Born in Sighet, Romania, in 1928, Professor Wiesel recounts that antisemitism was a taken-for-granted aspect of life growing up. He describes how the Jews in his town were received: “The priest dressed in black, the woodcutter and his ax, the teacher and his ruler, old peasant women crossing themselves as their husbands uttered oath upon oath, constables looking gruff or merely preoccupied—all of them exuded a hostility I understood and considered normal, and therefore without remedy.” What he considered normal hostility changed with the outbreak of World War II, when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in 1944, (Sighet was returned to Hungary in 1940) and the teenage Elie Wiesel and his family were deported to Auschwitz. The lethal antisemitism perpetrated by the Nazis and their collaborators took the lives of his mother, father, and youngest sister, and radically transformed his own.
In the aftermath of the war, antisemitism became for Professor Wiesel a general focus of concern, protest, and intervention. He addressed it by way of action, speech, and the written word, using a variety of means: testimony (moral and judicial), journalism, literary essays, and fiction; advertisements, diplomacy, advocacy, demonstrations, and solidarity; world-wide lecturing and classroom teaching; and convening conferences—most notably, those on the theme of hatred and the 2004 United Nations conference “Confronting Anti-Semitism,” which Professor Wiesel co-chaired with UN Secretary Kofi Annan.
His concern ran deep. Every one of his 92NY lectures refers to antisemitism in some guise. In the lecture excerpts that follow, Professor Wiesel comments on various aspects of antisemitism, offering a basis for reflection, analysis, action, and teaching. Indeed, because Jews suffered, we must, as Professor Wiesel so incisively puts it, “teach others neither to inflict nor to endure suffering.” May his eloquent words and shrewd guidance soon bring palpable results.
No Matter What They Did
There were two great men, Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk and his brother, Reb Zushya of Anipoli. . . . And it is said about them that one day they came into a kretschme, into an achsania, into a hostelry, where they were studying during the night. And during the night, a few drunkards came in, anti-Semites, and they began beating up Reb Zushya. Why Reb Zushya? And they were beating him up so much that he cried, but he kept silent. Then he fainted. While he fainted, his brother said to himself, “Now it is my chance to take his place.” And he took his place. But then the drunkards who didn’t realize the switch said, “Well, you had already enough. Let’s take your brother.” [00:45:00] And poor Reb Zushya got again the beating. And this story is told in Hasidism as an example for Jews and their suffering. No matter what they did for many centuries, they were always beaten, even if they changed.
What About Us Disturbs The Enemy
What is it in us that moves us to wish to remain Jewish? And what is it in the enemy that disturbs him about us? That makes him wish to see us disappear? Would he prefer a world without Jews? And, you know, on one hand [00:30:00] I understand occasionally why the enemy hates us so much. We drive him crazy. Our survival drives him insane.
The Short Distance between Hatred and Massacres
Strange as it may sound, there was hope in ’45. In ’45 you were convinced that something will happen, that mankind will learn, will have learned something from what it has done to our people: no more hatred, no more wars, no more dying children, no more racism, no more violence, no more incitement to violence.
We thought that after Auschwitz man will know that the distance [00:47:00] between words of hate and massacre is extremely short. Fanaticism leads to bigotry which leads to disdain which begets hate which leads to anti-Semitism — which leads to Treblinka.
We Don’t Love Israel Enough
Let us not worry if we are accused of loving Israel too much. If we are accused and rightly so, it is [that] we don’t love Israel enough. And those who may use our love for Israel as a reason to hate us, they hate us anyway. [01:09:00] And those who may produce more anti-Semitism, anti-Semitism I no longer believe is a Jewish problem; it’s their problem.
We shall go on. But how they will go on hating, when all hate generates self-hate — I don’t know.
Anti-Semitism affects the society in which it lives and breathes
“What is worse than to be without a future?” we said here a few years ago. “It is to be without a past.” We must remember the past if there is to be a future. In remembering the tragedy of the Jewish people, we may save the world from future tragedies. Unfortunately, people forget and the world forgets. Anti-Semitism affects more than its victims; it affects the society in which it lives and breathes. And I don’t even know how to explain it anymore, but there is anti-Semitism today everywhere, in Europe and even in the United States. . . . [00:41:00] and it’s taking on frightening proportions.
