TRANSCRIPT
Professor Elie Wiesel
Honorary Degree Recipient
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Welcome to University of Vermont.
(Music playing).
John M. Hughes, Provost
>>>>: Good afternoon and welcome. We are gathered today to remember, to
listen, and to reflect. We are also gathered to honor one of the leading citizens of
our time and to confer the highest degree our institution offers in recognition of his
tireless efforts as a conscience for the world.
I am pleased to begin this event by introducing Dr. Daniel Mark Fogel, president
of the University of Vermont.
Daniel Mark Fogel, President
>>>>: Thank you, John.
Trustees of the University, students, faculty, staff of UVM and of our sister
institutions of higher education in Vermont, alumni, friends and members of the
community, many thanks to all of you who have joined us on this momentous day
as we welcome 1986 Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel to our university.
Two years ago, we gathered in the same place for an address by Bishop
Desmond Tutu, 1984 Nobel Laureate. And our 1998 commencement marked the
return to campus of UVM's own Jody Williams, class of 1972, recipient of the
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work with the International Campaign to Ban
Landmines.
Jody Williams, Desmond Tutu, and today, Elie Wiesel. These are voices that
must be heard.
It seems to me that we should feel humbled and deeply privileged that this
University, our students, faculty and staff absorbed in the work of creating the
future, is able to provide a platform for the great champions of peace in our
troubled world.
Just nine days ago, the peace of a college campus was shattered by the
horrific events at Virginia Tech University. As we gather today to hear one of the
great voices for peace and reason for our time and to hear, moreover, an
unsurpassed proponent of the imperative to keep memory alive, it is fitting that we
should pause to remember the lives senselessly taken in Blacksburg. Let us unite
in reflection as a university community and in solidarity with the students, faculty
and staff, alumni and parents of Virginia Tech as they begin to take the first steps
toward recovery from staggering tragedy.
Please join me in a moment of silence.
Thank you.
There are many to thank for the opportunity we have to be here today with
Elie Wiesel. University of Vermont Hillel has played a key role with leadership
from Hillel has played a key role with leadership from Hillel board president Deb
Lichtenfeld and Executive Director Susan Leff. STAND, students for peace and
global justice and the interresidence association, have also contributed to the effort.
Other sponsors, without whom this day would not have been possible,
include the Carolyn and Leonard Miller Center for Holocaust Studies, the Class of
1941 Marsh Lecture Program, the Department of Student Life, Heritage Flights
Incorporated, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Foundation, and the Israel Center
of Vermont.
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
Great thanks are also due to the Patrick gym staff for their work in managing
the logistics of this location and the UVM media services staff who have made it
possible to share this day with more in our community through the broadcast to
overflow seating. Finally, joining those planning this event are several others to
whom thanks are also due, including Stephanie O'Flaherty, Jeff Wakefield, Jeff
Schulman, Pat Brown, Mike Schultz, Gary Marglois, Gary Derr, and the tireless
Leslie Logan.
It is our great honor today, not only to have Elie Wiesel with us and to hear
his words, but also to confer upon him the degree of Doctor of Humane Letters
from the University of Vermont.
Professor Wiesel, please step forward and join me at the lectern as I read the
degree citation.
Elie Wiesel, you have carried the torch of memory for those silenced by the
Holocaust, weaving from that terrible history memorable art and building a life of
purpose and influence. It is a history you witnessed and lived. At 15, you were
taken from your home and interned at Auschwitz with your family where your
mother and young sister died. Later you were sent with your father to Buchenwald
where you endured the tragedy of his death not long before liberation, and though
you and your two oldest sisters survived, life would always be haunted by the
enduring memory of those who did not. As you said in your eloquent speech when
you accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, I have tried to keep memory alive, I have tried
to fight those who would forget, because if we forget, we are guilty, we are
accomplices.
You have kept memory alive through your teaching and your writing,
including your books, Night, A Beggar in Jerusalem, The Testament, The Fifth
Son, and your memoirs, All Rivers Run to the Sea, and The Sea Is Never Full.
And, you have kept memory alive through the Elie Wiesel Foundation for
Humanity, established by you and your wife, Marion, to advance the cause of
human rights and peace throughout the world, from Nicaragua to Cambodia,
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
Yugoslavia to South Africa. We must take sides, you said in your Nobel speech.
