Elie Wiesel, the author of the searing Holocaust memoir Night, is best known as a chronicler of Holocaust memory, and, in that capacity, as an eloquent spokesman for Holocaust survivors. Yet the 128 recorded lectures in the Wiesel Living Archive seem to focus on other topics and concerns. How then can this unique collection of Elie Wiesel’s lectures help teachers, students, and general readers deepen their appreciation of Night and gain new insights into its significance?
In truth, for three reasons every one of Professor Wiesel’s 92NY lectures can be said to bear a connection to Night. First, Night is the foundation of everything that came after. Second, if he had not written Night, he would not have written his other books. And third, every lecture contains echoes of and references to Night.
In what follows, we highlight some of these references and echoes in a sample of lectures, indicating the title of the lecture and, if relevant, the specific point in the lecture at which Professor Wiesel’s comments can be heard. In addition to the thirteen lectures cited, we encourage you to explore the others; there is no source more vivid, authoritative, and accessible than Professor Wiesel’s own voice and words.
Extraordinary book that Night is, it does not contain all of what Elie Wiesel experienced during the war. Nor does it contain all of what he has recounted about that experience. The 92NY lectures expand what we can know about Professor Wiesel’s wartime ordeal—and they do that by means of his personal recollections.
Drawing on the Yiddish Version of Night
In this regard, it is important to recall that Night was adapted from Professor Wiesel’s original Yiddish-language memoir, And the World was Silent. In the 92NY lectures, he shares with us some passages from the earlier memoir that do not appear in Night. Sometimes he comments on them, at other times he simply reads the passage in English translation. In either case, these passages and comments give us a broader view of important aspects of Night.
In his lecture, “Darkness” (1999), Professor Wiesel reads some moving passages from the Yiddish version about Moshe the Beadle and about the circumstances of his father’s death—and shares poignant reflections on both.
[24:50] It’s always the children. What will happen to tomorrow’s children? What will happen to the children who are now children and are ready to enter the next [00:25:00] century with a legacy which is ours? And we don’t want to make them sad. The last thing in the world I want is to make children sad.
In my first memoir, Night, which was translated from the Yiddish and shortened from the Yiddish, there are certain Yiddish passages that are not in the English or the French version or the other versions which were translated from the French. There in Yiddish it begins like this:
In the beginning there was faith, futile faith; and confidence, vain confidence; and illusion, dangerous illusion.
We believed in God, had confidence in man, and lived with the illusion that in each and every one of us a holy spark of the Shekhinah has been deposited; that each and every one of us carries in his eyes and soul the [00:26:00] reflection of God’s image.
And that was the source if not the cause of all our misfortunes.
Thus begins the story told in my first memoir.
It was called Un di velt hot geshvign, And the World was Silent. Now why was this text omitted from the French and subsequently in English and other languages? It was not the only one. Other passages have been removed by my first editor and publisher, a great human being and great publisher, Jérôme Lindon, whose father was a prosecutor in Nuremberg. No publisher would have taken the full version. In fact, they rejected even the shorter version, which was a French translation from the Yiddish book.
In the original French version of [my 1995 memoir] All the Rivers Run to the Sea, I quote some of the pages that were left out of the Yiddish volume, but not the others. I described, for instance, in the Yiddish version, [00:27:00] my town in its pre-deportation phase, which was marked by the expulsion of so-called foreign Jews from Hungary. And this is what I said:
I remember this evil decree brought trouble and anguish to many Jewish families. How could they prove their nationality? Firstly, they needed birth certificates. But who had thought it useful in the years before that to register with the proper authorities the birth of a son before circumcision? And afterwards they forgot. They were busy.
A limited time was granted to the Jews to get hold of the necessary papers. Consequently, on the day of judgment they came in great numbers empty-handed. They were condemned to be deported. I was still young, just bar mitzvah, but the images of their departure into exile remain graven in my memory. Hundreds of Jews arrived in our town with little baggage, worried faces, in tears. The community organized [00:28:00] immediate help. At the station they received money from men, clothing from women, and food from children.
