elie wiesel commencement address may 20, 2011

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Washington University Commencement Address

May 20, 2011

Elie Wiesel

Memory and Ethics

Chancellor, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, members of the distinguished

faculty, families, parents, grandparents and friends, and especially of course the

graduating class:

I congratulate you together with my other fellow recipients of the honorary degree.

What you have learned here should not stay only in memory, but you must open the

gates of your own memory and try to do something with what you have learned. I

speak to you of course not only as a teacher, but also as a witness. And therefore I

must maybe define myself. You should know that I am Jewish. Maybe you dontknow it. But to me, to be Jewish is what? Its not exclusive - its an opening. It is

really as when the conductor here conducts his orchestra; he offers the person tosing or to play a certain part, a certain tune. And I offer my memory to you. You

should know something about what is there, inside. But what I say, that a Jew, the

more Jewish he or she is, and the more universal is the message, I say that anyone

else could say the same thing, whether as Protestant, Unitarian, Catholic, Buddhist,

or even a Muslim. We must be before we give. We must shield and protect the

identity, the inner identity that we have and that makes us who we are. Now, the

topic is memory. In the Bible, the expression is remember, dont forget. And when

you study the text you realize there is something wrong there. Its enough to say,

remember. Or its enough to say, dont forget. Why the repetition? It could mean,

remember not to forget. It could also mean, dont forget to remember. I say that

knowing one thing: that this is a very great university. I have been here before youwere born, most of you. I have been here some 35 years ago or so. And so humbly I

realize that it took the leaders of this university 35 years to invite me again.

Now, a story. A man is lost in the forest. And he tries to find the exit and fails. It takes

him hours in night and day, and hes still lost in the forest. On the third day, henotices that someone else is in the forest. He runs to him and he says, Ah! Im so

glad to meet you. Show me the way out. And he said, I am like you I am lost in the

forest. One thing I can tell you: you see that road there? Dont go there. I have justcome from there. I belong to a generation that tells you that. Where you now can

start your life, and youve of course entered a lot of roads, cities, maybe new

universities, and remember, there is something that you must remember: dont gowhere I come from. The twentieth century was one of the worst centuries in the

history of humankind. Why? Because it was dominated by two fanaticisms. Political

fanaticism: capital, Moscow. Racist fanaticism: capital, Berlin. And therefore, that

century has caused more deaths than any time before. What do we know now? A

new trend is hanging upon us: and the name is fanaticism. We must do whatever we

can to, first of all, unmask. Second, to denounce. And of course, to oppose fanaticism

wherever it is. What is fanaticism? Perversion! You can take a beautiful idea, like


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religion in the Middle Ages. But fanaticism can turn it into something which is anti-

human, because a group of human beings decide that they know who is worthy of

life, who is worthy of redemption. And today, fanaticism has reached an even lower

point in its development: the fanatic who becomes a suicide murderer. That is a kind

of atomic bomb. A suicide murderer who becomes himself, and in some cases

herself, a weapon! They do not want simply to die. For that, they could simply jumpinto the ocean. They want to kill innocent people mainly, including children, and

therefore that is an option that you must resist in your own life.

What else have we learned? That we are not alone in this world. God alone is alone.Human beings are not. We are here to be together with others, and I insist on the

others which means, in some places, in some groups, they are suspicious of the

other. Dont. I see the otherness of the other, which appeals to me. In fact it is the

otherness of the other that makes me who I am. I am always to learn from the other.

And the other is, to me, not an enemy, but a companion, an ally, and of course, insome cases of grace, a friend. So the other is never to be rejected, and surely not

humiliated.

What else? I quote from the Bible, I continue, because after all that is my study

thats my upbringing. The greatest commandment, to me, in the Bible is not the Ten

Commandments. First of all, its too difficult to observe. Second, we all pretend to

observe them. My commandment is, thou shall not stand idly by. Which means

when you witness an injustice, dont stand idly by. When you hear of a person or a

group being persecuted, do not stand idly by. When there is something wrong in the

community around you or far way do not stand idly by. You must intervene. You

must interfere. And that is actually the motto of human rights. Human rights has

become a kind of secular religion today. And I applaud it I am part of it. And

therefore wherever something happens, I try to be there as a witness.

One of my last dramatic visits was to Bosnia. I was sent by President Clinton as a

Presidential Envoy. And I would go there, really, to those places in Bosnia, to speakwith the victims. My interest is in the victims. And I would go literally from person

to person, from family to family, from barrack to barrack, from tent to tent, askingthem to tell me their stories. And they always began, but they stopped in the middle.

Not one of the people I interviewed or interrogated ended the story. The story was

usually about rape in the family, and murder, they were tortured, there washumiliation no one finished the story! Because they all burst into tears. And then I

realized. Maybe that is my mission, as a teacher, as a witness: to finish the story for

them. Because they were crying and crying and crying.And I felt like the prophetElijah, when I sat down in private to do what I had to do.I said Im going to connect

their tears, and turn them into stories.

Now, you have already known something which I did not before I came here. This

university is great not only because of its great faculty and its marvelous students,

but also because it has a tradition. The commencement speaker should speak only

for fifteen minutes. I am sure they meant well because they felt sorry for you,


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graduates. You are waiting here patiently for the moment when the Chancellor will

come and offer you the degree. So why should I expose you to torture, the torture of

waiting?

I want you to know, with all that I have gone through in life: I still have faith in

humanity. I still have faith in humanity. I have faith in language, although languagewas perverted by the enemy. I have faith in God, although I quarrel with Him a lot of

time. I dont know whether he feels upset or not, but I do. Why? Because I dont

want to break the chain that links me to my parents and grandparents and theirs,

and theirs, and theirs And furthermore, I believe that the human being anyhuman being of any community, any origin, any color a human being is eternal.

Any human being is a challenge. Any human being is worthy of my attention, of my

love occasionally. And therefore I say it to you: when you are now going into a world

which is hounded, obsessed with so much violence, often so much despair when

you enter this world and you say the world is not good today, good! Correct it!Thats what you have learned here for four years from your great teachers. Go there,

and tell them what you remember. Tell them, that the nobility of the human beingcannot be denied.

Im sure you have learned French literature. Im sure you have learned about Albert

Camus, the great philosopher and novelist. In his famous novel, The Plague, at the

end Dr. Rieux, who was the main character of the novel, sees a devastated city,

thousands and thousands of victims from the plague. And this doctor at the end says

its true, all that is true. But nevertheless, I believe, he said, there is more in any

human being to celebrate than to denigrate. I repeat: there is more in any human

being to celebrate than to denigrate.

Lets celebrate. Thank you.

elie wiesel commencement address may 20, 2011

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