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormenter,
never the tormented.
Elie Wiesel, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Board of Trustees
of the University of Vermont, I hereby confer upon you the degree of Doctor of
Humane Letters, honoris causa, and admit you to all of its honors, rights,
privileges and obligations.
Shalom.
UVM senior Meredith Rose Burak has played a key role in making today's
event possible. Meredith, who is studying political science, anthropology and
Holocaust studies, is president of STAND Students Taking Action Now: Darfur,
and is active with UVM Hillel. Please join me in a round of applause for her
vision of the promise of this day and for her work in making it come to be.
Meredith Rose Burak, UVM ‘07
>>>>: Thank you.
I would first like to thank you all for coming and being a part of a
remarkable experience.
I am proud to say that I am the Director of UVM STAND, Students Taking
Action Now: Darfur. STAND is dedicated to putting an end to genocide,
specifically the ongoing genocide in Darfur. UVM STAND is a part of an
international coalition working to unite students in this anti-genocide movement by
empowering them to hold their citizens and state leaders accountable for their
actions and inaction, engaging them in the discovery of pragmatic solutions that
end the genocide in Darfur and setting a precedent for a permanent change in the
world's mentality towards genocide.
In the words of Elie Wiesel, sometimes we must interfere. When human
lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and
sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherenever men and women are persecuted
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
because of their race, religion or political views, that place must, at that moment,
become the center of the universe.
On behalf of UVM STAND, Hillel and the Vermont community, it is a great
honor to be able to stand before you and introduce Professor Elie Wiesel, whose
voice is single-handedly responsible for saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Elie
Wiesel's statement, to remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all, stands
as a succinct summary of his views on life and serves as the driving force of his
work. He has dedicated his life to combating indifference, racism and genocide
through taking action.
In 1978, president Jimmy Carter appointed Professor Wiesel chairman of
the president's Commission on the Holocaust. His job as chairman of the
commission was the planning of an American memorial to the victims of the
Holocaust and was a guiding force in the establishment of the world renowned US
Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. which has received more than
22 million visitors since its inauguration in 1993.
Three months after accepting the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize, Marion and elie
Wiesel established the Wiesel Foundation for Humanity. The foundation seeks to
remedy indifference intolerance and injustice through international dialogues and
youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding and equality. In
the mid-1990s, the Wiesel Foundation for Humanity created two educational
centers in Israel in response to the thousands of Ethiopian Jews forced to escape
violence and persecution in Africa. These Beit Tzipora Centers focus on educating
the Ethiopian-Jewish community and giving Ethiopian-Israeli young people the
opportunity to grow and participate fully in Israeli society. Names in memory of
Elie Wiesel's younger sister, who died in Auschwitz, these centers have become a
major part of the Foundation's work and remain a passion of the Wiesel family.
In May of 2005, Elie Wiesel and King Abdullah II of Jordan cohosted the
Petra conference, a forum in which 25 Nobel laureates and regional leaders
reflected on pressing issues. The forum brought together Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Upon meeting
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
face to face, the two leaders fell into each other's arms, reigniting the prospects for
peace in the region. Next month, Professor Wiesel will be hosting another
conference for Nobel Laureates to bring together the Israeli and Palestinian leaders
once again.
Four years ago, Elie Wiesel was one of the first to alert the world of the
ongoing genocide in Darfur. He refers to Sudan as today's capital of human
suffering. Last fall, together with Oscar winning actor George Clooney, Elie
Wiesel spoke in front of the UN Security Council. Elie Wiesel's activism
challenges the conscience of the world. His voice has served for the so many who
are deprived of the right to speak for themselves. What all these victims above all
need is to know that they are not alone, that we are not forgetting them. That while
their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.
Please join me in welcoming our honorable guest, Elie Wiesel.
PROFESSOR WIESEL
>>>>: President Fogel, Mr. Provost, distinguished members of the faculty,
students, and friends, how can I thank you for the great honor you have bestowed
upon me today?
