a quick one chess all right okay baby
00:57:58i like the grand prix variation
00:58:07that's a latke yes doesn't look like a lot i know it's just unmated i could really you're blaming it
00:58:15on me now i told ann that it was your final test before dad would marry you that you had to make a
00:58:24latke you wouldn't have married me you wouldn't exist if it was if this was a latke yeah it's time to light the candles
00:58:41i've always been a little afraid of religion of any kind
00:58:44i know that i was always afraid of anything that compromised one's will
00:58:52and relegated it to a inferior position to something else which was religion
00:59:01so i was a pagan in the family my fate is a wounded faith
00:59:06but it's not without faith my wife is not without faith i didn't divorce god what i think was special
00:59:14about him was that he saw the trauma as something that has to lead to moral action
00:59:26i swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings and you suffering and humiliation
00:59:38human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere and in spite of what some extreme critics
00:59:49have said about me that principle applies in my life also to the palestinians to whose plight i am sensitive
01:00:04but whose methods i deplore when they lead to violence violence is not the answer
01:00:13both the jewish people and the palestinian people have lost too many sons and shed too much blood
01:00:25this must stop he didn't want to criticize israel under any circumstance he didn't want to criticize
01:00:33the occupation he didn't want to criticize the settlers he may not have agreed with them
01:00:40but he didn't want to criticize them ever and we have learned that when people suffer we cannot
01:00:50remain indifferent and mr president i cannot not tell you something i have been in the former yugoslavia
01:00:59last fall i cannot sleep since we must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country
01:01:07the 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 and 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
01:01:35what would that be i came up with a formula i'm not sure it's always good but i said simply look
01:01:43whatever you do in your life remember think higher and feel deeper the last day of a semester a student
01:01:52asked professor rizel professor can you show us the number on your arm and there was dead silence in the
01:01:59room and 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 and in silence he rolled his sleeve back
01:02:12down and buttoned it and put his jacket back on and said next question i do not believe that there are
01:02:20that there could be or even there should be novels about the holocaust either a novel is a novel or it is
01:02:30not and when it is about the holocaust it is not et moi je dois vous dire que je ne suis jamais aussi ému
01:02:39jamais aussi conscient de ma responsabilité d'enseignant que lorsque que je me trouve en face de ces enfants
01:02:46parce que je suis responsable de monde que je leur lègue et que j'ai détruit pour eux que nous avons
01:02:55détruit pour eux et maintenant à eux de le reconstruire sur des ruines he developed very strong
01:03:04relationships with all of his students i saw them being transformed part of what we had to do each
01:03:11semester was you would choose a book from the the list of of texts that you're reading and you would
01:03:19present you give a little wee presentation on the book you know that that week and everybody was
01:03:24always super nervous about it when i got up to give the presentation and i was talking about this
01:03:30character who had very dark skin and those things i realized how much it like affected me
01:03:36and in the moment that i was in the class i broke out in the tears because that space was open to talk
01:03:46about memory right and to talk about things like trauma people were open remember the enemy
01:03:58and that is an attitude which is a very strong attitude uh imagine the victim simply saying to the
01:04:07torture look you can do whatever you want but i will remember you this is what frightens the enemy
01:04:15most usually nothing frightens the enemy more to be vanquished okay thank you today come back
01:04:23tomorrow but the idea that the victim will remember the enemy the memory will remain that is a real
01:04:31punishment memory is what makes us civilized you know like that is what
01:04:36makes us human and never again means something to me right it's that is that i have a responsibility
01:04:47that goes beyond myself and my beliefs and like that i'm a part of this
01:04:54global community i grew up in the very southwest part of germany and all my classmates and myself
01:05:03were very much interested in political questions one day i met somebody and he said read the book night
01:05:11by elie wiesel i couldn't manage more than one or two pages a day because it moved me so much
01:05:20and so i said i have to know and then i have to know elie wiesel i have to know that i had my cover
01:05:27and then i was at the university and studied at the boston university and studied there at him
01:05:30The first time a professor said to me, Reinhold, it is good that you are here.
01:05:36Nobody said before.
01:05:40As much as you will learn from me, I will learn from you.
01:05:45We talked a lot, talked a lot.
01:05:49Then I opened the conversations and then translated and published.
01:05:55That gave my life a different direction.
01:05:59I hope that there are more and more young people your kind in Germany.
01:06:09Not only for me, but for Germany.
