Standing in front of the Queen’s University crest, Elie Wiesel delivers a speech at the jam-packed Stauffer Library last night. Wiesel told those in attendance that “indifference is what society is taught, but humanity must fight indifference.” Photo: Michael Lea/The Whig-Standard

Wiesel: The fanatics are back

With well over a thousand people hanging on his every word, Elie Wiesel, a man rescued from a Nazi concentration camp, said suffering is not inflicted by tyrants, murderers or dictators. "But by those who stood by and watched it happen," Wiesel said, reprising the central theme of not only his day at Queen’s University but of his life’s work. "Indifference is what society is taught, but humanity must fight indifference to be what it is."

Wiesel, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, author, journalist, human rights activist and Holocaust survivor, packed the Stauffer Library on the Queen’s campus last night. Taking aim at indifference, the Jewish Wiesel impressed on the students, teachers and other dignitaries in attendance, that nothing threatens humanity more than apathy and neutrality toward the suffering of mankind. "I can’t be witness to humiliation and not protest. I can’t suffer for another person, but I can be present for another’s suffering," he said.

Students hung over railings, lined stairwells and hunkered together in rooms with television feeds to hear the words of a man who has addressed presidents and prime ministers and the United Nations Security Council. He told them that apathy and indifference grip even the highest echelons of power. He said former United States president Jimmy Carter once showed him aerial photographs of Auschwitz, the most well-known Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust, taken by accident by American fighter jets. "‘Who had seen them?’ I asked. ‘The Pentagon and the White House?’ " Wiesel recounted. "They knew it was there."

He spoke of being naive, thinking the 21st century would be an improvement on the 20th, and that a new age of peace and compassion would emerge. He said an indifference toward human destiny has given rise to a new, but historic, type of fanaticism – religious. "The fanatics are back," Wiesel said. "And a new weapon has been granted. Suicide terrorists." Wiesel urged students to circulate petitions to the prime minister, U.S. president and the UN secretary general calling for an end to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and actions to stop Iran from becoming a nuclear nation.

He condemned Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for his repeated threats against Israel’s existence. "He hasn’t been ostracized and he hasn’t been excommunicated. He should be considered persona non-grata," Wiesel said. Wiesel also assured the crowd that he’d feel as much outrage toward Ahmadinejad no matter which country he threatened.

Earlier in the day, Wiesel met with a group of 75 students in a fireside room in Stauffer and took questions from them for about an hour. Again on indifference, he warned the students to guard against the apathy that mires today’s society. "I cannot stand that word, relax," he said. "I don’t want to relax. If you relax too much, it’s not only a sin. It is a curse." Many of the students had read Wiesel’s best-known book, Night, a memoir of his experience in Nazi concentration camps, and asked questions about it. Wiesel said he had written it for Holocaust survivors who were too emotionally scared to speak up about the atrocities that went on to their own children. "I became a surrogate father to many," he said.

Afterward, Judy Csillag told Wiesel that, as the daughter of Holocaust survivors who didn’t share their ordeals, he had become her surrogate father. "My parents never spoke about it. I picked up his book and I was able to see what they went through and it put it into perspective for me," said Csillag, who works for the Centre for Diversity Education and Training in Toronto. Wiesel also told the students not to worry about Holocaust deniers, saying he doesn’t have the time or the sympathy to invest time in trying to make them believe. "They ultimately will be shamed into silence," he said.

Wiesel’s thoughtful approach to his message left a lasting impression on Queen’s student Julie Herczeg. "I was so unbelievably moved and touched by how well thought out and how true his intentions are," she said. "He was so down to earth. That’s what moved me the most." RMC student Pierre-Luc Rivard said Wiesel’s campaign against indifference is powerful. "It was very deep," he said. "It’s hard to be indifferent when you listen to him and read his books." When asked how students can begin to defeat the indifference Wiesel has waged war against, he advised them to always be aware of the moral component to every subject they study. "Think higher and feel deeper," he said.

bharrison@thewhig.com