These days to the Jew who came from Hungary, these days are important to
us, because Hungarian Jewry actually vanished almost between Passover and
Shavuot. In a matter of seven weeks, some 600,000 Jews were taken to those
places of darkness and fire. And each day, to us is a special day, marked a certain
sadness that cannot be dissipated and yet, as some of us will tell you, there's -- as
yet is a kind of philosophy.
Yes, we are sad, and yet we must destroy that sadness.
Yes, we are, and yet we must be able to speak and even to laugh.
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
Now, being in an academic setting is to me meaningful. I have devoted my
entire life to learning. Passion for learning has been mine since my childhood. I
don't remember myself, as a child, ever without a book in my arms. It was true of
my father and my mother, too, or my grandfather. Somehow, whenever I used to
see my parents or my friends, we all had books. The attachment to books was the
most important thing to me as a child and remains to this day.
Some of us have questions and we don't know the answers, and often we are
asked questions and still we don't have the answers.
At times I'm asked, how come you didn't lose your faith in God or how come
that you manage somehow to find a place under the sun and even create a family.
All these are important questions and rightfully so. They are important and they
mean something.
The real question is, I believe, is how come that I, or somebody in my place,
did not lose my sanity.
After all, we came, we were young, and yet, we were older than the oldest of
our teachers. Which means we have learned lessons about life and death the
generations of my forerunners didn't have. And normally any psychiatrist will tell
you, normally, we could have been thrust into situations where we would lose our
sanity.
How come that I didn't lose it?
And the answer to this I have: It is because immediately after the war when
I came to France to the first orphanage, the first thing I did, I plunged into study,
literally, I plunged into learning and that, to this day, I'm convinced of that. To that
I owe the fact that I could learn and learn and learn, and I go on teaching. I
became a teacher because I have a passion for learning. I'm not sure I'm the best
teacher in class, but surely I'm the best student there.
What do I expect from learning?
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
Learning is an open hand. To me learning is like the movement of the
conductor when he conducts a symphony. I give the part to the violin, another part
to the drum, to the flute, and this is learning. I give one word the privilege of being
led, waiting for the next one to follow, and then in hours of grace, of course, it is
not only the words that mean much, but the silence that separates one word from
another.
Words are important to the witness.
A witness cannot come before the court of law and simply say, I have
chosen silence. The poet will do that, the philosopher can also do that. The
witness cannot. The witness must use words. And here we come, of course, to the
problem: all of a sudden realize that we didn't have the words. I felt it.
Some of you may know that I have chosen 1945 to wait ten years before I
would write, before I would speak about my experiences. Why ten years? I don't
know why. I could have said five or fifteen, but ten. It's a Biblical figure, a
Biblical expression in our collective consciousness. But the real reason that I was
not sure I would find the proper word, so I said I'll wait ten years for the words,
and I wrote.
And today I'm not sure that the words were right, because there are no
words. In the world of what we call -- what I call Auschwitz, that world filled with
curses, filled with despair, filled with cruelty and death, in those places, a language
was created. A kind of universal language, it has its own language, because that
world was a different world, it was a kind of universe parallel to the universe.
A creation parallel to creation.
When we came there, what struck us was that it was really a creation, with
its beggars, with its principals, with its tailors, with its cobblers, with its teachers,
with its leaders. Some came there to kill, others to be killed, and it worked. Just it
worked. What is it in us that makes us so vulnerable to the words that are
supposed to transmit the experience of that place? I don't know.
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
The fact is, language failed us.
Of all the social categories in that place, and there were really everyone -teachers were there, students were there, rabbis were there, visionaries, they were
all. The entire human race was represented there. The category of writers suffered
most. Writers, more than any other category, committed suicide after the war.
Poland, Italy, Israel, I can give you a whole list of them. Why? Why writers?
Because a writer needs words, and when a writer realizes that the words failed him,
what could he do? Many of them committed suicide.
So, and yet the witness had to speak. Had to use words. Had to use
language.
Question: And the question is an important one. Maybe we didn't succeed
to change the world, because we didn't find the words. In Kafka's stories -- I'm sure
you've studied him in school here -- we have a lot about the messenger who cannot
deliver the message, and that is of course tragic. What is more tragic is when the
messenger forgot the message. What is even more tragic is the messenger did
deliver the message and nothing happened, nothing changed. And this is really the
story of our generations.