01:06:11That is the hope. We must strengthen that hope.
01:06:15And therefore you become not only educators, but in your own lives.
01:06:19You are living examples for others to follow.
01:06:25Don't forget that you are in your concentration camp.
01:06:29Everyone has to fight for himself.
01:06:31And don't think about others.
01:06:33Not even about his father.
01:06:35Here is neither father nor brother nor friend.
01:06:37The fact that Heli said, I'm not going to be silent.
01:06:43And so much of my life, people tell you, this tall dark skinned black man to shut up.
01:06:53That what you have to say is not that important.
01:06:56Who you are is not important.
01:06:58And that 100 page book says, no, I got a story.
01:07:03The commentary in the Talmud is, if you are my witnesses, I am God.
01:07:10If you are not, I am not.
01:07:14My God.
01:07:15My God.
01:07:16My God.
01:07:17That's what you say, really.
01:07:18To say that.
01:07:19And to accept it as part of belief.
01:07:21I 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.
01:07:29Us, little specks of dust, to be God.
01:07:33The 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 each other.
01:07:59If I could simply bring a messianic moment into the life of one person, I think that my life would have been justified.
01:08:08Night is to me, of course, a very special book.
01:08:11It is the basis for all the other books.
01:08:14The foundation.
01:08:17Good afternoon.
01:08:18Good afternoon.
01:08:19Good 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 person.
01:08:33And we're going to slowly transition into this, like, ominous mood of the Holocaust sort of brewing in the background.
01:08:39Let's open up to chapter one.
01:08:41This is our five to six weeks to really focus on Elie Wiesel.
01:08:45I met him in 1941.
01:08:48I was almost 13 and deeply observant.
01:08:51Raise your hand if you're 13 in here.
01:08:54Look at you.
01:08:55So in a lot of ways, this is a story that could relate to us.
01:08:59Let's keep going.
01:09:00Kids know that six million people who are Jewish died and were killed.
01:09:05And so they have some context about, like, how Hitler came to power.
01:09:09They have some context about what it means to practice Judaism and some general ideas about what the world was going through around World War II.
01:09:17Regular, normal Germans that were sophisticated and intelligent, they conformed with Hitler.
01:09:26Six million Jews were murdered because of the fact that they were deemed as genetically inferior due 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.
01:09:53They're really trying to see, are we similar to Wiesel?
01:09:57Would we react in that way?
01:09:58Can we imagine it?
01:09:59Most of us cannot.
01:10:00How did normal people get to this point where a tragedy like this could happen?
01:10:06The Nazi, they controlled everything.
01:10:09Everybody hearing the same thing all at the same time.
01:10:13So, if everybody hears the same thing all at the same time, they would all think, oh, since he's doing it, I should do it.
01:10:20People were ignorant to the idea that they were just killing innocent people that they didn't know.
01:10:25Most of our students are from Newark, live in Newark.
01:10:28They come from backgrounds that are not, they've never experienced anything like the Holocaust.
01:10:34But the context, the sort of underbrewing tones of violence, in a lot of ways, the undertones are similar.
01:10:40Our beliefs in God, how does his relationship with his father shift?
01:10:44He's probably going to be feeling anger, for being like having to take care of his father at 16 in a situation like this.
01:10:50I feel like everything bad that happened made we so stronger, since now he has to care for his father.
01:10:57I kind of disagreed when Isabel said that made him stronger, in the end that 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 the right and the ability to choose.
01:11:11I feel like freedom is being able to choose life or death, and I feel like freedom is being able to have an option.
01:11:17And I feel like you cannot define freedom, some people define freedom for themselves.
01:11:22God 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.
01:11:33It'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 choose.
01:11:42So it wasn't really his fault that the Holocaust happened.
01:11:45Maybe God is putting him through this to make him understand that God is not just there to make you happy.
01:11:52God is there to just lead you through life in general.
01:11:55What was the most impactful part of the book for you?
01:11:57The most impactful part was when his father died.
01:12:01This is powerful to me because this is like a different situation, and 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 didn't even know what I would do with myself.
01:12:16I feel as if when he wrote this book, he was trying to let go of his pain so he won't have to feel the pain of having to relive those moments over and over and over again.
01:12:29This isn't the same world Wiesel was in when he was younger, because we even see that change in his name throughout the book.
01:12:36He's called Eliezer.