The condemned were locked in a long, black train, a train as if in mourning, which carried them off forever, leaving behind the thick and dirty smoke. The train disappeared. Its passengers were never seen again. Strange rumors ran through the town. They were not too far away. Some were in Galicia. They are satisfied with their fate. No one tried to verify these rumors. We trusted their authenticity. It was more comfortable. Why doubt, hypocritically, appeasing reports?
No one among us, and least of all I, still young, almost a child, clinging to the rays of life and the sun, try to ask ourselves what in the devil was darker than in our painting of him? And what if the Jews were led to slaughter? [00:29:00] No one among us, and surely not I, still too young to possess the sense of reality, could imagine that the day will come, a day darker than others, when we too will be going towards the unknown.
The illusion, the accursed illusion has conquered our heart, and days went by, days, weeks, months. In my town the other Jews were forgotten. A quiet and appeasing wind chased all worries and apprehensions away. The merchants conducted their businesses. The students studied Talmud, the children the Bible and Rashi commentaries. The beggars wandered from house to house to get a bit of food for Shabbat for their families. Life was normal, eternal in Jewish Sighet.
Then the streets were shaken by a rumor. [00:30:00] Moshe has come back. He has returned from over there.
Moshe the Beadle
What I described, actually, there in the book--which some of you may have read--about Moshe the Beadle, the Beadle whom I loved. I used to spend time with him before he was deported and after, when he came back from there. In the beginning, he came back, and he told a story, which we refused to believe (even I), that immediately after they crossed the borders they were taken to Galicia and then how they were killed in (the region of) Kamenetz-Podolsk. And people felt he must have lost his mind.
But then he said: “Look, I was there. I saw what happened. My family, my wife, my children, they were killed.” People said well, he must have seen something, and therefore he is no longer sane. In [00:31:00] the end, he stopped talking--except to me because I loved to listen to him. I didn’t believe him either. But I listened. I love stories. And he told stories that came from the Middle Ages, from the dark ages. And then, then we realized that he was not inventing his stories. [But] it was too late.
So then was the period of darkness for us: the darkness before or the darkness during. Was it darkness when we didn’t believe him? darkness of the mind? darkness of our senses? the darkness of our perception? or afterwards when we entered darkness? Was the darkness in the beginning a preparation for the darkness that followed? And what about the darkness that had really [00:32:00] surrounded us from the outside world--when the world didn’t want to see us, think about us, worry about us? So therefore, to me, when I say darkness, I meant, of course, I mean, of course, that period, the period where we had all glimpsed at the abyss.
The Death of My Father, My Heart has become Stone
In that period some events were darker than the others. The darkest moment in my life was the death of my father. I describe in some pages [in Night] the event itself. But even there, in Yiddish, it is longer.
This is what the Yiddish version says:
It’s Buchenwald, [00:33:00] and my father is dying.
“Eliezer, my son, come, I want to tell you something. . . You alone, only you . . . Come, don’t leave me alone. . . Eliezer,”
I heard his voice, seized the meaning of his words and understood a tragic dimension of the moment, but I stayed put.
It was his last wish to have me at his side during his agony, when his soul was about to tear itself away from his tortured body--I have not fulfilled it.
I was afraid.
That is why I remained deaf to his moaning.
Instead of sacrificing my dirty and rotten life and run to his side, take his hands, reassure him, show him that he was no longer alone, [00:34:00] that he was not abandoned, that I was near him, that I felt his pain--instead of all this, I remained where I was and prayed to God for my father to stop calling my name, to stop crying. So as not to be beaten by block supervisors.
But my father was no longer conscious.
His whining and shadowy voice continued to pierce the silence, calling me, me alone.
Then the SS man got angry, came to my father, and hit him on his head. “Shut up, old man, shut up.”