We are now in the 21st Century. The past century is behind us with its
flames with its shadows, and the world hasn't changed. Now, I must confess to
you my naiveté. In 1945 when we were liberated, I was convinced that at least one
thing has occurred and must occur, that never again, I'd like to say never again will
there be war, because we had seen the grotesqueness of war. Never again would
people hate one another, because we have seen -- we had seen the consequences of
hate. Never again will anti-Semitism exist. Little did I know that the victims
perished, but anti-Semitism would survive and flourish and so on.
If anyone had told me that in my lifetime I would see, I would hear children
dying, this is a mantra with me. Every moment that is spent here together, every
moment, somewhere under the sun in Africa, Asia, anywhere, a child dies of
disease or violence, of indifference. Every minute a child dies. And if anyone had
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
told me in '45 that I would see that, never. I've seen what happened to children
And therefore, the world hasn't improved.
Yes, Darfur should be part of the 21st Century? Darfur belonged to the past.
Rwanda? How is it possible? And the truth is, had the world heard our tales, had
the world drawn the proper conclusions, there would have been no Rwanda. There
would have been no Darfur. But is it our fault that we didn't find the words?
But we tried.
What does one do with memory? What does one do with memory of
suffering? What does one do with suffering? Is it possible that my memories
should include yours, as well? Should I say that therefore, mine are more
important than yours? This is a question again, it's a series of questions that
confront us. After the war, I've seen it. There were some, some from my own
home town in Buchenwald that simply decided: Finished, my decision is taken. I
will not care about anyone else from now on. From now on, I alone matter. I want
to live a good life, drink wine, eat a good meal, go to the movies, fall in love with a
beautiful girl, and to hell with everybody else.
And I would have understood it.
People have said I paid my dues, finished, leave me alone. Don't talk to me
with another person's suffering. Don't talk to me about the urgencies in the world
of other people. Don't. I have my life. I lost it. I want it again and that's all.
On the other hand, there were others who said just the opposite. Because I
suffered, I don't want somebody else to suffer. And therefore they became
Universalists.
Among my community, the Jewish community, there was a tendency of
universalism, except they chose the wrong way to express it. They went to
communism. I remember some of us who were liberated in Buchenwald, went
back to my home town to see it, joined the communist party, not knowing, of
course, the real truth of communism. That it began, of course, as a very great
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
statement of brotherhood, fraternity, peace in the world. It wasn't. In truth, it was
a laboratory of deceit, of murder, of brutality, of falsehood. That's why
communism was defeated from within, from inside, but they tried it.
Still others went to Palestine and they said okay, the Jews have suffered
enough, and from now on we don't want the Jews to suffer again, and they went to
Palestine to build a new state on ancient soil.
Which one of the three is applicable?
Every one of us must make his or her choice. My choice was really two and
three. Which means as a Jew, I believe that we must attain universality, but I as a
Jew can do that, but that is true of the Catholics, who they said I, as a Catholic, can
do that, or a Protestant, I can do that. A Buddhist, a Muslim, everything. But I
must begin with my own identity and then build that identity into an appeal
towards Universality.
And therefore, yes, I became involved in human rights, which to me is a
kind of secular religion. It doesn't mean it replaces mine, no. I remained more or
less the person I was before. The child in me is the same, and I would not want to
betray the childhood in me or the child in me. And so I began working for human
rights. Why? Because I felt what I said in my Nobel address is true, I felt really
that I cannot simply stand by,
The most important commandment I shall not steal. Big deal, not steal. I
shall not covet my neighbor's wife. Big deal. That should be in the ten
commandments? Why is it, we are bound not to obey, why put us before such a
test? If the Bible had said you must covet your wife, then we would have violated
it. Not to do it. And so the nicest one was I liked, the most human one, is the one
in the Bible, not stand idly by when the blood of your fellow human being is being
shed. This is the substance of human rights.
I cannot stand idly by, and therefore, whenever I heard there was a tragedy, I
went to Cambodia, I couldn't get things, I went to the border. I remember a
refugee camp, 180,000 people, I would go literally from tent to tent, from barrack
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
to barrack, from person to person, listening, at least to listen, and at one point I had
a problem. That day when I was there, it was the anniversary of my father's death.
