First of all (and it will be out of order) I want to mention one of the things he said in his 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 allow such crimes to be committed?'" (p. 118) For some reason, I feel like these things will always happen, not always so drastically, but I think there will always be at least a little bit of hate between people who are inevitably different from other people. For example, a few months ago I saw an article (I follow LGBT news very closely) about transgender issues I will post a link below including examples of torture, killings (often described as hate crimes, but I classify them as a form of genocide) and even arrests simply for being different, for being transgendered. Is that fair in any form of the word?
Also the last lines of the memoir, "From the depths of the mirror a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left." (p. 115) These words are haunting me. He described himself as a corpse and in the third person, and for some reason him referring to himself that way concerns me-it makes me feel like he doesn't feel like he knows himself anymore at all.
The only other point I'd like to make tonight is how he explained the death of his father. After reading the preface I don't think he does the event justice by putting it so simply, I seriously almost missed it. I was reading through half distracted by the music playing and almost missed the fact that this was when his father died. He spoke of it so vaguely, as if it was something painful. If I didn't already know why his father's death isn't spoken of explicitly I would confuse his lack of detail for sadness, maybe it was too hard for him to speak of this. This however isn't the case. In the original Yiddish, he speaks in great detail of his father's death. He goes on for a page and a half describing his father's cries and how he was so afraid of being beaten himself that he ignored his father's last wishes and stood feet away blind deaf and dumb. Before editing in the new translations, these thoughts and details of his fathers death, things that were so powerful at least to me, were cut from the text perhaps to guard the readers from the pain they cause-Isn't the power in the pain and the harshness? Isn't one of the purposes here to never let this happen again? How can we do that if we don't have the darkest details, the most painful bits? The tragic details are what makes the stories so powerful, without them someone reading wouldn't get nearly as much of the impact.
Anyways, how can we expect these things to happen again. I mean it's the twenty-first century. Noone would let this happen again.
Yeah, right.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pete-subkoviak/lgbt-leadership-splitting_b_1093522.html
You make some very interesting points in your response. It is true that it seems as if prejudices will never stop. The article that you linked proves this. So many people face abuse and even as time passes the harshness continues to occur. Also, I would like to talk about the quote that you pointed out, which truly shows how much cruelty that Wiesel faced. I remember when I read that part of the text; chills came down my spine. I am not entirely sure if this was the particular instance, but believe that he said that this was the very first time that he had seen himself since his departure to the concentration camps. It is probably better this way. If he saw how weak he looked, maybe Elie would not have survived. His condition may have concerned him. He was able to see the many individuals surrounding him, but never himself. He probably figured that he was in much better condition that everyone else. Until this moment, he most likely didn’t realize that he was just like everyone else, just as the Germans wished.
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