by Elie Wiesel
Remember some lessons from your past and ours: Words can kill, just as they can heal.… Remember: It was possible to stop the machinery of death … to save lives. So few dared.
In remembering, you will help your own people to vanquish the ghosts that have been hovering over their history. Remember: a community that does not come to terms with the dead will find that the dead continue to perturb and traumatize the living. Reconciliation can be achieved through and in memory. Memory restores absence to presence and the dead to the living. Does it also involve pain? I welcome it. I think of the children—walking slowly, almost peacefully, toward the flames—and I am almost grateful for the pain that links me to them.
The children, the children: those of Lidice, those of Oradour, the Jewish children from all over occupied Europe who were handed over to the killers will forever haunt us with their silent pleas for a shred of kindness and consolation. Might they not have grown up to help mankind? Who knows? One of them might have discovered a cure for cancer or AIDS. In killing them, the killers and their accomplices punished themselves and the world.
Thus, in remembering them, we remember today’s victims, too. We remember our hunger so as to eliminate starvation. We remember our anguish so as to proclaim the right of men and women everywhere to live without fear. We remember our death so as to denounce the insanity of violence and the absurdity, the ugliness, the shame of war.
We remember Auschwitz and all that it symbolizes because we believe that, in spite of the past and its horrors, the world is worthy of salvation; and salvation, like redemption, can be found only in memory.
So—here we are, back at my central obsession. But you may ask: Isn’t there a danger that memory may perpetuate hatred? No, there is no such danger. Memory and hatred are incompatible, for hatred distorts memory. The reverse is true: memory may serve as a powerful remedy against hatred.
An example? At the end of the war, many Germans were afraid of Jews—they were afraid of Jews coming back for revenge. There was fear and trembling in German towns and villages. And the Jews could have come and unleashed retribution on a large scale—and nobody would have stopped them or even criticized them. But … it did not happen. Oh, I am not saying that there was no hatred in some Jews; there is a minority that hates Germany even today; its members do not buy German products, refuse to set foot on German soil, and refuse to acknowledge that young Germans are not guilty. One—a Jew born in Berlin—went so far as to urge me not to appear here today.…
But what I do maintain is that most Jews did not choose hatred as a response. Hatred is not a Jewish response and never has been. Nor is vengeance a Jewish response. The Jewish tradition understands that the punishment the killer most fears is the victim’s memory of his deeds.
This is why the killer so wanted his crimes to be forgotten. This is why we must remember them.
We must remember them for the sake of our children. And yours. They all deserve from us an offering. An offering of hope.
For my generation, hope cannot be without sadness. Let the sadness contain hope, too.
*An address in the Reichstag, delivered on November 10, 1987.
More Dialogues
1. THE CHILD AND THE MOB
Why are you chasing me?
You are alone. We are against lonely children.
And when I grow up, will you stop chasing me?
You won’t grow up.
Why not?
Something in you annoys us.
What have I done?
Nothing. You have done nothing.
But I don’t even know you.
It’s true, you don’t know us.
And you? Do you know me?
We don’t know you.
Then why do you chase me?
You bother us.
And what if I promise to get out of your way?
You’ll still bother us.
What if I go into hiding?
You can’t. We are everywhere.
What if I promise not to look at you? To go blind?
The blind are dangerous; they see what we don’t see.
What if I die? Will I stop bothering you then?
You are clever. It’s because you are clever that we are after you.
What have you done to my father?
You are too young to know.
What have you done to my mother?
You are too young to know.
And my grandparents? What have you done to them?
They are old, too old for you to think of them.
And my little sister, what happened to her?
You’re really too curious for a boy of your age.
Where is she? I love her.
Good for you.
I promised to take care of her.
Good for you.
Why have you separated us?
It’s good for you.
Are you happy when families are separated?
Very happy.
Then you are not human. You are … a wall.
A huge wall.
But walls come tumbling down.
Not ours. Ours climbs to the sky. And higher still.
It will come tumbling down, I’m telling you. You’ll see. I know what I am saying. The wall that you have built on Jewish children. One day they’ll move, and you’ll fall down, all of you.
Nonsense. All Jewish children are dead.
They are dead, but they’ll start moving, you’ll see. And if I promise to forget you, will you let me go?
You could forget us?
Easy. All it takes is to think of something else, and finished: you’re gone. The beautiful face of my grandfather, the heartbreaking expression on the face of my grandmother: I think of them, and you’re but dust. You want to know something? You’re weaker than the weakest Jewish child: we decide whether you exist or not.
You’re joking.
Now listen: the joke is on you. It’s true. You’re laughing, but your laughter is false.
