Hope, Despair and Memory

Research Shimon Dubnov’s life and legacy. How does Wiesel’s allusion to him develop the speech’s primary themes?

This speech attempts to present multiple perspectives on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. List all the historical events involving Palestine or Israel that Wiesel mentions in this speech. When you examine these examples, do you feel he supports one side more than the other? Or is he neutral? Give reasons for your position.

Wiesel claims that Job’s story shows that rebellion against God can be a pious act. Think of other figures (religious, historical, political) that strengthened their own beliefs through opposition. How did their argument with a system of ideas improve their commitment to that very school of thought?

In his book Night, Wiesel describes the death camps in vivid detail:

NEVER SHALL I FORGET that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky (Wiesel, Elie. Night. Translated by Marion Wiesel. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006).

Compare the above passage to Wiesel’s description from his lecture (Paragraphs 6-7). Identify and analyze the different techniques he uses to depict Auschwitz.

In Paragraph 8, Wiesel asks many rhetorical questions. Which of these do you feel is the hardest to answer? Why? What does that say about the Holocaust?

Wiesel makes The Argument for Pacifism. Do you find his arguments persuasive? If you feel there are significant downsides to pacifism, what are they? Does Wiesel provide an adequate counterargument?

According to this lecture, memory creates the possibility of hope. What memories do you, your family, or your culture hold? How might they enable you to imagine a better future?

At the time of this Nobel Lecture, the Cold War had not yet ended. The United States and the USSR had many nuclear missiles ready to launch at each other. Had this occurred, the world might have been destroyed. Is Wiesel’s plea to avoid such catastrophe still relevant in the contemporary era? If so, how? If not, why not?