My father did not feel the blows. I felt them. And yet, I did not react. I let the SS man hit my father. I let my father be alone in his agony. Worse, I was angry at him [00:35:00] because he made noise, because he cried, because he provoked a beating.
“Eliezer, Eliezer, come, don’t leave me.”
His voice reached me from so far away, from so close by. And I did not move.
And I shall never forgive myself for that.
I shall never forgive the world for having forced me to remain motionless, for having made me into a different man, for having awakened a demon, the lowest spirit, the most savage instinct in me.
After the Appel, I jumped down from my box and then to him. He was still breathing but said nothing. His eyes closed, sealed, bathing in sweat, his lips were moving. I was convinced that they whispered something. I leaned over his face so as to better hear and catch his inaudible words, his last, [00:36:00] too late. My father no longer recognized me. I stayed several hours at his side, contemplating his face so as to insert it in my heart, to remember it forever, when waves of joy could perhaps try to pull me away, far away from my past.
There was no minyan for me to recite a Kaddish. There was no grave for me to light a candle. There was nothing. His grave was heaven. The candle was I, his son. My Kaddish was and will be all the words that I shall utter, that I shall hear. I was an orphan. His last word was my name, a call, and I did not answer. And that happened on the 18th day of the month of Shevat.
When a candle is extinguished, the candle remains. Its flame alone disappears. But on the 18th [00:37:00] day of Shevat, a candle was extinguished. Both the candle and the flame are gone. But I did not cry. And that is what hurt me most, the inability to cry. My heart has become stone, dried out the source of tears.
Well, to me, when I say darkness, that was darkness. And some of this darkness, of course, must remain. . . .and what does one do when darkness is so heavy? What does one do with our memories? What does one do with what we consider our life to have been, and is? We live now; we don’t [00:38:00] live in the past, but the past lives in us. And so we must work, we must build, we must, we must. [The poet] Paul Valéry said, “one must attempt to live.” And I say we must attempt desperately to find hope and to offer it, to share it and to create joy where there is none. Because one couldn’t live with such memories alone. You cannot. And we must invent love, we must force it to enter our heart. We must: for the sake of our children and our friends and ourselves.
The 92NY lectures also fill in what happened while Professor Wiesel and his father were in Auschwitz (“Jewish Attitudes Toward Justice”). In this case, he does not read from a text, but rather recounts episodes and comments on their meaning.
[47:37] Contrary to what I could think, my true change took place not during the war but after. During the ordeal I lived in expectation of a miracle or of death. Atrophied, I evolved passively, accepting events without questioning them.
Certainly, I felt revolt and anger [48:00] towards the murderers and their accomplices and also, why not say it, towards the Creator of the universe who let them act as they did. I thought that humanity was lost forever and that God himself was not capable or willing of saving it. I asked myself questions, which formerly would have made me tremble, on the evil in man, on the silence of God. But I continued to act as though I still believed.
Friendship in the camp was important to me. I looked for it despite the efforts of the killers to belittle and deny it. I clung to family ties despite the killers who changed them into dangerous mortal traps. As for God, I continued to say my prayers. In the morning I rose before the others, like so many [00:49:00] others, to wait in line and put on the tefillin. There was one pair of tefillin that we have smuggled into the camp.
An interviewer who assumed by reading Night that Professor Wiesel had lost his faith during the Holocaust was told by him: “you stopped reading too soon,” since his subsequent account in Night of his participation in the High Holidays prayer services that took place in Auschwitz (pp. 66-68) demonstrates that his expression of faith remained active. Many lectures address the experience of faith tested by upheaval, whether Professor Wiesel’s own or that of others throughout Jewish history.
Moderator: “In [the book entitled] Evil and Exile, you stated that your survival of the Holocaust was pure chance. There was nothing special you did, and nothing particular that kept you alive. Yet you also hold the Jewish belief that God preordained each soul before birth, and watches over it personally. How can you reconcile these beliefs? And do you believe in chance, or in destiny?”