You dirty little Jew. You cast a spell on us! We can’t laugh! Our throats have all dried up!
Not only your throats! Your minds also! And your hearts! All dried up! You wake up only when you kill Jewish children!
You talk like a wise man, like an old man, like someone whose life is behind him. Like someone who is about to die.
Then you’ll die with me. The moment my memory ceases to live, you’re dead. In provoking my death, you justify your own.
Don’t be insolent; you’re in our hands; you’re our prisoner!
I am in your hands, but you’re our prisoners. In our memory, you’re already dead. You’re the dead prisoners of a living memory.
2. A MAN AND LANGUAGE
Why do you avoid me?
I am busy.
I need you.
Too bad. Look elsewhere.
Why are you hostile? Do you wish to hurt me?
Hurt is the wrong word; erase it from your vocabulary.
Why do you want me to erase words? I love words, don’t you know that?
I merely asked you to erase one word.
Hurt?
Yes.
Why?
Because you have done the hurting.
Whom have I hurt?
Me. You spoke when you shouldn’t have. You shouldn’t have said anything.
Have I used forbidden words? Have I offended anyone? Have I blasphemed?
You are too concerned with people. You’ve forgotten me. You behaved as if I mattered little. And yet, what would you have done without me? How would you have communicated your memories through words and prayer? I am your link to the world. And still you have offended me.
But … by doing, by saying what?
You yielded to verbal temptation.
Should I have kept silent? And silenced the voices that incite me to rebellion?
Perhaps.
Then you would have been offended by my silence.
Perhaps.
And provoked as well?
Pe
rhaps. But then, it’s possible that I like being provoked. And that I also like silence—I mean the provocative kind.
I don’t follow you.
You oppose me to silence, that’s your mistake. The opposite of language is not silence but apathy. I get along rather well with silence. We couldn’t live without each other.
And what is my role in all this?
Your task is to receive. Not to dominate. Your mistake was in wishing to do both. Instead of setting me free, you wanted to chain me. We are no longer allies.
But I love you! I have always loved you!
That’s irrelevant.
But at least admit that you know how much I love you. You have traced the contours of my universe, the limits of my hope.
In that case, why have you sought to hurt me? An example? Do you remember when, in an unknown cemetery, you began looking for your father’s grave?
I remember.
And yet, you knew that your father had no grave!
I knew.
And yet you went on looking.
What else could I have done? I am still looking for my father’s grave, and will never cease to look for it everywhere.
Everywhere? Why not look inside you?
I am looking inside myself.
In other people too?
In them too.
In me?
Naturally …
See? I trapped you! I am nobody’s grave! I can be memory or vision, but no grave! Each one of my words contains all the others. Each represents the beginning of a tale linked to the origins of creation. And you call me a grave?
There are graves filled with treasures.…
Real graves perhaps. But I was not created to be a grave. I was created to guide the living and help them overcome darkness.
I apologize.
You won’t do it again?
I’ll try.
What do you mean?
I’ll try not to hurt you, but I shall continue to look for my father’s grave. Don’t you understand? The dead need graves. If my father had one, I would know what to do.
What would you do?
I would call him.
How? With tears? With words? Will you use me?
I don’t know.
You have never called him?
I have. Often. Everything in me calls for him. But he doesn’t answer. It’s your fault. You stand between us. Because of you he can’t hear. Because of you he can’t come near me.
Starting again?
Yes, starting again. The dead need cemeteries. At times, I imagine six million victims in search of graves, and I feel close to insanity.
Continue.
I begin to yell, and yet I say nothing. I shout but no sound is heard. Does that silence offend you?
My dear friend. Of all the words, your silence pleases me most. For there is a silence of the living and a silence of the dead. And I …
And you? You what?
3. AN OLD MAN AND DEATH
I am not scared of you.
Why do you say that?
I think you’re the one to be scared.
You talk nonsense. Fear is a tool in my hands; I can direct it against anyone I wish. I rarely fail.
You’ll fail now.
Your certainty borders on arrogance, old man.
I lived too long. So much so that if they try to send me back from heaven I’ll say no.
Tired?
And how.
You wish to die?
I am too deeply rooted in my tradition to want to die. But I shall leave life without fear or regret.
You surprise me, old man, but I like you. A man your age who stands up to me like this, well, that’s something.… Usually people kneel before me … and implore me to give them another year, another day. You should see them.…
You pitiless being.… First you humble them, then you despise them … you remind me of the enemy who, eternities ago, threw Jews in the mud and then insulted them for being dirty.
The enemy?
Your ally.
