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Elie Wiesel received Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. His acceptance speech and related lecture, "Hope, Despair and Retention," which was delivered in Oslo the twenty-four hours after his acceptance speech, are amid his nigh well-known public addresses. This week we revisit his famous words by looking at particularly evocative passages so that we tin reverberate upon Wiesel'south phone call to action against indifference in the face of hatred.

If you lot would like to explore this historic moment, here are some helpful links:

  • Lookout the acceptance spoken language at the Nobel Prize website.
  • Read the acceptance speech.
  • Read "Promise, Despair and Memory."

Passage #1:

From The Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech:

I remember he asked his father: "Can this be true? This is the twentieth century, not the Middle Ages. Who would permit such crimes to be committed? How could the world remain silent?"

And now the male child is turning to me. "Tell me," he asks, "what have you done with my future? What have you done with your life?" And I tell him that I have tried. That I accept tried to continue memory live, that I accept tried to fight those that would forget. Considering if nosotros forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.

And and so I explain to him how naive nosotros were, that the earth did know and remained silent. And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings suffer suffering and humiliation. Nosotros must ever accept sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

Passage #ii:

From The Nobel Prize Acceptance Spoken language:

Equally long as ane dissident is in prison, our liberty volition not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will exist filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need higher up all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.

Passage #3:

From "Hope, Despair, and Retentiveness":

We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal moving ridge of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for men everywhere to make up one's mind once and for all to put an terminate to hatred of anyone who is "different"―whether black or white, Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem―anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually. A naive undertaking? Of course. Just non without a certain logic.

We tried. It was not easy. At outset, because of the language: language failed us. We would have to invent a new vocabulary, for our own words were inadequate, bloodless.

And and then likewise, the people around utilize refused to listen; and even those who listened refused to believe; and even those who believed could not comprehend. Can yous sympathize, can anyone understand how a nation of such civilization, of such power, could of a sudden invent death camps, death factories, and mobilize its entire industry, its science, its philosophy, its passion, to impale Jewish people?

Passage #iv:

From "Promise, Despair, and Retention":

Allow us remember Job who, having lost everything―his children, his friends, his possessions, and even his argument with God―still found the strength to begin again, to rebuild his life. Job was adamant not to repudiate the creation, however imperfect, that God had entrusted to him.

Job, our antecedent. Job, our contemporary. Everything in our tradition tells usa that Job was non a Jew, but his suffering concerns u.s.. It concerns united states of america so much that we accept taken his linguistic communication into our liturgy. His ordeal concerns all humanity. Did he e'er lose faith? If so, he rediscovered it within his rebellion. He demonstrated that faith is substantially a rebellion, and that hope is possible beyond despair but non without it. The source of his hope was memory, as information technology must exist ours. Because I remember, I despair. Because I think, I take the duty to decline despair.

Passage #5:

From "Hope, Despair, and Retention":

The lesson, the only lesson that I have learned from my experiences, is twofold: first, that there are no plausible answers to what we have endured. There are no theological answers, at that place are no psychological answers, there are no literary answers, in that location are no philosophical answers, at that place are no religious answers. The merely conceivable answer is a moral respond. This means there must be a moral element in whatever we do. Second, that just as despair can be given to me only by another man being, hope likewise can be given to me simply by some other human. Mankind must remember as well, and higher up all, that like hope and whatever hope signifies, peace is not God's gift to his creatures. Peace is a very special souvenir―it is our souvenir to each other.

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