Elie Wiesel: I am not above contradictions. Absolutely, I’m not above it. But it’s true: it’s contradictory. So what? Let’s contradict. But it’s true. I really believe, believe me it’s the truth. I haven’t done anything to survive. I was always weak. [00:44:00] When I was a child, I was always so sick and so weak that my parents -- my poor parents--would take me from doctor to doctor. I discovered geography through the doctors. We went from Sighet, we went to Satmar. From Satmar to Klausenburg, Klausenburg to Budapest. Always finding doctors because I was always sick. I’ve suffered from migraine headaches, and from this and that, I didn’t eat. And for me, I would have been the first candidate to go.
But the first part, the first part, I was with my father. And that is what kept me. I knew if I died, he would die. And therefore, I lived. I didn’t do anything, which means I never volunteered for anything. I never dared to do anything. I was, I was afraid of being beaten or something. So it’s really sheer chance.
I mean, what did I do that was, let’s say, daring? What? With my father [00:45:00] always. Somebody bought a pair of tefillin from somebody who brought it in, of phylacteries. And people would get up, my father. I would get up before everybody else, and go and stand in line to do the, put on tefillin, and wear tefillin. And say the Berakhot. You know very well; this is not one of the commandments for which one has to risk one’s life. Why did we do it? I don’t know, my father did it. I did it with him. That was the only daring things with it. Otherwise, to go and expose oneself? I’ve never done that.
Afterwards, when he died, I didn’t live. In Night, which you are reading there, the last period is maybe four or five pages. It’s four months, January, February, March until April. Because I didn’t live. My father wasn’t with me. And I was [00:46:00] literally handled by my destiny.
Night as Testimony: The Role of a Witness
Professor Wiesel understood his main role as a witness and his memoir Night as a work of testimony that grew out of that conviction. Despite the anguish of recalling the murder of his father, mother and sister, Professor Wiesel recounted the circumstances of these losses because he was determined to expose the cruel events and the ordeal that he—who was still a child during the war--was forced to endure. The enemy wanted their crimes to fade into oblivion; Professor Wiesel’s testimony would not let that happen.
Soviet Union
As we see in the above excerpts from the lectures, to bear witness to the crimes perpetrated during the
Holocaust did not stop with Night. Indeed that small book served as the departure point for a life dedicated to bearing witness. Nor was the Holocaust the only event which claimed his attention and demanded a response. Again and again, for instance, Professor Wiesel recounts his travels to the Soviet Union, where the Jews, though prohibited by the communist regime from practicing Judaism, tried to study about Jewish tradition, attempted to learn Hebrew, and observed holidays. This defiant observance came to a climax with the great celebration on the holiday of Simchat Torah at the central Moscow synagogue. In his lectures and writings, Professor Wiesel bore witness to the oppression but also to the resolve on the part of Soviet Jewry to remain steadfast in the face of this oppression. (“A Song for Hope,” 17:00-30:00)
Cambodia and Serbia
Nor was Professor Wiesel’s determination to bear witness on behalf of the oppressed limited to Jews. He also traveled to Southeast Asia to bear witness at the killing fields of Cambodia. The world’s indifference to the fate of the Jews during the Holocaust moved Professor Wiesel not to remain indifferent but rather to act on behalf of the Cambodians persecuted by their own leaders. (“Paltiel Kassover,” 42:00-46:00). Some years later he journeyed to Serbia at the time of ethnic cleansing and made clear to the ruling authorities that his reason for coming was not to be honored for his past accomplishments but rather only to bear witness to the persecution taking place then. (“The State of World Jewry, 1993”, 25:00-30:45).