It always reveals the sickness in the society where it grows
As a Jew, of course, I’m terribly concerned with the fear that has [00:11:00] permeated our lives. . . . Forty years after the greatest catastrophe since Noah’s we should live in fear? [00:12:00] How does one explain the rebirth of anti-Semitism on so many levels? I don’t know, but I’m terrible concerned. Not only because of us—because, in a strange way we are immune: what else can the world do to us that it hasn’t done already? I am concerned with the world itself.
Anti-Semitism is a microbe. It always reveals the sickness in the society where it grows. And today there is no society without it — in the East, in the West, in Poland without Jews: anti-Semitism without Jews, even in China.
The world won’t be in worse shape
I remember having once a discussion on television, a live discussion, with a very great French Catholic writer who was a [00:17:00] marvelous man, François Mauriac, to whom I owe so much, and he really was ohev Yisrael. But even he . . .
One day we spoke about Israel, and I am so, of course, so concerned with Israel — I love Israel, and I always defend Israel. And he said to me, “Why are you worried about Israel? After all, the whole world will be on Israel’s side if something should happen,” chas v’chalila — he didn’t say chas v’chalila, but —
And he went on, saying to reassure me, “Look, after all, we have influence in London, we have influence in Washington, influence in Paris, so what are you worried about?”
It dawned upon me. I said, “Mr. Mauriac, are you -- you really believe that we dominate the world?” I was shocked. And I continued, “You know what? It’s not true. You’ll be surprised, it’s not true. However, I have a suggestion. Give us the world for one generation. I promise you when we’ll give it back, it won’t be in worse shape.”
The deniers must be shamed into silence.
There are those who deny that tragedy ever occurred.
Anti-Semitism was irrational, and anti-Semitism [00:40:00] is as timeless, as eternal as we are. So what do we do with the deniers? They are not only enemies of the Jewish people. I believe they are the enemies of truth and decency. They must be fought by all of us. They must be shamed into silence.
* * *
[00:31:00] What are we going to do with these liars? I suggest nothing. We should never grant them the dignity of a debate. We should never do what they want to do because of them. I wouldn’t give them that much credit. I won’t allow them to govern my life or my education or my work. If we do what we must do, study and teach and remember and share our memories, it’s because we want to do it, because we must do it — not because of them but because of us.
What is Moral?
Dictatorship is immoral. Oppression is immoral. Suppression of free speech is immoral. Anti-Semitism is immoral. Racism is immoral. [00:23:00] What then is moral? Hillel the Elder formulated it brilliantly: “lo ta’aveid,” do not do unto others what you don’t want others to do to you. In other words, we never said that because we suffered, others must suffer too. Quite the contrary. We Jews said, “because we suffered, we must teach others neither to inflict nor to endure suffering.”
I was really afraid of Christians
[When growing up] I was afraid of Christians. I really was afraid of Christians. I would not even go near a church, I would change sidewalks. I was afraid of them.
And look, for good reason, we must say it, for good reason because we knew, we felt it for generations and generations the anti-Semitism of the church. Now everybody knows about it. The church changed now, but then it was there.
So now [00:40:00] it’s different. I’m a Jew and I try to be as much Jew as I can, meaning to study and live Jewishly. For me, for a Jew to be human — is to be Jewish. And for a Christian to a human — is to be Christian. For a Buddhist — it is to be a Buddhist. Without any triumphalism. Simply to say that, “We are here, it’s a very small place that we are in. And we try to live together and not to kill each other, not to humiliate one another.”
Anti-semitism and Exile
Well, usually in the [Passover] Haggadah, we say something, b’chol dor vador, “In every generation, [00:26:00] omdim aleinu l’khaloseinu, there are people who would like to wipe us out, v’Hakadosh Baruch Hu matzileinu mi-yadam, and God helps. . .”