I stopped people in the street, are you Jewish? If yes, come. And finally I found
one correspondent of the New York Times, a doctor, and they were 10 and I was
and so I said the prayers.
And then the doctor from Toulouse repeated word by word the prayer for the
dead. In the end they asked him, do you have the Yahrzeit? No. Did you lose your
father or mother? No. Are you in mourning? No. Then, why do you say kaddish
for him? And with his arm he showed the Cambodia. He said, For them.
I loved it.
Again because this is the lesson of Universalism that we Jews, when we say
the Yahrzeit, we say it because we cannot not remember the other side. I went to
Sarajevo and I went to Bosnia, then I went to Macedonia, everywhere, Albania,
and I was going around, literally, again, from barracks to barracks, from house to
house, at least to hear the stories, to be a witness. And you know, it was
remarkable and heartbreaking. People began talking, telling me the story about
rape, about murder, and not one person managed to finish a story. Because they all
broke into tears.
I haven't heard one finished story, only the first half. And then I said to
myself, maybe that is my task. To go around, collecting tears, their tears, and turn
them into words and the words into a promise, a promise to them that they are not
forgotten, they are not alone and that we shall try to be present to them, since we
cannot do anything else. Why am I doing all that? Why are we doing all that? I'll
tell you why, in truth. Because I remember times when we needed somebody to
come and nobody came.
Oh, yes, there was one person who came, by the way. A Jew from Hungary.
He was a great hero, he saved thousands of Jews in Budapest. There were others
here and there. We called them righteous gentiles. I organized once a conference
for them in Washington, and I would go around and people who risked their lives
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
to save Jews, and ask them, what made you so heroic? They all said, come on,
don't use that word, we were no heroes. One woman said, listen, I saw a child
running in the street, the police running after them. How could I not open the door
for that child? The other one said my neighbor was in a cave, hungry, how could I
not bring them food.
And I woe unto us. In those times it was enough to be human to become a
hero. So people, yes, there were a few, and I asked all of them, why were you so
few? They were so few. In Jerusalem is a remembrance. I think it has maybe
2500 names altogether from all over the world. That's all. Where were the others?
Oh, yes, we have Denmark. Bulgaria also saved Jews. So what is it about a
human being that he or she is capable of the worst and the best?
So I go back to learning. I loved it. I love learning. The first story in the
Bible is not Adam and Eve, because there was nothing. God created Adam and
Eve. He created Adam doing him a favor. Adam is the only person in the Bible
who cannot suffer from an Oedipus complex. Okay, so Adam dead. The problem
with the serpent, the serpent talked too much and Eve listened too well.
But the real story is Cain and Abel. Two brothers. And one became the
assassin. Why do we begin the beginning of the human race with such a sordid
story? What does it want to teach us? Is it wanting to teach us that one day, yes,
brother will kill a brother? What is Civil War? What is Civil War in Iraq today?
Muslim against Muslim. Or is it something more, and I believe it's something
more, too. It is to tell us: Beware whoever kills, kills his brother. And we don't
remember that. And so I therefore believe that must be involved.
Darfur is a tragedy and Rwanda was a scandal. Rwanda could have been
saved. I came to be involved in Sudan almost by accident. I was invited by
President Clinton to come to the White House and deliver the millennium address,
and I called it the perils of indifference, because I fought indifference all my adult
life. And I spoke about indifference. When I finished, a woman got up and she
said professor, I come from Rwanda, and she sat down. I turned to the president
who sat at my side.
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
I said, Mr. President, please answer her.You know, as I do, that we could
have saved from 600,000 to 800,000 men, women and children, why didn't we?
And he blushed and he said, you are right, Elie, you are right. We could
have and we didn't, and therefore I went personally to Rwanda to apologize in my
name and in the name of our nation, and I promise you never again, it won't
happen again.
I felt better.
The next day I got a telephone call from Washington, a group for Sudan
headed by a bishop from Sudan, we must come and see you, it's a matter of life and
death. They came to see me.
What can I do for you?
And they said, Do you know what's happening in Sudan?
And I said, no, nobody told me about it.
2 million people have already been killed. You don't know about it?