In a Different Vein: Bearing Witness during Israel’s Wars
In a different but related vein were Professor Wiesel’s numerous trips to Israel during a time of war. He flew to Israel at the outbreak of the Six Day War in June 1967, when the fate of the Jewish state seemed to hang in the balance. He knew that he was not trained for combat and thus could not help the war effort in the capacity of a soldier. Yet he also knew that at the very least he could be in Israel, bear witness to the unfolding events, and in that manner lend his support (“A Song for Hope,” 30:58-48:00). Decades later, at the time of the Gulf War, he speaks of the privilege of being on site to experience eight missile attacks (“In Modern Tales: The Forgotten (2),” 24:28-26:40).
Professor Wiesel’s commitment to be physically present in Israel during any war that threatened Israel’s existence is a direct outcome of the tragic events he chronicled in the book Night. During the Holocaust, most of Europe’s Jews had nowhere to go, nowhere to flee to, no safe haven (see particularly the lectures, “In Modern Tales: The Lessons of Kristallnacht on the Fiftieth Anniversary”; and “Anniversary of the Tragedy of the St. Louis”). Achieving independence in 1948, the state of Israel changes the equation, granting Jews a haven to flee to and protection from enemies seeking their destruction.
The Experience of Catastrophe and Loss
Many lectures focus on the experience of loss. Professor Wiesel’s own experience of loss and tragedy often allows him insight into traditional teachings that readers may have overlooked. The events that we read about in Night may have been unprecedented in scale and cruelty. But Professor Wiesel’s lectures show us that similar challenges have beset Jewish and human history, and we can benefit greatly by studying the inspired responses of Biblical, Talmudic and Chasidic personages.
In some cases, the loss is personal. In the Torah’s Book of Leviticus, Chapter 10, we read that Aaron (High Priest and brother to Moses and Miriam) loses two sons in one tragic moment. He responds by wrapping himself in silence, intimating that no words could do justice to the extremity of the loss (“The Innocence of Aaron?” and “Brothers in the Bible: Nadav and Avihu”). The Book of Genesis, in contrast, famously recounts how Noah and his family survive the flood that consumes the rest of the world. His response is that of gratitude, one of the ways of conferring meaning in the aftermath of suffering, loss and catastrophe (“In the Bible: Noah”). As with those who preceded him, Professor Wiesel sought to confer meaning on his and his generation’s losses, however much of a struggle it might be to do so.
Leaving the Cave: Together, Alone
Professor Wiesel’s lectures on Talmud offer similar insights and parallels. Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, for example, is one of the most celebrated figures in Jewish history, distinguished both as a Talmudic sage and as the founder of the Jewish mystical tradition. In his lecture, “In the Talmud: Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai Revisited,” Professor Wiesel celebrates these known features of Rabbi Shimon’s life and accomplishments. But Professor Wiesel’s focus is rather on Rabbi Shimon’s ethical achievements, singling out his overcoming of anger and suppressing the desire for revenge against his contemporaries’ indifference.
This is one form of heroism. Another is seen in the compassion of Rabbi Shimon’s son, Eleazar, who, despite the danger, chooses to remain at his father’s side. Both forms of heroism guide us to a more sensitive reading of Night, where the delicate relation between fathers and sons is so much in evidence. As Professor Wiesel says toward the conclusion of the lecture: “And at last, we could talk, and talk, and talk. And then he alone mattered to me. And I alone mattered to him. I was essential to his life, as he was to mine, because he alone represented all that I had. And I alone represented all that he had. But unlike [01:11:00] Rabbi Eleazar and his father, I left the cave, alone.” Thus the bitter loss that Professor Wiesel speaks of following his father’s cruel passing (Night, p. 112) becomes that much more poignant and wrenching when viewed against the unbroken bond between Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Eleazar as they leave the cave together.
The lectures that feature Hasidism, novels, stories, autobiography, moral and spiritual reflections contain similar echoes and references. Professor Wiesel saw to it that the meaning of the experience chronicled in Night would continue to unfold, even when the topic under consideration was different in form and emphasis. We thus invite you to join us in entering the nearly half-century of lectures that came after Night—but that never left behind its words and memories.