Because I deprive the living of their ability to live? Admit at least that I don’t lack fairness. All fall before me. The good and the wicked. The killers who killed your parents, I will kill them, too. Can you imagine the world without me? God himself would lose his way.…
You are not God’s messenger, but people’s. Doesn’t the Talmud call you “The messenger of people”?
The Talmud, the Talmud … it also claims that when God said “Tov meod”—Very good—he referred to me. Leave me alone with the Talmud.
Can you kill the Talmud?
No, but I have taken the lives of many Talmudic scholars.
Yet their word is more powerful than yours.
So what? In the end I win.
Always? Weren’t you allowed to come near King David only when he recited Psalms?
A slight delay. Unimportant.
Obviously, you fail to understand. As long as we sing, you are powerless against us. Maybe that’s why so many Jews, young and old, went to their death singing.
Are you proud of that?
Yes, I am. I am proud of all Jews who perished. Those who fought and those who prayed, I am their kinsman. Facing the executioner, facing you, they appeared human, sad but human, weakened but sovereign, starving but dignified.
You haven’t seen them.
I have seen some.
Some wept like cowards.
Cowards? You said cowards? Because they wept? Are cowards the only ones to weep? Some people weep for noble reasons. You who remember humankind, have you seen that many orphaned parents, tortured children? Have you witnessed that many massacres?
Yes, I have.
You are lying.
You may say anything about me but that I am a liar. I never lie. I always tell the truth to those for whom I come. Yes, I have seen many massacres. That’s my fate: nobody dies without my being present. My gaze kills. My breath creates mass graves. That’s how it is, there is nothing I can do about it. I see them all and they all look alike. Alive, people intrigue me; dead, they bore me. All are equal before God? Before me too. Maybe I am God.
You are not.
How can you be that certain? God and I have many things in common. If He is the beginning, I am the end.
God participates, you don’t.
But who writes the last word? I do.
No, you don’t. All the catastrophes, the murders, the fires, they are all man’s work, not yours.
But aren’t men my emissaries? my accomplices? They do what I tell them to do—and undo.
It’s nice of you to take responsibility for all the injustices and agonies in the world. But I refuse to place all the blame on you. For then the killers will not feel guilty. And the assassins will see themselves as victims. And the pogroms, the manhunts, the mountains of human ashes will be reduced to grandiloquent abstractions and solemn stupidities. Since our destiny is at stake, I refuse to judge you. But God will. As for us, human beings, we shall judge our fellow men and women in human terms alone.
You amuse me, old man. You talk, you talk and with every word you come closer to me. And yet, you go on talking.
I’ll be dead soon you’re thinking? Well, beware: the dead may one day rise to slay you.
4. A CHILD AND ANOTHER CHILD
Who are you?
I don’t know.
Who am I?
I don’t know.
Who knows?
The others. They know.
The others? Who are they?
The grownups.
What is a grownup?
Someone who gives orders, that’s a grownup. Someone scary who can kill us.
You mean the guards?
Yes. The guards.
They know who we are?
They know everything. They have prepared everything. That’s what they are here for. To prepare everything. How many barracks, how many tents, how many bread rations. They must take care of us, see? After all, they won’t throw us out like
sick cats into the garbage. A grownup is someone responsible, see what I mean?
No, I don’t see.
What don’t you see?
How can they take care of us when they keep on saying that we are disgusting?
So what?
So what? I’ll tell you so what! If we are disgusting, they can throw us in the garbage.
If so, they’ll need a huge garbage can, right? Do you know how many we are?
I don’t.
Can’t you count?
I can count.
Then start counting.
I … I can’t.
You forgot?
I learned to count to ten. Maybe seventeen.
Ah, my poor fellow. Life doesn’t stop at seventeen.
What comes after seventeen?
Thirty. A hundred. A thousand.
Are we a hundred children here?
More than a hundred.
A thousand?
A thousand times a thousand.
How many is that?
Many. We need a can as large as the whole planet, as deep as the ocean. Can you imagine the world as a gigantic garbage can?
The world?
Yes, the world. Created by God.
I can’t believe it.
What can’t you believe?
I can’t believe that God Almighty would have worked so hard, first for six days, then for six thousand years, just to produce a cheap garbage can.
If you were He, what would you have produced?
A palace. A royal palace not only for kings, but for everybody. A palace that would transform all visitors into princes. And you?
If I were God?
If you were God, what would you do?
Things, simple things. First of all, I would order all cobblers to make shoes for all the children here. My feet hurt, see? And God should do something about my feet. And yours. And those of all the children. Look at us, we walk like invalids.
True. Like invalids. Barefoot invalids. My feet ache.