...Evil in the World Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel in his speech “The Perils of Indifference”, argues that indifference is a punishment to the victims and dangerous to the world because the “lines blur” between “good and evil.” He supports his claim by first stating what indifference is which is when the “lines blur” between right and wrong, then Wiesel questions indifference and how someone could possibly see it as a “virtue.” Finally, he explains how indifference could seem easier to some even though it's bad, but at the same time “seductive.” Wiesel’s purpose is to inform the audience that indifference is an aggressor to the world in order to prove that the world would be better if people weren't indifferent. He creates a serious yet hopeful tone for “Mr.President, Mrs.Clinton, members of Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, Excellencies, friends.” Ultimately, Wiesel strongly disagrees with indifference and believes it's an “end”, “not a response”, a “sin” and “punishment.” He thinks without indifference the world would be better. This is important because the innocent people wouldn't be in pain for no reason. The general argument made by author Elie Wiesel in his speech, “The Perils of Indifference”, is that indifference is a “sin.” More specifically,...
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...Anthony Graziano Mrs. Bader AP Language and Composition September 30, 2011 Perils of Indifference Rhetorical Analysis The Perils of Indifference speech by Elie Wiesel is one that is well crafted and that sends a strong message to the audience. Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust, addresses the issues of the 20th century in his speech while at the same time explaining the dangers of indifference. Wiesel’s appeals to his audience, as well as his strong message and arguments are what make this speech so effective. In any powerful speech, the speaker communicates and relates directly to his or her audience. Elie Wiesel does a superb job of doing this in his Perils of Indifference speech, given in April 1999. His use of pathos throughout the speech makes the audience reflect on his words, and create a strong emotional reaction to what is being said. For one, Wiesel is a survivor of the Holocaust, one of the darkest times in the history of humanity. Due to this, sympathy is automatically drawn to the listener’s mind. When he speaks of his time in concentration camps during the Holocaust, he explains the horrible conditions that people had to live in. He then says about the people who were also there, “They no longer felt pain, hunger, thirst. They feared nothing. They felt nothing. They were dead and did not know it.” By saying this in his speech, Wiesel automatically brings forth the emotions of the audience. Specifically, these details bring out a feeling of...
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...Rhetorical Analysis of The Perils of Indifference by Elie Wiesel As part of the Millennium Lecture Series hosted by the White House, notable author, Noble Peace Prize Winner, and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel delivered the speech The Perils of Indifference on April 12, 1999. He delivered this speech in order to inspire the American people to take action in times of human suffering, injustice, and violence, in order to prevent events like the Holocaust from happening again in the future. Through the use of the modes of persuasion, his rhetorical situation, and word choice, Wiesel successfully appeals to his audience of President Clinton and his wife, the members of Congress, Ambassador Holbrooke, his “excellencies” and the rest of the American public. Wiesel’s main point in his speech is that of indifference and what can come about because of it. In order to successfully define indifference to the audience and persuade them to never be indifferent in the future, Wiesel defines its etymology, as “no difference” and uses numerous comparisons on what may cause indifference, as “a strange and unnatural state in which the lines blur” in circumstances like light and dark and good and evil. To prove that indifference is both a sin and a punishment, Wiesel appeals to logos and ethos, stating that he is aware of how tempting it may be to be indifferent and that it can be easier to avoid something rather than take action against it. He believes that indifference benefits the aggressor and...
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...“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference” -Elie Wiesel. During the same time period of World War II the Holocaust was happening also. However, by the time the Allies fully attacked the concentration camps the Nazi had already killed off most of the Jews. They had even closed down multiple concentration camps, because there just weren’t enough Jews left to have so many camps. Nobody really knows why the world took so long to respond. Was it a matter of importance, priority, or just plain selfishness? Elie Wiesel presented a speech entitled, “The Perils of Indifference,” and his whole speech was centered around the question, “what is indifference?” He addresses two main questions, what motivates indifference and what are its consequences?...
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...“Nobody paid attention to them.” In a place of torment for millions, there is no “we”. Times of misery typically bring grief for oneself and others and create a sense of unity. But the continuous agony inflicted by the Holocaust stripped the prisoners of their human compassion. Apathy replaced states of sympathy and empathy, and desensitization enveloped the camps. Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night shows how desensitization leads to a state of indifference towards violence enacted upon others through the use of man vs. society conflict, situational irony, and imagery. The consistent nature of the conflicts between a prisoner and the twisted society around them creates an indifference to the violence brought upon others. For instance, on the train...