And I said no, I don't know it.
And they said, we need you.
How do you need me? I said.
And they said, You are now the custodian of a presidential pledge.
And that's how I became involved in Sudan and that's how I became
involved in Darfur. It is the Jew in me naturally that said when I needed somebody
to come to us, nobody came.
Again between two holidays, 49 days, we in my little town never, 1944, two
weeks before D Day, more than a million or two million Americans or British were
already waiting in England preparing themselves to cross the channel, and we
didn't know the name Auschwitz. The whole world knew. Now we know it in
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
documents, we know. The Vatican knew, Switzerland new, London knew,
Roosevelt knew. Nothing. Had Roosevelt gone on radio, and even at the ghetto
we listened to the radio, if he had said Jews from Hungary, don't go to the train, go
hide, I am telling, you many of us would not have gone to the train.
We had a maid, Maria, a Christian. The honor of Christianity. She sneaked
into the ghetto, pleading with my father, I have a hut in the mountains, come, I'll
take care of you. My father said, Why? We will remain part of the community.
Whatever is good for the community is good for us. Whatever will happen to
everybody, we are part of it. Had we known the name Auschwitz, I believe he
wouldn't have gone.
Why didn't Roosevelt speak up, and Churchill and the others?
I don't know. I really don't know. I cannot criticize, I cannot judge, but I
don't know. Maybe I'm afraid to know. And therefore, I said, okay, because
nobody came to us when we needed people, we must be there when people need
us. Me or you.
So you see, all of a sudden, everything comes together, and all that has one
link. The link is the link to memory. Why remember? Why remember events that
cannot but hurt us? Why remember wounds that remain open by opening them
again? Why tell tales that bring nothing but tears, sorrow, agony? Why? Isn't
forgetfulness part of what keeps humanity actually functioning? You know, in
ancient Greece, something that helps you forget.
Forgetting can be a blessing. If I were to remember, all the time
continuously, that I am mortal, that one day I'll die, I wouldn't be able to live. So
therefore it's natural for me to forget from time to time, from moment to moment,
that I'm dying, I'm going to die. So memory can be that, can be a blessing, but
memory is something else, as well. Memory is what makes culture the
extraordinary adventure that it is. Memory, of course, is the soul of history.
As long as I remember my past, somehow I know that my future will contain
it. Does it mean I have to live in my past? No, I don't want to live in my past. But
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
I want my past to live in me. And therefore, memory is something, nobody knows
how to deal with it. No philosopher knows how to deal with it. It has its own
archeology, its own riddle, its own mystery, its own life.
It has its own soul, and what is worse, that can happen to a person, you
know, today, who's got Alzheimer's, and I remember, but I faced for the first time a
patient of Alzheimer's. I felt so shaken up that I began doing research. I wrote a
novel on Alzheimer's called The Forgotten, and I remember I compared my main
character to a book. To me, it came the book, always the book, and I said what is
an Alzheimer patient? It's a book. Every day you tear a page and another page and
another page until there are no more pages left, just the covers.
And the problem I had was in all my writings, especially in my novels, I try
to give my young leaders, because again I remembered whom I speak to mainly is
to young people, I cannot give them despair. There must be somewhere an
opening – in every one of my novels, there must be an opening, a breakthrough, a
spark. And not in that book, The Forgotten. Therefore, I didn't give it to my
publisher. I kept it in my drawer for a very long time until I found a way out. I
won't tell you what I did. I want you to buy the book, anyway.
And so memory helps me, of course, naturally, to bring back the child in me,
and when I see the child in me, I was very religious. That doesn't mean I found the
answers. No, I have my questions. And the questions, of course, must imply God,
and where was God? How is God to explain his silence or his presence?
Where was he?
In one work that I wrote, there was one character that keeps on saying, and
God in all that, what is his role in all that, what's happening? Where is he? Is it a
choice that we have to be God's orphan or God's prisoner or God's victim?
Job was God's victim. And Job's problem was what? Job was angry at God,
and was waiting for God to speak. Job was not afraid of discovering that God is
unjust, because justice too that is human justice and divine justice, and maybe they
are not the same. Job was afraid of something else, of an indifferent God, that God
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
is indifferent to his creation. That God is a stranger to humanity, and therefore,
Job spoke angrily at God, but the moment God answered him, Job fell to his knees
and said yes, I see, and so forth, because now at least God spoke.
