On September 12, 2006, Andrew A. Sorenson, President, University of South Carolina introduced the lecturer for the 17th annual Solomon Tenenbaum lecture in Jewish Studies, Professor Elie Wiesel, the first Nobel laureate to deliver a lecture as a part of the Tenenbaum series. Professor Wiesel observed that he seldom talked about his books as he preferred to let others speak about them, or to let the books speak for themselves, however in this lecture, he would be talking about "Night."
The day before this lecture, the professor observed the solidarity of the people of the United Sates as they came together to commemorate the events of 9/11 and noted that he and his wife had been in a taxi and witnessed when the first tower fell on that day. Professor Wiesel talked about the horror and shock of those images and the loss of the 3,000 individuals and recollected a conversation with a friend and Holocaust survivor, where they discussed how, night after night, 10,000 men, women and children would disappear within the terror of the Holocaust. He told his friend that the loss of the many did not diminish the pain and sorrow of the 3,000 lost.
In 1944, a fifteen year old Elie Wiesel was deported to Auschwitz with his family. He and his father were selected for forced labor and imprisoned in the concentration camps of Monowitz and Buchenwald. In the mind of his young self during the events leading up to and including the Holocaust, Professor Wiesel remembered asking himself "What does it all mean?" What does it mean theologically, psychologically, humanly, historically? He wanted to know what was happening in the middle of Europe in the 20th century. He thought about the Inquisition, where people were burned because of their beliefs. Later, he noted what he described to be periodic winds of madness in the world, giving as an examples, the Crusades, the 100 Years War, the Thirty Years War. To him, it meant that we are all compelled to face that madness, and that the enemy of the Jewish people was the enemy of all people.
Once Elie Wiesel had written the slender 120-page memoir, he had considerable difficulty getting the book published as no one wanted such a book in the aftermath of the war. He persisted and in 1958, a small publishing house in France took on the project, and he signed away all his royal rights to get it published. Thereafter, because he was in America, he was unaware of the destiny of his book when years later, he found out through the New York Times, that “Night” had sold six million copies in twenty years. Professor Wiesel said that the important thing was that the book was out there, that it was being read by young people and that that was a source of comfort.
He believed that because of the story, the world would improve and that never again would children be burned, starved, and hated. At the time of this lecture, Professor Wiesel noted that the current situation in the world was so bad that he feared for his students in the days ahead, and he asked, "What kind of century have we given you?" He asks how one is to imagine Bosnia, Rwanda, Darfur within the context of the story that we are telling? Professor Wiesel feared that maybe we did not find the right words. I urge you to watch this video and find out more and remain for the question and answer section provided at the end of Professor Wiesel's compelling lecture.
Side Notes
- Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel - (September 30, 1928 – July 2, 2016) was a Romanian-born American writer, professor, political activist, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor. He authored 57 books, written mostly in French and English, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a Jewish prisoner in the Auschwitz and Buchenwald concentration camps.
- The Nobel Peace Prize (Swedish and Norwegian: Nobels fredspris) is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor, and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology or Medicine, and Literature. Since March 1901, it has been awarded annually (with some exceptions) to people who have "done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses. The Oxford Dictionary of Contemporary History describes it as "the most prestigious prize in the world.
- Night is an autobiographical recounting of the horrors a young Jewish boy experienced near the end of the Second World War. The author, Eliezer “Elie” Wiesel, describes how there were signs and warnings as early as 1942 of the difficult times ahead, but people refused to believe them.
- Signing away "royal rights" for publication, in the context of publishing, means an author is transferring their copyright to a publisher. This grant can be broad, giving the publisher all exclusive rights to the work, or more limited, retaining some rights for the author. The author typically receives royalties in exchange for these rights.
- Bluma Goldberg - Survivor of Holocaust. Oral History.
- March of the Living - The March of the Living was founded in 1988, under the leadership of Israeli politician Abraham Hirchson, Shmuel Rosenman, and Israeli attorney Baruch Adler, a child of a Holocaust survivor who was hidden by one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Adler traveled to Auschwitz-Birkenau in 1986 to set the groundwork for the first March of the Living, and also to search for his mother’s rescuer (but could not make contact until the fall of Communism, after 1989.)
- Righteous Among the Nations - One of Yad Vashem’s principal duties is to convey the gratitude of the State of Israel and the Jewish people to Righteous Among the Nations who took great risks to save Jews during the Holocaust. Project provides database of those helpers.
- Andrew Sorenson Obituary 1938 - 2011. Andrew Sorensen was the 27th president of the University of South Carolina and served from July 2002 to July 2008. At the time of his death, he was serving as chief fund-raiser for Ohio State University.
- Primo Levi, Italian poet and novelist had spent time at Auschwitz. It was believed that he died of suicide. The Nobel laureate and fellow Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel said, at the time, "Primo Levi died at Auschwitz forty years later."
