“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” -Elie Wiesel
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| This is a picture of Elie Wiesel at Buchenwald. He is on the second row up, seventh from the left next to the post. |
Elie Wiesel, author of Night,
was a survivor of the Holocaust and an award-winning American Jewish writer.
Wiesel was 15 when he, his family, and his town’s Jewish population were placed
in one of the two confinement ghettos set up in his home town of Sighet. In May
1944, the Hungarian authorities began to transport the Jewish people from the
confinement ghettos into Auschwitz. Up to 90 percent of the people were
exterminated on arrival at Auschwitz, including Elie’s mother and sister. He
and his father were allowed to work in the camp for labor, and were transferred
to Buchenwald, where his father was beaten to death the night before the camp
was liberated.
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| https://abcnews.go.com/International/ world-shrugged-off-kristallnacht/story?id=20826565 |
Elie’s story made me think immediately of Josef’s in AlanGratz’s Refugee. Josef’s home was
ransacked during Kristallnacht. Kristallnacht was the night when Nazis/Brown
shirts exploded into Jewish homes, hospitals and schools. In the book however,
Josef was not taken because he was not yet 13, not yet “a man”. By 1944, it was
clear as was seen in Elie’s life, that German soldiers stopped caring if you
were a “man” yet (also, in Josef’s story, they only took his father on
Kristallnacht while Elie’s entire family was taken and placed into the
confinement ghetto and Auschwitz).
Having your humanity taken from you so young has to be one
of the most traumatizing things you can suffer as a child. When Josef was in
school, his teacher makes a mockery of him by teaching the class how to spot a
Jewish person just by looking at their facial features. The teacher pulled
Josef to the front of the class and outlined his appearance, humiliating such a
young boy. He “…felt the heat of that embarrassment all over again, the
humiliation of being talked about like he was an animal. A specimen. Something
subhuman,” (page 20, Refugee).
“The Foundation’s mission, rooted in the memory of the Holocaust, is to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding and equality.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elie_Wiesel#/media/File:Buchenwald_Slave_Laborers_Liberation.jpg
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1986/wiesel/biographical/
http://eliewieselfoundation.org/
https://abcnews.go.com/International/world-shrugged-off-kristallnacht/story?id=20826565
This was a really great post, I read the book Night in high school, and it was a tie in to the book Refugee. I do think that it is really sad that children have to go through this traumatizing experience.
ReplyDeleteThis was an interesting post. I like how you made a connection to another person that went through sort of the same thing as Joseph. I had no clue about this person and it only makes me want to look more into the author and possibly read the book Night.
ReplyDeleteThat was really sad that they used Josef as a symbol for how to "spot the Jew". Really disgusting that an entire community get viewed, as Josef describes, a specimen. The world was really messed up. And it's sad that we aren't doing much to make it better for refugees that are trying to flee from being in the same predicament.
ReplyDeletePowerful connection with Ellie Wiesel - and important quote that you use to start your blog.
ReplyDeleteVery powerful quote in the beginning. Neutrality helps the oppressor, indeed. Children are so impressionable, hopeful and pure-hearted. It is horrific to think of kids going through these experiences and how quickly those traits can be ripped away from them.
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