So where is God?
I don't have the answer. But I know that he's part of the question.
And so, my friends, we come to conclusion of our exploration tonight. I
know that Meredith and her friends, that they gave me speak of Darfur or the
Holocaust. I cannot lie to them. I owe you my sincerity, the Jew in me is attached
to Israel. Why, because again, because of my background, because of, I don't
know, but I have seen Jews as victims, I have seen Jews weak, and to us, therefore,
Jerusalem represents the moment of immortality in the present.
I know, I know, it's not always good. I cannot tell you that Israel really is a
land of saints. It's not. But I believe that Israel is trying. Now, 60 percent of the
Israelis are ready for a two-state solution. So am I. To have two states side by side
living in peace, but, but, Israel is waiting for a partner.
Who is the partner?
Hezbollah, Hamas, the practical theories of Hezbollah, what are they? They
don't want territorial concessions. They don't want financial compensation. They
don't want two states. They want one state. One Palestinian state. The charter of
Hamas says it plainly. One of the aims of Hamas is the destruction of Israel. So
Israel now has already made suggestions behind the scenes and officially,
unofficially, Israel is ready, but we wait for a partner.
In the beginning, it was Arafat. Rabin was a very close friend of mine. And
I saw him two weeks before he was assassinated. I asked him when we said
goodbye, I said what now, and he said, "in the beginning I thought Arafat is the
solution. Now I know he is the problem." I said, what do you mean, problem?
Now, everybody in the Palestinian territories knows Arafat was corrupt.
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
So now we are waiting for someone --personally you heard, I think,
Meredith saying that I organize conferences. Yes, I'm organizing another one. This
time I hope we win, from Olmert and -- and I hope things will work out.
Strangely enough, I'm often pessimistic about the world, and now I'm a little bit
more optimistic in the Middle East between Israel and the Palestinians. Why?
Because sometimes a war ends, both sides are tired. And I know the Israelies are
tired. I know the Palestinians, those that I met, are tired, too.
So what can I tell you young students at the end of this exploration? I'll tell
you a story just to tell you what is mantra. It's a legend that I love. It really gives
you a substance of what I think my life is about.
And the story is: Once upon a time, there was a man -- could be a woman,
too -- but let's say a man. A man who decided that he must save the world. He
felt that the world was going to pieces.
There was a great, great, great scholar and writer in France, and he said
somewhere, he said, creation existed before man and woman. It can exist after
them, too. What a horrible statement. Is it possible that the world could disappear
simply what we know today. Nuclear tests are serious.
So this man said, I must save the world from self-destruction. Where do I
begin? The world is so big. Well, I begin in my country. My country is so vast. I
begin with my city.
So he goes to the city and he begins going through the streets saying: Men
and women, don't cheat, men and women, don't lie, men and women, don't be
indifferent, he goes on and on and on and on. In the beginning people listened,
because he was something new. And he was amazing. He was entertaining. Went
on day after day, week after week, year after year. At the end, they stopped
listening.
A young boy stopped in the street, poor stranger, he said, poor teacher, you
shout and you shout and you shout. Don't you see it's for nothing?
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.
He said, yes, I know.
Then why do you shout?
And he said, I'll tell you, my young friend, I'll tell you. In the beginning, I
thought that if I were to shout loud enough, I would change them. Now I know I
will never change them. But if I shout louder and louder and louder still, it is
because I don't want them to change me.
Thank you.
Daniel Mark Fogel, President
>>>>: I know that I speak for the entire community, Professor Wiesel, in saying
thank you from the bottom of our hearts for being with us today and for instructing
us so deeply as to words and feelings inscribed in the remarkable body of written
work you have created, will continue to do for generations to come.
As we close this memorable occasion, I ask that the audience remain seated
until Professor Wiesel has exited the hall. Good night. Thank you again one and
all for being with us today.
The contents herein are the unedited verbatim transcript from Professor Elie Wiesel’s visit to the
University of Vermont on Wednesday, April 25th, 2007. This transcript is intended for educational use
only and may not be reproduced in any way.