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...Throughout the movie, "The Holocaust", the phrase, "I just do my job," was usually the only excuse most people who committed crimes against the Jews could come up with. For example, when Helena and Rudy Weiss were staying in Kiev, the city was bombed. During the bombing, one of the Nazi soldiers, who happened to be Heinz Muller, a friend of Inga's family, was hit by falling debris. Hesitant, Rudy helped Muller escape from the collapsing building, gave him some water, and asked him why he was taking part in the mistreatment of the Jews. "I obey orders," Muller replied, unrepentant about what he did. Also, when Bertha Weiss was sent to the gas chambers in Auschwitz, Dr. Joseph Weiss asked the Kapo what happened to her. The lady bluntly retorted, "Don't blame me, I just take orders." Whether to keep a job, remain loyal to their cause, or just because they had no other excuse, everyone used that phrase to justify what they did wrong against the Jews. Anti-Semitism and unfair grudges are two factors that can cause Genocide. During the movie, Eric Dorf claimed he did not feel bad about Kristallnacht or what happened to the Jews, because he said the Jews provoked it. Even though Kristallnacht was the first major pogrom, a government sponsored attack on the Jews, and was terribly destructive, Eric said that they killed Christ and they deserved what they got (The Holocaust). In addition, Heydrich believed that Germans and the Aryan race was superior to the Jewish race and they had to...
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...“The Perils of Indifference” is a speech that was delivered by Elie Wiesel in Washington D.C. It reflects about his time as a holocaust survivor. World War II took the lives of around 11 million people from 1939 until the last surrender in 1945. This was also the time of the Holocaust that was led by Adolf Hitler of Germany. If Hitler wanted something done it instantly became a plan for the German army. The Nazis forced families out of their homes, and took them to live brutal concentration camps to become slaves, or dead. Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor, spoke at the White House to share his story. Wiesel’s used literary devices to reach his main point that was not to forget what happened in the past, but to not allow it to happen again. Wiesel’s tried to reach the emotions of the audience saying that “he was finally free, but there was no joy in his heart” as he started out his speech. Buchenwald was the camp Wiesel had been forced to live in during the war. He tells about the day he was set free from his concentration camp by the American soldiers, as he talked about remembering the look in the eyes of the American soldiers. He knew that soldiers saw what the people in the camp had suffered, and saw hope. Wiesel starts multiple phrases with the word “gratitude” to show his thanks to the...
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...Based on the Holocaust museum achieves, more than one and a half million Jewish children died in WWII under the Nazi regime (“Children during the Holocaust”). To extinguish the Jews meant a struggle against racial indifferences and eliminated threat for the succession of Nazis party. As a result, many children Jewish or not, were killed in a variety of ways from arriving at killing centers, after birth, and raids attack (“Children during the Holocaust”). However, children over the age of 12 had a better chance of survival rate as they were used to do labor work and others as experiment subjects (“Children during the Holocaust”). Life in the ghettos is not easy for many Jewish children as many of them died from food and water starvation, illness, and harsh living conditions with no place to live....
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...be placed in environments that they have no control over. Perhaps the most iconic example of this is the Holocaust. The concentration camps altered the behaviors and beliefs of those in them. Elie Wiesel explains these consequences of the environment through his personal story in the book Night and his speech The Perils of Indifference. Another great example of these changes that people undergo in specific situations is in the movie Life is Beautiful. These examples justify the idea that the environment in which a person is placed helps to shape their personality,...
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...Alexia Gonzalez Political Science 4823: The Holocaust/ the Shoah Final Paper December 12, 2013 The Comparative Analysis of the Holocaust Ethnic cleansing and genocide are considered to coexist in a spectrum of assaults on nations or religio-ethnic groups. These threats were more prominent during the 20th century which caused massive violations of human rights and jeopardized the overall security of humans. Determinants of ethnic cleansing and genocide root from socio-political factors influenced by deeply embedded ideologies which are manifested by political leaders of specific regime types. During World War II, German authorities targeted Jews and other minority groups like the gypsies and Pols due to their perceived racial inferiority. The German ideology in attempt to eradicate these auxiliary groups led to the conflict known as the Shoah. The Shoah is the biblical word meaning destruction and it is the standard Hebrew term for the murder of European Jewry. The Shoah was the systematic, bureaucratic and state sponsored persecution of six million Jews. Comparable to other ethnic based genocides, Germans believed they were racially superior and that Jews were inferior; and deemed a threat to the “German racial community” resulting in their mass murder. Various interpretations of the Shoah has given rise to similar attitudes and opinions regarding its historical events. The Holocaust Survivors and Victims Database, is one of the largest resources of its kind which includes...
