Posted on February 26th 1988
Elie Wiesel Spends and Evening in Big Bridges
By Alex Linder
[ The following is from a forum thread posting. ]
[News article published in Pomona College's The Student Life, Friday, February 26, 1988]
Elie Wiesel Spends and Evening in Big Bridges
By Alex Linder
Holocaust survivor and noted writer and speaker Elie Wiesel defined evil as indifference, especially indifference to suffering, during his brief stop at the Claremont Colleges earlier this week.
Besides various smaller engagements, Wiesel spoke for an hour during "An Evening with Elite Wiesel" at Big Bridges Auditorium on Wednesday, February 24.
The evening started with an introduction by John Roth, a philosophy professor at CMC. Roth briefly detailed Wiesel's history as a prisoner in the concentration camps Buchenwald and Auschwitz and went on to laud the author for the "character and spirit" that govern his work. Wiesel is the author of some thirty books, recipient of over 40 honorary Ph.D.'s and the winner of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize.
Before starting his actual lecture, Wiesel accepted questions from the crowd, saying that he would incorporate his answer into his speech. Questions dealt with varied subjects including the Arab-Israeli conflict, anti-Semitism, and the nature of evil.
After opening with a brief story about throwing out the first ball at the World Series, Wiesel moved on to more serious matters. Noting taht as a Nobel laureate he was "supposed to know everything," Wiesel lamented the perception that "our planet has shrunk, but the problems facing it become more and more complex."
Asking how one can hope, given the desperate nature of the world situation, Wiesel affirmed that madness is "the key word" in describing the 20th century. Nevertheless, he continues to try to find "a spark of hope in madness, and perhaps beyond madness." In particular, Wiesel pointed to the Iran-Contra affair as a prime example of madness.
Moving along to the issue of anti-Semitism, Wiesel said that he naively thought that Auschwitz might turn out to mark the end of anti-Semitism, its deadliest practitioners having been destroyed. But "anti-Semitism is flourishing," stated the author. Furthermore, it has sprung up in places like Japan, where it has "no right nor reason to be." Anti-Semitism has historically been a European phenomenon and the Japanese ought to leave it there, he asserted.
At this point Wiesel turned to Israel and her problems with the Occupied Territories. Tracing the history of that state, he noted that six Arab armies invaded Israel on the day of its inception as a state. Still, he said, Israeli conduct of late has been a "source of anguish" for him. Then he read to the crowd a letter he had written to a young Palestinian back in 1975 -- a letter he said he could rewrite now with even more pain and anguish.
In conclusion, Wiesel said that "mankind needs peace and some kind of compassion more than ever." He said he has drawn a two-fold lesson as a result of his personal experiences; first, that there are no answers -- only the immortal answer; and second, that just as despair can only come to us from others, so does hope. Peace, he said, is not God's gift to his creatures; it's a special gift we can give one another.//