01:12:38But as an author, and when we're talking about him in a present tense before he passed, we say Elie.
01:12:45That just shows that he's now in a different world.
01:12:48So even though Elie is free, Eliezer was never freed from his past.
01:12:52Elie Wiesel is free, Eliezer is not.
01:12:58I love you.
01:12:59I love you too.
01:13:00I'll see you in eight days.
01:13:02Why is it that my town still enchants me so?
01:13:17Is it because in my memory it is entangled with my childhood?
01:13:23Evil remains hidden and time suspended.
01:13:28In my fantasy, I still see myself in it.
01:13:33In a tiny place like Siget, until 1944, people lived together.
01:13:43Hungarian gendarmerie was here present all the time.
01:13:46They even lived in Jewish homes.
01:13:52And suddenly overnight they became the perpetrators.
01:13:56I saw them with their bundles on their shoulders.
01:14:03The Hungarian gendarmes were driving them mad with fear.
01:14:08My sisters and myself, we went to the wells and brought them water.
01:14:18Then, three days later, I was myself among them.
01:14:24I see that.
01:14:30Are most of the people who visit Siget as tourists aware of the Jewish history,
01:14:35or do they just come here because...
01:14:37Most of them are not.
01:14:38Yeah.
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.
01:14:54Everything is the same.
01:15:05Furniture.
01:15:06Even the wallpaper.
01:15:09And it is so much the same.
01:15:12That at times I'm afraid that perhaps the door might open and the young boy that used to look like me will come out and he will ask me very innocently,
01:15:31tell me, what are you doing here, stranger?
01:15:35What are you doing in my dream, in my tale?
01:15:40All right, how can you tell me that?
01:15:42Yes.
01:15:43Yes.
01:15:44Yes.
01:15:45We're looking for El Diezze, right?
01:15:49Because your grandfather was named after his grandfather.
01:16:01where this one is huge Benyamin it's Yehuda Benyamin you see this is the wrong one yeah it's not this
01:16:17one oh possibly I think that's a meme oh wait oh that is Eliezer
01:16:31this is Eliezer yes it should be Ben
01:16:35Shemcha Shalom Halevi yeah this is it we found it this is my great-great-grandfather
01:16:44Eliezer Lazar Wiesel Halevi
01:16:46did you try it? did you try it? I saw it but I personally did not try it
01:16:55wow
01:17:01Rav Eliezer Wiesel
01:17:16I've never seen it spelled like that but that's how it's pronounced
01:17:24I visited all the places which had once filled my landscape I searched for the people out of my
01:17:47past but I did not find them the only place where I felt at home was the Jewish cemetery
01:17:55this was the only place in Siget that reminded me of Siget I wandered from one
01:18:03grave to another I had bought some candles I lit them placing one wherever I found a
01:18:12familiar name the wind blew them out and suddenly tears strangled me a terrible
01:18:23certainty overcame me for the town that had once been mine never was
01:18:33my hometown was only famous for the concentration camp Sachsenhausen unfortunately there were no Jews left
01:18:51they came first for the communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist
01:19:01then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew
01:19:08then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist
01:19:15then they came for me and by that time no one was left to speak up
01:19:22I learned that Elie Wiesel had a type of blood cancer
01:19:32he was sent to us to participate in a clinical trial with a drug we have never used before
01:19:43Hello, Dr. Lynch speaking
01:19:46I had a phone call with his son Alicia and talking to him for the first time
01:19:52wasn't that easy giving the life of his father into hands of a German doctor
01:20:02a drug that has never been tested in New York he said
01:20:09if there is a chance and if we have an option even if it is an experimental treatment
01:20:15maybe we give it a chance but the final decision has to be made by my father
01:20:21Elie Wiesel responded very nicely but after a year the treatment stopped working
01:20:30Elijah said if there is 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 rush
01:20:42like my blood rushing in my head I had to sit down because there 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
01:21:05I believe that life does not end with death
01:21:11I 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
01:21:26which means the death have their own presence
01:21:30it's up for me to accept it and I do
01:21:34it doesn't mean I don't believe, I don't know
01:21:37but between belief and knowledge there is an abyss
01:21:42but what would one be without the other?
01:21:46the other?
01:21:52the other?
01:21:53the other?
01:21:55the other?
01:21:56Shabbat Shalom
01:22:26Shabbat Shalom
01:22:56Shalom
01:23:26Shalom
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