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...6 million deaths. 6 million people. 6 million stories. The Holocaust claimed the lives of so many innocent people, the amount of loss suffered by the people, seemingly immeasurable. Families were broken, friends were lost, communities destroyed. It would be understandable if a survivor were to be bitter and distant after the incredibly horrifying things they lived through. Elie Wiesel, he refused to be silent. He spoke his thoughts directly to the president in his speech The Perils of Indifference. Wiesel’s words were moving and powerful as he spoke of his own terrors of the Holocaust, and his opinions on America’s actions to end the crisis. He spoke of America’s actions when the St. Louis pulled into the bay. Rightfully so, he was confused...
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...“The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” (Wiesel) This is one of the many wise things that Eliezer Wiesel (a Holocaust survivor) has said. He was and is a great part of our american history reminding us how amazing our lives are over here.The holocaust shaped him and everyone else. Eliezer Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928 in Sighetu Marmatiei. He did not have the pleasure of attending school as a child like many of us do. His dad’s name was Shlomo Wiesel and his mother’s name was Sarah Feig. He like most people had siblings but he was the only boy out of four children. His older sisters names were Beatrice Wiesel and Hilda Wiesel. His younger sister was named Tzipora Wiesel (Rabinovitch and Martin). Elie Wiesel went to...
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...Elie Wiesel was born in 1928, in the town of Sighet, now part of Romania. During World War II, he, with his family and other Jews from the area, were deported to the German concentration and extermination camps, where his parents and little sister perished. Wiesel and his two older sisters survived. Night, narrated by Eliezer Wiesel, chronicles his experiences as a Jew during the Holocaust. His family is deported from Hungary, brought to Auschwitz, and experiences starvation, abuse, and death. In the preface of Night, Ellie explains. “And those words are: For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. Not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are also responsible for what we are doing with those memories.” After reviewing...
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...English I Brodsky Holocaust Research Paper For this assignment you will select a research topic from the list below, create a thesis and write a 2-4 page paper, that explains how indifference inspired the journey or impacted the life of the person or group you are researching. Research Procedure: 1. Choose your topic from the list provided. 2. Research your topic, creating source cards for all sources consulted and note cards (total of 50). We will have 3 days in the library, but you will need to do some research on your own as well. 3. Write a strong working thesis statement to be submitted. 4. Create a sentence outline for your paper, following the format provided. 5. Write the rough draft of your paper, following the outline and using note cards. 6. Peer edit the rough draft with a classmate 7. Turn in final paper to turnitin.com and submit all research work Requirements: -At least 4 different sources, 2 databases, 1 book and 1 other. -An annotated source card for every source consulted -At least 50 note cards with notes from your research. At least 20 of those note cards should have direct quotes -A working thesis statement -A sentence outline -A 2-4 page research paper -A formal MLA works cited page (using the main sources from your source cards) Library Dates: Period 4- 11/18, 11/20, 11/26 Period 5- 11/18, 11/19, 11/25 Topic Ideas Survivors of Genocide Righteous Gentiles Danish Boat Resuce Chambon sur Lignon- Village in France Jewish Resistance...
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...Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and author of “Night”, was deported along with his family to an extermination camp in 1944 where they endured hardships ranging from slavery to starvation. On April 12, 1999, in Washington, D.C., Wiesel presents his speech, “The Perils of Indifference” to President Clinton, his First Lady, White House Officials, and the American people. Referring to the tragic events of the twentieth century, Wiesel lectures on the threat that “indifference” poses, and discusses his hopes for a better future. Leading the speech, the author begins with an anecdote of his childhood, the liberation of Buchenwald. He mentioned the memories of the american soldier’s compassion and rage towards the victim’s situation during the...
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