Oh, do we need His help now. For exile implies suffering. But can suffering, or the story of suffering, be exiled? As everything else? Is anti-Semitism, to Jews, another form of exile? A social exile, in which we are thrust to stay there and receive humiliations? But it has been, now, a kind of norm. It happens everywhere. It’s dangerous. In Europe, I heard, personally, after a lecture here and there, they would come to me and whisper in my ears, asking, “When should we leave?” Not “should we leave,” but when, as if to say, “Let’s not miss the boat.” [00:27:00] In Europe?
Why This Hate For Us?
An anti-Semite is someone who hated me before I was born. The anti-Semite cannot stand me because I am too Jewish, or not enough, meaning too assimilated; rich or poor; young or old; pious or agnostic; educated or illiterate. All the contradictions of human nature converge [00:32:00] in anti-Semitism.
Why this hate for us? Is it because we are the only people from antiquity to have survived antiquity? Is it that in spite of persecutions and attempts to convert us, we have refused to disappear from history? In 1945, I was convinced that there would no longer be anti-Semitism, that it passed away with its victims in Treblinka and Auschwitz. But I was wrong. Only the victims perished; anti-Semitism is alive and well.
A sad statement. If Auschwitz has not cured the world of anti-Semitism, what can and what will? What the world seems to forget is that a person who hates a Jew also hates other minorities, other religions, other ethnic groups, and ends up hating all humanity. It is a cancer whose cells devour [00:33:00] others — unless action is taken to stop them.
Conspiracy is the key word for the anti-Semite
Conspiracy is the key word for the anti-Semite. In the eyes of the Jew-hater it explains all that is happening in the world. Too many wars? [00:51:00] Fomented by Jews. Walter Rathenau’s murderers confessed why they had killed him: “He had to die,” they said. “Because he and his Jewish accomplices were responsible for German’s downfall. . . .”
A Jewish convert to Christianity, Jacob Brafman wrote a book called, The Book of Kahal. In it, he says: “Jews are being taught how to cheat Gentiles.” He described Jewish fraternities such as La Alliance Israélite Universelle, whose only function was to establish schools as branches of a worldwide conspiratorial movement. Wherever there is trouble look for the Jew. Wherever, [00:52:00] whenever situations become catastrophic, search for the Jew. . . .
In other words, people need scapegoats. And to be the anti-Semite, the Jew responds to that need. . . . To the anti-Semite, Jewry presents the ideal scapegoat. The richest man in the world? Of course, a Jew. Wall Street? Jewish. The most talented? Jews. The most dangerous? Jews. Television? Jews. The French Revolution and its gift of emancipation? Jews. . . .
Well, one would really think that the Jew has acquired the gift of the secret of ubiquity, omniscience and omnipotence. Once more, as many times before, one cannot but wonder at the ignorance and stupidity of these Jew-haters. Do they truly believe that what they read corresponds to reality? If Jews have been and still are so well-organized, so influential, so powerful, controlling so many areas of [00:54:00] society — how come that they suffered so much, so often, in so many places? If their conspiracy is so perfectly organized at home and abroad, beyond frontiers and oceans, why weren’t we informed about the perils threatening us. Why did we not assure our survival in more efficient ways . . . .?
Now, how are we to respond to the hate-threats fanatics are preaching? Why is it so appealing to so many? Of all the “isms” produced by the last centuries, fanaticism alone survives — as does antisemitism. We have witnessed the downfall of Nazism, the defeat of fascism, and the abdication of Communism. But fanaticism is still alive, as racism or antisemitism.
And this fanaticism is spreading fast, horrible as it may sound; racial hatred, antisemitism and Bin Laden terrorists are still [00:55:00] popular if not glorified in certain communities.
How could their followers be brought back to moral sanity? How could their killers and suicide warriors be disarmed? . . . So what should we do? I don’t really know, I don’t know the answer to the essential questions. But I do know — and I repeat it so often: that whatever the answer, education must be its major [00:56:00] component. . . .
In conclusion, at the risk of disappointing some naive students: Jewish history has no memory of political, economic, or social religious conspiracy; we never engaged in that. What Moses has done he has done in the open. Joshua did not conspire to succeed him as leader of Israel. David did not conspire with his friend Jonathan to unseat his father’s soul from his throne. Hillel and Shammai, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Yishmael, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai, their numerous disciples: they were involved in study, not in conspiracy.