“Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) was a Holocaust survivor who went on to dedicate his life to political activism, teaching, writing, and speaking throughout the world about the Nazi genocide committed during World War II, when six million Jewish people, men, women, and children were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. The Nazis also targeted dissidents, Roma (Gypsies), the disabled, homosexuals, and anyone whose ideological or religious beliefs conflicted with their diabolical intention to create a “racially pure” state. In 1986 Elie Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize for his tireless humanitarian activism. His acceptance speech calls us to not remain indifferent in the face of injustice and oppression. The smallest of actions embracing a spirit of remembering and honoring history roots us in our humanity and can inspire us to speak out with courage and bravery during these troubling times. As the LGBTQ+ community is being actively persecuted, African Americans and minorities continue to be subjugated to brutal systemic racism, and many Native Americans still lack access to running water. The Nazis were notorious for book banning, book burning, and the censorship of intellectual thought. Let us be conscious and aware of this current moment in history, and not be distracted by technology, television, and social apathy.
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“And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe… There is so much injustice and suffering crying out for our attention: victims of hunger, of racism, and political persecution, writers and poets, prisoners in so many lands governed by the Left and by the Right.
Human rights are being violated on every continent. More people are oppressed than free. And then, too, there are the Palestinians to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore. Violence and terrorism are not the answer. Something must be done about their suffering, and soon. . . As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above 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.” - Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech
